subcmdr
Registered
The year was 1977, and I was a recently certified OW diver, having been certified at Annapolis by a group of Navy SEALs. Being young, fit, and fairly athletic (at least compared to the general public), having been trained using hard-core standards using legacy Navy dive gear (big masks, single-stage regs, big knife on the calf), I had a certain opinion of how diving should be done.
Over spring break a friend of mine offered to take me on a road trip to West Palm Beach to his "local" dive shop for some warm water dives (something I had never done). He promised me he would introduce me to a local diving legend, somebody who had been featured on the cover of Skin Diver magazine. Wanting to see how the civilians do it, I took him up on his offer.
His local dive shop was the "Norine Rouse Dive Club" (or was it Scuba Club?), and I was horrified to see that the diving legend he referred to was a 60+ year old lady, a few pounds north of what might be referred to as an "optimum body-mass index." I wondered how this lady could possibly do what those Navy SEALs had taught me to do!
After a few dives with Norine Rouse, I quickly realized that she could probably have out-dived any one of those SEALs. More to the point, I learned more about diving from her than any of them, and she did it without beating the crap out of her clients. Not only did this teach me about diving, it taught me about life.
In 1980, after graduating from the Academy, I was stationed for six months down in Orlando. Since an aunt of mine had recently moved to West Palm, I'd spend weekends down there, living in my aunt's apartment and diving with Norine's club. After a few weeks of this, I ended up working for Norine as a part-time divemaster for drift and float dives, swimming "tail end charlie".
I loved my time down there, and was grateful to receive from Norine a steak dinner after my first buddy-breathing rescue (of a J-valve owner who didn't know how to operate said J-valve). The next day, Norine introduced me to this new-fangled device known as an "octopus," and I bought one on the spot. I learned much from her.
Only after joining Scubaboard a few weeks ago did I learn of Norine's passing in 2006. I have very fond memories of this great lady, and looked for an appropriate tribute to her. Not finding one, I figured I'd post this to welcome anyone else to post their memories.
Over spring break a friend of mine offered to take me on a road trip to West Palm Beach to his "local" dive shop for some warm water dives (something I had never done). He promised me he would introduce me to a local diving legend, somebody who had been featured on the cover of Skin Diver magazine. Wanting to see how the civilians do it, I took him up on his offer.
His local dive shop was the "Norine Rouse Dive Club" (or was it Scuba Club?), and I was horrified to see that the diving legend he referred to was a 60+ year old lady, a few pounds north of what might be referred to as an "optimum body-mass index." I wondered how this lady could possibly do what those Navy SEALs had taught me to do!
After a few dives with Norine Rouse, I quickly realized that she could probably have out-dived any one of those SEALs. More to the point, I learned more about diving from her than any of them, and she did it without beating the crap out of her clients. Not only did this teach me about diving, it taught me about life.
In 1980, after graduating from the Academy, I was stationed for six months down in Orlando. Since an aunt of mine had recently moved to West Palm, I'd spend weekends down there, living in my aunt's apartment and diving with Norine's club. After a few weeks of this, I ended up working for Norine as a part-time divemaster for drift and float dives, swimming "tail end charlie".
I loved my time down there, and was grateful to receive from Norine a steak dinner after my first buddy-breathing rescue (of a J-valve owner who didn't know how to operate said J-valve). The next day, Norine introduced me to this new-fangled device known as an "octopus," and I bought one on the spot. I learned much from her.
Only after joining Scubaboard a few weeks ago did I learn of Norine's passing in 2006. I have very fond memories of this great lady, and looked for an appropriate tribute to her. Not finding one, I figured I'd post this to welcome anyone else to post their memories.
