How you met scuba diving
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Cthippo
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I was a water kid growing up and have had a lifelong fascination with shipwrecks. I got really good at finding and documenting the ones at or near the surface. I was building increasingly complex underwater sonar and camera rigs having some success with using them to go after the underwater ones. During COVID I had some money set aside for a trip that didn't happen and so used it to get certified.
The underwater photography work I did previously has come in handy and I am proud to have discovered and documented some shipwrecks of my own!
The underwater photography work I did previously has come in handy and I am proud to have discovered and documented some shipwrecks of my own!
Diver-Drex
Contributor
Cousteau specials as a young kid in the late 70s early 80s. Started diving in ‘84 in Jersey. 14 years later during a deployment I finally got to see coral and colorful fish on a dive.
oldschool45
Registered
Growing up in Florida with a pool my Dad made sure I could swim before I could walk. I did a lot of freediving in Dania in High School. PE at the local college included scuba diving so I got my OW for college credit then quickly did the AOW and early IANTD Nitrox. Putzed around Florida at colleges diving. Moved to Kentucky and went back in 2008 for Lobster Mini Season.
Finally started back up this year when I got my current wife her Open Water certification. We hit the Keys for her certification dives. Her first dives after certification was my old stomping grounds off Dania beach and we did Blue Heron Bridge. Yep, timed that trip for the Mini-Season and bagged 4 bugs doing a solo shore dive. Heading back to do the springs in March and Pompano/ Palm Beach later in the summer.
Found out that my Dad dove when I was an infant but I don't remember any of that. Really wish I'd gotten some bottom time with the oldman!
Finally started back up this year when I got my current wife her Open Water certification. We hit the Keys for her certification dives. Her first dives after certification was my old stomping grounds off Dania beach and we did Blue Heron Bridge. Yep, timed that trip for the Mini-Season and bagged 4 bugs doing a solo shore dive. Heading back to do the springs in March and Pompano/ Palm Beach later in the summer.
Found out that my Dad dove when I was an infant but I don't remember any of that. Really wish I'd gotten some bottom time with the oldman!
yup but i enjoy it a lot !
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It was in a cheap dive bar, long ago. Diving was pretty drunk, and needed a ride home. I tried to help, but then it became angry and started drooling and spiting as it screamed. I got it a cup of coffee, but that caused it to bazooka barf across a table all over water skiing's shoes. Well, water skiing was there with MMA fighting, and the entire bar erupted into a free for all. I hid under a piano but was soon dragged out from under it by diving, and I have never been able to get away from it since.
Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
I grew up in Carmel by the Sea, Ca on the Monterey Peninsula.
My parents were about as far away from anything watersports and diving as it gets. We used go to the beach all the time and I remember seeing a diver come in from a shore dive once at Carmel River beach. I was fascinated watching him come out of the water with his slick black wetsuit and shiny chrome regulator looking very elite. Divers were symbols of daring and had a courageous swagger back then.
Once when I was in 4th grade one of the kids and his dad did a show and tell for the class out on the grass. They did a scuba demo.
They talked about it, where they dived, what it was like, what they saw, etc. The kid was my age, 7 or 8 years old and his dad taught him to dive.
I remember them filling a big trash can with water and the kid hunkered down inside breathing off the regulator.
Then there were the Cousteau specials on TV which seemed incredibly cutting edge and fascinating.
After my mom remarried, my step dad was a fisherman and had a boat in Monterey, we’d go out on it and catch fish. That got me hooked on ocean fishing.
Years later I took up fishing off the rocks up here in Sonoma County from that prior experience. When I would go out I’d see the abalone divers doing their thing. That piqued my interest because who doesn’t love abalone?
I wandered into a dive shop one day to talk about ab diving and ended up buying all the stuff needed to freedive for abalone. From there I also got into spearfishing, why not?
After becoming a regular at the dive shop, I couldn’t help but notice the regulators and tanks, etc. which brought me back to when I was a kid seeing scuba divers, Cousteau, and being inspired.
So the next thing I know I was in an OW class.
After that it kept going with more classes.
Best thing I’ve ever done.
It’s a life long love affair.
