New Diver from Western Colorado (it is soo dry here)

[IamLandlocked]

Greetings everyone, I am a freshly initiated diver living in Grand Junction, CO. When my wife and I decided to go to St. Thomas this summer, she informed me that she would be getting her dive certification while there (regardless of what I chose to do while there). I was ambivilent toward strapping a tank on and placing myself on a shark buffet. I grudgingly agreed to accompany her in taking classes. After my first dive... well, I am sure everyone here understands.

Diving options here are somewhat limited, but I will persevere. We have already (half) jokingly talked about selling everything and buying a boat in Florida.

 

[boulderjohn]

Congratulations and welcome to ScubaBoard!

This is a huge site with many subforums. If you scroll down to the regional section and drill down far enough, you will find a group called the Rocky Mountain Oysters. Here is the entire path:
* Forum
* Regional Forums and Dive Clubs
* United States
* Western United States
* Rocky Mountain Oysters

Introduce yourself on the "sticky" and then look around. You will find information on places to dive, conditions, etc. You can meet potential dive buddies. If you look at some recent threads, for example, you will see that two other divers and I met today for a dive we arranged in that forum. One of the two was someone I had never met.

 

[Ocean One]

Welcome to the ScubaBoard! Like the rest of us Rocky Mtn Bubblemakers your going to have to travel. Car, plane train or boat works to dive...If GrandJunction has a dive shop stop in there and see what they offer for trips... You also need to drive out to the Homestead Crater (Google it!) and log a couple of dives there.. Nice weekend get away. Takes us 7 hours from Fort Collins, but gets us wet even in the coldest of Winter!

 

[boulderjohn]

Takes us 7 hours from Fort Collins, but gets us wet even in the coldest of Winter!

You need to hand the car keys over to someone else!

Now, it certainly can take that long when there is a blizzard and icy road conditions along I-80 in Wyoming, but the chances of that happening are only about 70-80% during the winter season, which runs from September to June.

 

[geogator]

I too was just certfied recently and am an official scuba addict so welcome to the club. I also was just out in Colorado on vacation 2 weeks ago & while driving thru Durango happened to see a dive shop so I pulled in to chat for a few minutes with the owner (Kim). She was really cool & as we talked I asked her where in yhe the world do they dive locally. She said that they go to Lake Vallecito & some other nearby lake & occasionally have a trip to Lake Powell. I asked her about visibility in those places & she said Vallecito was usually 5-10ft, maybe 20 on a perfect day but Powell was better. (Of course when I told her about 75-100ft here in the north Florida springs she was quite jealous but reminded me that that if you love diving enough, you'll dive in a mud puddle just for a chance to get wet & blow bubbles, which I agreed with.) One other inyeresting fact she told me is that after Florida & California, Colorado has the highest numbers of certified divers PER CAPITA than any other state. Similarly, Florida has one of the highest numbers of regular skiers per capita in the country. I guess we just switch places for part of the year. I can't remember the name of the shop of hand but you might want to look it up & give her a call to see if she's got any suggestions for local dive spots or any trips scheduled in western Colorado or the 4 corners area.