My introduction

[wetnwild]

Hello SCUBA board,

I'm Sandy and decided after getting all these scubaboard.com stickers for my dive box that I should join and meet new people and learn new things. I've been snorkeling for 5 years and finally decided to get my open water certification back in October last year. I've done six dives since 10/11 three dives off the surf (2 in pensacola Fl and 1 in Ft. Lauderdale) and the rest in the florida springs that allow open water diving -Troy springs and Royal Springs so far and plan to do Orange grove soon. THe springs are about a 4 hour drive and can be done in a weekend preferably leaving on a Friday. Open water diving has opened up a whole new world for me, its the first time I've ever gotten a certification that isn't WORK RELATED!! LOL!! My passion has been in my work for so long that I never took time to REALLY do for myself outside of work. Well, ok maybe a few side things but nothing that took study to get there (i.e fishing, hunting, horses, snorkeling, cooking, gardening, aquariumist, raising chickens, rehabbing wildlife-ok that took a certification but that was work related but enjoyable all the same...ok I stop now). I'm really excited about my new world under the water and I realize this sport takes so much time to learn because you cant dive every week, so I want to get as much education online through sharing experiences with others. I look forward to meeting the SCUBA board members. :kiss2:

Sandy

 

[vcblklion]

Hi Sandy...welcome to the wonderful world of scuba diving! :cool2:

 

[LilMsMagic]

Hi sandy! Welcome to sb and welcome to doing things for yourself as well!

 

[grantwiscour]

Welcome to SB Sandy...come on in, the waters great! :snorkel2:

 

[wetnwild]

Thank you so much for the warm welcome! However, I do not understand Richarey's comment...did I not post in the correct format? I'm heading out to dive Orange Grove at Peacock springs next weekend...this will be my first dive under tons of duckweed. Orange grove always has duckweed so I imagine nothing has changed except the water level. Peacock 1-3 was so low last time I was there in January, u can't open water dive P1-3 but I have snorkeled it for the last 5 years and this is the lowest I've seen it in years. Although I heard there was a lot of rainfall in the past month so maybe it's up a bit along with orange grove. Anyway, I look forward to meeting and talking to you all!

 

[grantwiscour]

We've got a couple local scuba parks in small private lakes.
Clear Spring Scuba Park is "clearly" different and athensscubapark.com We also go south to the Texas Hill Country to dive the Comal River and Canyon Lake.
The Comal River is spring fed and has 72 degree water year round with good viz. The lakes are hit and miss on the viz. Sometimes it 10'+ and sometimes your lucky for 1'-2'. It's still diving to us. When viz isn't great it's a good time to practice compass work.

From time to time we like to get to Hawaii or South Florida for warm blue waters. It's been too long, 4/2011 since we did that.

Diving is a great lifestyle and SB is a good way to increase your knowledge and make some friends/dive buddies along the way.

Keep working on your skills and when the time is right continue your training. Most importantly...have fun and dive safe.

 

[wetnwild]

THanks Grant, good info if I'm ever in Texas... Right now I'm learning how to use a dive computer on the metric system not Imperial. I need to buy a new cover for it cause it's so scratched that I don't know if I can read it underwater. Its an older Suunto Favor dive computer, should work just need to get comfortable convertiing what I know. I've been snorkeling so long that it's hard to remember not to shoot to the surface to figure things out and you gotta figure everything out while down. I hate clearing my mask in salt water, hate the rush of the pressure and the eyes burning from the salt, but have had to do it n don't like it much... Well, I'm planting my garden today, so my break is over and it's nice and cool outside now, so I get back to work!

 

[beaverdivers]

Welcome to SCUBAboard!