How Did You Find Your First Scuba Class?

[boulderjohn]

I thought some people might be amused by this story (which I have told before) that I heard someone else tell of his first formal scuba class.

He had actually been diving for a long time before taking the class. When he was only 7 years old, his father got his first scuba regulator in the mail, and he had his son try it. He was diving regularly after that, without taking any classes other than from his father. A could decades and a couple thousand dives later, he was on a boat in Australia, prepared for a week of diving. The captain asked to see everyone's certification card. He didn't have one. The captain said he could not dive without certification. He tried his best to argue, but to no avail. Eventually the crew convinced the captain to make an exception in this one case.

When he got back home, he went to the local PADI shop and got a certification card so he would not have to go through that again. When he told the story, he opened his wallet and pulled out the card, which he still carries nearly 50 years later.

His name is Jean Michel Cousteau.

 

[Ready4Launch]

Despite having loved watching the specials of Cousteau as a kid growing up, as I became older, I told everyone who asked that I had zero interest in SCUBA diving. I mean, when my parents put me in the YMCA swim class with my cousin, I failed because I couldn't do the deadman float and swim the length of the pool. That all eventually changed and I loved the water and could easily swim, but I maintained that I wasn't interested in SCUBA. I kept up that claim to 2014 when I was still living in CA and had friends that were DMs and scuba nerds. On my own volition, I eventually said, "**** it, let's give it a shot." I registered for the online PADI course, and I went to google maps to find a dive shop.

With an absolutely stunning first OW dive off the boat, I now love it and am sad that I didn't get into it sooner. The thing that I thought that I would have a problem with but didn't somehow understand - equalization - I can Frenzel easily all the time.

I probably would have gotten into SCUBA sooner -- likely, a lot about my life may have been different -- if the state of New Jersey hadn't done what they did in the mid 80s.

My grandfather, great-grandfather, and my uncle drove pilings into the muddy marsh along N. Wildwood Blvd in Grassy Sounds. They built a shore house, and named it Gunner's Mate, which was my grandfather's role on ships in WWII in the Pacific. My earliest memories of there were when I was maybe 6 yrs old. Not a fancy house, but a true shore house. Wrap around porch. One big rafter upstairs rooms lined with beds. A dock near and then a walk out over the marsh to another dock further down. We'd get off the Garden State Parkway, and our shepherds would start going nutty in the back of my grandmother's station wagon. I'd go with my mom and grandmother in the jon boat to set crab traps on the way out. Fish for some flounder in the inlet, and then pull up full traps on the way back to the house.

But, the state of New Jersey came along in 1987(?). Claimed imminent domain. Needed to put in a new bridge and expand the road, or so they claimed. The Gunner's Mate along with all the other houses along there were wiped away. It looks like there's not even a single piling remaining from any house along that entire stretch of road from the Parkway to the bridge. Of course, my grandmother (or anyone else) didn't get near to market value, but North Wildwood got its bridge.

It was such a thing back then to be in junior and senior high school and to live down the shore for the summer and have a job at the boardwalk or whatever. I imagine that would have been my opportunity and the case if we still had the house during those times. I'd have spent a lot more time on and in the water. I may have become a marine biology major rather than an engineer. What ifs and lots of time gone by. Fond but sad memories now.

 

[rgdiver1]

I wanted to be a scuba diver when I was quite young. When my parents checked on lessons for me, they were told I had to be 16 to be certified. This was back in the 60's. When I eventually turned 16, I took a scuba class at a local YMCA, and my instructor was ex-military. The class lasted for several weeks, and I remember lots of swimming and lots of buddy breathing. Not everyone who started the class was certified, and, quite honestly, I'm still surprised I completed this class successfully. Very different than much of today's recreational scuba training and before the anyone can learn to dive concept became prevalent in the scuba industry.

 

[kelemvor]

I needed to repair a drain cover in my swimming pool. I was complaining about the cost of having a pool guy do it to a friend and he said he had some old scuba gear we could use. In the 5 minutes it took me to do the repair I was hooked. I found a local dive shop and signed up for a class. Luckily for me, dive shops are more ubiquitous than cockroaches in my area.

I had visited several and got the paperwork from one shop. They required this lengthy medical form from a doctor so it took me a while to get that done. When I actually signed up for the class it was at another shop. On the first day of class I gave the instructor my medical form and he laughed and said he didn't need it. That's when I learned there was more than one "certification agency". Later I learned that in addition to having different names, the different agencies have completely different training plans, rules, and requirements.

During class, he warned us away from sites like scubaboard. I've been a registered user here ever since.

