How you met scuba diving

[TMHeimer]

I grew up in Yonkers, NY, where we also had a boat on Long Island Sound, so I was a "water" person from the start. Immigrated to Canada age 23 (1977) to take a teaching job in Northern Manitoba ("near" Hudson Bay). Wondered a bit now and again about scuba diving, being a life long snorkeler and shell collector. A course was available close by (242 miles HERE was close by). No interest in diving in cold dark northern lakes--no real shells there as well. Moved to Nova Scotia in '05. Was getting the RV we owned at the time serviced and walked down the street and into the LDS just by chance. Got OW cert. at age 51 that Fall and presently DM for them. Odd that there is only one other smallish shop in the Halifax area and no other real shops for maybe 100+ miles. Our shop is billed as "Atlantic Canada's largest recreational diving facility" with the PADI 5 star IDC thing. I know of no other similar type shop in the 4 Atlantic provinces (anyone knowing of one please let me know). I didn't even use the internet to find them--just walked down the right street (actually it was Wright Street) purely by chance.

 

[chillyinCanada]

I was on vacation in Cancun with my bff. Everyday, sunbathing around the pool I'd watch the instructor with the poolside tanks trying to interest tourists in trying it out. One afternoon, we went to Xel-ha with intention to snorkel. It turned out my bff was verrry afraid and the guide had to take over from me caring for her. This left me free to chase off after various fishies and follow a large barracuda around for a bit.

I said to myself, this is great but it is not enough for me. The next time we were lounging around the pool, I did that poolside mini class followed by the pool dive to look at bandaids and hair. I loved it.

Upon returning to work, I told everyone that I was signing up for lessons. Two of my coworkers signed up with me. We had to take our Open Water in a mountain lake. One of us three meant to keep at it but didn't. My other buddy and I, loved it so much that we returned the next year and took our Advanced in that same freezing cold lake.

The rest is history.

 

[koozemani]

I watched and read Cousteau as a child, but it wasn't until my girlfriend bought us OW classes for Christmas one year. She's now my buddy and my wife.

 

[rhwestfall]

classic!

... the pool dive to look at bandaids and hair.

and only a minor upgrade to experience "quarry trash"....

 

[CosFragger]

I loved swimming in the pool and going to the beach. I was living in a townhouse and have a neighbor who is a diver and would often bring his gear to the pool for us to use. I also watch Cousteau shows on tv. On my second year in college a new dive club was forming and i joined. The training was very cheap and we would often go to Anilao on weekends to dive. In a span of 3 years i was able to progress up to divemaster and landed a dm job right after college in a beach resort.

 

[Searcaigh]

As a kid I used to watch Cousteau and Hans & Lotte Haas on TV, enjoyed it but never really had any diving opportunities in Scotland that matched the warm tropical scenes as documented by these underwater icons.

Fast forward 20 odd years and over a bottle of rum with a couple of my Aussie biker mates that were working offshore in the North Sea for Comex I found myself signed up for a commercial course at Fort William in Scotland. I worked barely two years for a dive op doing salvage work then went back to my old day job in medical labs but in Saudi Arabia not in the UK.

A Finnish doctor in the hospital where I was working was a diver and we drove to Jeddah for a weekend (1986) to dive in the Red Sea …. amazing difference from diving in the UK, great viz and lots of fish, I was hooked, but it took me five more years before I had to do a PADI course (1991) in order to rent tanks, by then I actually had acquired some personal gear including my own reg plus back pack and horse collar ABLJ and an AL80.

I also started a BSAC course in Riyadh in 1989, but they rarely went diving in the sea, I did at least 10 pool sessions but never had a salt water dive with them, the social life was good though with several good parties especially during Gulf War I

 

[Lorenzoid]

Some people I had traveled with organized a trip to Australia and invited me to join in. Since Cairns and Port Douglas were on the itinerary, I figured I should learn to scuba dive. I knew nothing about diving beyond what I had seen Cousteau do on TV when I was a kid.

 

[koozemani]

I grew up in Yonkers, NY, where we also had a boat on Long Island Sound, so I was a "water" person from the start. Immigrated to Canada age 23 (1977) to take a teaching job in Northern Manitoba ("near" Hudson Bay). Wondered a bit now and again about scuba diving, being a life long snorkeler and shell collector. A course was available close by (242 miles HERE was close by). No interest in diving in cold dark northern lakes--no real shells there as well. Moved to Nova Scotia in '05. Was getting the RV we owned at the time serviced and walked down the street and into the LDS just by chance. Got OW cert. at age 51 that Fall and presently DM for them. Odd that there is only one other smallish shop in the Halifax area and no other real shops for maybe 100+ miles. Our shop is billed as "Atlantic Canada's largest recreational diving facility" with the PADI 5 star IDC thing. I know of no other similar type shop in the 4 Atlantic provinces (anyone knowing of one please let me know). I didn't even use the internet to find them--just walked down the right street (actually it was Wright Street) purely by chance.

ill be up in NB next summer and found this one in St. Andrews, NB

Welcome to Navy Island Dive, New Brunswick, Canada

after a couple of emails exchanged, I decided that diving the bay of fundy is going to have to wIt until I get a dry suit.

 

[rongoodman]

A few years ago I got into an adult Learn to Swim class at the local university(I think I was 59 or 60 at the time) and even though I wasn't very good at it, realized that I would be able to pass the PADI swim test, so I showed up at the local dive shop more or less as a lark. Between the end of the classroom/pool sessions and Lake George warming enough for the open water dives, I found Scuba Board. I had a BP/W and long hose on my first regulator set before the OW card came in the mail. I come from an EMS/technical rescue background, so SCUBA gear was just another application of equipment keeping me alive in a hostile environment. A trip a couple of years later to Mexico and the cenotes with Ed Hayes' shop really set the hook. Here I am at 67 with cave and trimix certs, and a rebreather, and I still don't much like to swim, at least not on the surface.

 

[mizzie]

When I was 13, I took a trip to Washington state with my grandparents to visit relatives. My uncle was working at a dive shop and asked if we wanted to get certified while we were there. One day of classroom and the next of pool time later, and we were in the ocean. It was amazing! I had always loved swimming (truly, I think I was a fish in a past life) and this was swimming to the next level! I made it back home to MN and my mom said "Well, yeah, but that's the ocean. You can't do that here" and like an idiot, I believed her. Never mind that we live in the "land of 10,000 lakes" and lived less than an hour from an amazing dive shop...

Fast forward 20 years and I was finally able to get back into it. Yes, technically I was already certified, but it had been so long and I had no idea what agency I had been certified through, so I did the whole Open Water class again.