divermom99
Guest
When I was 50, I got divorced and took up scuba diving. It was a great trade!! So in 2 years I had reached instructor status but continued to keep on learning in every area of diving. PADI started me off, but IANTD completed my formal training and certified me in technical diving with enriched air, deep diving, and advanced deep diving. Spent 12 years with Florida Oceanographic Society organizing the Reef Research Dive Team, preparing reef research divers for the difficult ocean conditions off Stuart, Florida. Screaming currents, less than optimum visibility conditions, white knuckle seas in small boats. Our dive team completed more than 20 artificial reef deployments, and hundreds of research dives, in water ranging from 10' to 200', mapped, monitored, photographed, took videos and fish counts. We taught our divers about safety first, insisting that everyone be certified at least through advanced diver courses, with medic/first aid, required and rescue recommended. We had divers who began as novices continue their training all the way through cave certification, and all had to be enriched air trained, with redundant systems, on all our research dives. Everyone had to know how to use lift bags, compasses, computers, mapping devices, and be familiar with diving from small boats (18' to 38'). Our members were from all walks of life, teachers, engineers, commercial divers, nurses, marine biologists, boat captains, bookkeepers. In 12 years we never had a diving accident.
