New OW diver in California, moving to Seattle soon

[OrcasC205]

Almost Live was classic. Too bad The 206 never got picked up.

Way off topic, but I miss "Almost Live". John Keister was hilarious and, of course, it was the origin of Bill Nye the Science Guy.

 

[Thosted]

I'd second Marker Buoy as "good people." That said, I never dive specifically with them. They do a lot of cool social stuff outside of doing the dives, and I'm overwhelmed with social stuff. And an introvert that hates small talk. For you, though, this could be perfect: Meeting people in the area, divers or not, is great for newcomers.

Moss Bay divers Facebook group is also helpful. Again, never done anything formal with the club, but I've found buddies there for midweek dives.

Many dive shops have free "shop dives" you can join in. State your experience level, they'll find you a decent buddy. (Instructors and DM's often volunteer with these groups. It's not really a guided dive per se, just that most of the DMs and Instructors don't mind diving with a newby now and again in a purely recreational sense. Don't expect this to be equivalent to a paid guided dive.)

Boat dives are trickier, but options exist short of buying your own boat.

(Ever here of the Seattle freeze? Apparently we're not very welcoming. I blame the Scandinavian immigrant community, of which as a half-Swede I'm one. There's a joke about 2 Danes, 2 Norwegians, and 2 Swedes being marooned on a desert island. A year later, they're rescued. In that year the 2 Danes founded a cooperative for the betterment of the community and the 2 Norwegians founded a patriotic "Sons of Norway" club. Meanwhile, the two Swedes were still waiting to be formally introduced. )

let me put it this way…I haven’t even logged in on facebook for years until I heard about GUE here…I don’t have twitter or instagram or anything else. it’s just not me

I have heard of the Seattle freeze. In fact, wasn’t it around 2010 when the big storm hit and everyone was without power in the middle of December? I lived in woodinville at the time and we were without power for 9 days.
So yeah…I’m coming back to seattle lived there for like 12 years. Just wasn’t into diving back then.

 

[Thosted]

I blame them for the horrific driving!


Almost Live was classic. Too bad The 206 never got picked up.

Yeah. I‘m not looking forward to all those 25 mph roads up there

 

[Thosted]

And there's the classic Super Bowl win "riot" in Ballard.


(If you don't have time to watch the video, basically after the Seahawks won the Super Bowl, boisterous fans spilled out into the streets of the Scandinavian quarter. And patiently waited in the dark and cold until the traffic light turned so they could cross a street that had almost zero traffic on it....)

LMAO We wouldn’t even do that in Germany (where I’m from).

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Yeah. I‘m not looking forward to all those 25 mph roads up there

Radar detectors are your friend.

Anyway, I think you are set. There's also a number of dive resources I have in my dive planning document, but it isn't complete, but not a bad place to start.

 

[OrcasC205]

In addition to the references that @wetb4igetinthewater mentions in his very useful planning guide, I have been working on a website for documenting dive sites that now has many Puget Sound sites (as well as sites elsewhere in the world.) It's at www.scuba-sites.com and any feedback is welcome. If you use the open source dive log, Subsurface, you can export the sites into an XML file for import into your dive log.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

In addition to the references that @wetb4igetinthewater mentions in his very useful planning guide, I have been working on a website for documenting dive sites that now has many Puget Sound sites (as well as sites elsewhere in the world.) It's at www.scuba-sites.com and any feedback is welcome. If you use the open source dive log, Subsurface, you can export the sites into an XML file for import into you dive log.

Doug,

That's awesome! I do need to update my doc for new references and I'll include that in the list.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

@Thosted

This just came out:

 

[Thosted]

Nice! Thanks for all that!