I even have a photo of that first dive:

Playing in the pool by Aaron Kelly, on Flickr

 

[Lorenzoid]

In the pre-Internet days, and when I lived far inland, I don't think I was even aware that regular people like me--not Mike Nelson or Jacques Cousteau but just some guy like me--could learn to scuba dive. When I moved to California a guy I knew got certified. His course was like what some of the old-timers here sometimes describe: It looked like a lot of work. Physically demanding. There was something called "tables" to learn, which smelled like math--not a leisure activity. And I knew how cold the water was. I wasn't interested.

A couple of years later, I noticed a sign along the side of a road I often drove: "Learn to Dive." Behind the sign, in a strip mall, was a dive shop. Still, I had no motivation. Then some friends and I planned a trip to Australia, and that's when I decided I wanted to learn to dive. Who hadn't heard of the Great Barrier Reef? I stopped in at that dive shop and signed up. I'm not even sure if I was aware there were other dive shops.

 

[TulsaTime]

I actually took my first breath underwater way back when I was in college. A friend at the time was into scuba and took me down in a local lake to about 15' and let me breath off a tank. I thought it was pretty cool but I just didn't have the time then to pursue it further and that friend ended up moving away and we lost touch.

Fast forward many many years to 2012. My wife and I sometimes vacation with a group of 6 or 7 other couples that like to do the Sandals thing. This was our first time with the group at a Sandals in Jamaica. They like to do the lay-on-the-beach-and-drink-all-day thing but I sit on my butt all day for my job and I darn sure don't want to do that on vacation so, since it was included and I'd always wanted to do it again, I signed up to scuba dive with the Sandals shop by myself.

Since I knew we'd likely be back at other Sandals with this group, I went ahead and got my Scuba Diver certification so I wouldn't have to do the class again. I did 3 dives that first year and another 2-3 the next year at another Sandals. I'd leave everyone after breakfast and then meetup again after diving. It was great but I had no one to share it with.

In 2015, my wife and I decided that we were going to take the "kids" on one last big family vacation before everyone went their separate ways and we decided to do the Beaches in Turks and Caicos. The 4 of us who still live in OK decided to get certified beforehand. So, I asked for dive shop recommendations in the local subreddit, went and checked out one of the recommendations, decided I liked the owner and shop, and signed us all up.

One of the four ended up not being able to do it due to medical issues (he's had tubes in his ears since he was a baby). My wife made it to the point where the instructor was going to turn off her air in the pool so she could know what that experience felt like and she said, "nope, I'm outta here." So that left my oldest son and I.

We got OW certified and went on 7 dives in T&C. The next summer, we got AOW and Nitrox and did our first liveaboard, which pretty much doubled our dive count. This fall, we're going to Truk on a group trip with the same LDS that trained us.

So, I found my first scuba classes by 1) being the only game in town (Sandals); and then 2) by recommendation on reddit followed by checking it out personally. But what's made the difference for me is having an always-ready-and-willing dive buddy. When he gets married and has less time for dear old dad, I suppose I'll have to look at solo or self-reliant diving but for now, we're having a great time together.

 

[northernone]

Grew up with my parent's dive gear, no money for training. Mainly homemade hookah and freediving because fills were difficult.

Fast forward to 2012, life rearranged, bed ridden, by an autoimmune disorder which doctors expected to be fatal. Regained health sufficiently by 2014, flew south and did my OW in Glover's Atoll, Belize. It's been training since, contract work between, seeking the best instructors I can find wherever that takes me.

Well that's my official training story.
Cameron

 

[KeithG]

My story is pretty boring. Met a new girl that was just going off to Bonaire for a vacation. When she got back I discovered that I would NEED to learn how to scuba dive. I was was a non swimmer at that point, so she thought the relationship was not going anywhere. I learned to swim well enough to take scuba lessons from the LDS she found so that the next year we could do a scuba dive vacation together.

She still has 13 more dives than me. But who's counting.

 

[tilikum]

I found the cheapest class I could afford in 1985 at age 14. I did my checkout dives in Carter Lake in Colorado. I had a toystore mask, snorkel, and fins, borrowed the next door neighbor's reg and horse collar BC and got certed. Never went beyond OW and only have a handful of dives. Haven't dove in over 10 years.

 

[shoredivr]

I grew up reading National Geographic Magazine and loving Jacques Cousteau articles and photos. I snorkelled as a kid.

20 years ago, I walked by a sandwich board sign outside a dive shop on Yonge Street in Toronto Canada that said "learn to dive here". Figured as I was training 40 shortly, I should do this before I got any older. I was hooked.

I wish I'd started when I was a teenager.