Hello from Dallas

[Them]

About me... I just finished the pool portion of my open water cert., and am scheduled to do all of the open water dives (at a local scuba park/lake) next weekend.

I grew up in socal, and spent a good part of my childhood swimming, body boarding, surfing, windsurfing, and in general playing in the waves everywhere from San Onofre to Long Beach. Yeah, not a wide range there. Never got into diving (fear of dollar signs) which I now regret. Now I'm in my 30s and living in Texas, missing the ocean and planning for vacations and visits back to CA, plus of course whatever the local diving is like. It should make a nice addition to my kayak.


Had a lot of fun with the pool dives but I am sitting here, a few hours after dive #5, with a growing list of noob questions. So I thought I would stop lurking and post a few of them. But first I thought I'd say hi.


Hi.

 

[antattack]

Welcome to Scubaboard! There are a lot of valuable opinions available here, but remember to learn what your instructor tells you.

We're looking forward to hear about your open water dives!

Cheers

 

[pThrift]

welcome!

what agency are you using for your certification?

 

[beaverdivers]

Hi!

Welcome to SCUBAboard!

 

[TwoBitTxn]

Be sure to come visit the swamp.

Welcome!

 

[Them]

Thanks for the welcomes!


PADI for the cert. I checked quite a few of the local options (all of them I could find that were practical from an hours/drive time perspective) and the best overall fit happened to be a PADI shop. Everything has gone really well so far in the sense that I can do what my instructor wants, well enough. I can tell that this is another "license to learn" cert though.

One of the personally interesting parts is that a lot of what the instructor has been teaching was actually taught to me when I was about 8. When I was 4-9 years old my best friend's father worked for the sheriff's dept as a harbor patrol officer/recovery /rescue diver. He has us both clearing masks, clearing (old style non-purge-valve) snorkels, and so on. Unfortunately they moved away when I was 9 or so. I hadn't thought about them - or those swim/teach sessions - in a long time.


So not only did I have fun with the PADI training dives, I had a bit of nostalgia to go with it. Win/win.

 

[SOLoutfitters]

welcome