My parents were about as far away from anything watersports and diving as it gets. We used go to the beach all the time and I remember seeing a diver come in from a shore dive once at Carmel River beach. I was fascinated watching him come out of the water with his slick black wetsuit and shiny chrome regulator looking very elite. Divers were symbols of daring and had a courageous swagger back then.
Once when I was in 4th grade one of the kids and his dad did a show and tell for the class out on the grass. They did a scuba demo.
They talked about it, where they dived, what it was like, what they saw, etc. The kid was my age, 7 or 8 years old and his dad taught him to dive.
I remember them filling a big trash can with water and the kid hunkered down inside breathing off the regulator.
Then there were the Cousteau specials on TV which seemed incredibly cutting edge and fascinating.
After my mom remarried, my step dad was a fisherman and had a boat in Monterey, we’d go out on it and catch fish. That got me hooked on ocean fishing.
Years later I took up fishing off the rocks up here in Sonoma County from that prior experience. When I would go out I’d see the abalone divers doing their thing. That piqued my interest because who doesn’t love abalone?
I wandered into a dive shop one day to talk about ab diving and ended up buying all the stuff needed to freedive for abalone. From there I also got into spearfishing, why not?
After becoming a regular at the dive shop, I couldn’t help but notice the regulators and tanks, etc. which brought me back to when I was a kid seeing scuba divers, Cousteau, and being inspired.
So the next thing I know I was in an OW class.
After that it kept going with more classes.
Best thing I’ve ever done.
It’s a life long love affair.
Scuba-74
Contributor
I was on a family vacation with the wife and a 1yo son at an all-inclusive in Dominican Republic. There was a dive shop at the resort, and the shop guys kept bringing up scuba gear to one of the pools for people to try. Lo and behold, I tried it, and wanted to get certified. That was 20 years ago.
Fast forward to now, the key for me (and for every aspiring diver in my opinion) was to find a way to dive locally, and with a purpose. It's hard to sustain this hobby (I refuse to call it a sport) if you only dive on vacations. In the last 20 years I dove in oceans, seas, lakes, ponds, and rivers on several continents, and I am grateful for where this journey took me. It's not my #1 past time, but it is an activity (and a way of life sometimes) that I will return to again and again until I'm no longer able to.
Fast forward to now, the key for me (and for every aspiring diver in my opinion) was to find a way to dive locally, and with a purpose. It's hard to sustain this hobby (I refuse to call it a sport) if you only dive on vacations. In the last 20 years I dove in oceans, seas, lakes, ponds, and rivers on several continents, and I am grateful for where this journey took me. It's not my #1 past time, but it is an activity (and a way of life sometimes) that I will return to again and again until I'm no longer able to.
Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
I think you’re right about needing to find a way to dive locally for many to stay engaged in diving.
Not to say there aren’t people who have been diving for 20 or 40 years that only dive on vacation and have the financial means the time to do so, but how many can do that?
I think what happens to so many vacation only divers is they fall in love with diving at the start and buy all their gear and are all hot to start out, then as time wears on they realize that needing to always fly somewhere to dive begins to become unsustainable and they begin to lose interest.
Maybe it was just a temporary infatuation?
I’m a firm believer that the majority of long term divers make diving more than just a fun vacation thing to do, it’s more of a lifestyle. I think finding local diving, and as you say “diving with a purpose” feeds the urge to dive and is more if an enabler that any other primer.
Becoming part of a local “dive culture” also is a great influencer to stay in diving.
Sometimes local diving isn’t the best, sometimes it can be downright brutal and difficult, but it doesn’t matter. The dedicated diver can find joy and something interesting on some of the most benign or what others would consider “boring” dives, or even horrendous dives.
Bert van den Berg
Contributor
Same here. Seahunt got me interested. Back then you didn't need to be certified to rent gear. We self-tought and no-one I knew ever got hurt.
Had our own sailboat and dove all over. Never got certified until my wife got tired of following me around in the dingy and decided to learn how to dive. She wanted to get properly certified at age 64 and I took the class with her. That was 13 years ago. Her doctor made her stop diving a few years ago so I'm back diving solo.
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