tacohandler:
...however, i do many other extreme sports...
Diving is an extreme sport??? I don't think so. It's possible to turn it into an extreme sport, of course, and lots of people around here are into technical diving because they want to do "extreme sports", but I certainly don't see recreational diving as being an extreme sport.
Personally, I became interested in diving because it was just about the most relaxing recreational activity I had ever encountered. For me, there was--and still is--something truly magical about the ability to go down on a reef and fly like a bird in a magical fairyland full of strange and exotic creatures and plant life. While my contemporaries were dropping acid to get their kicks (yeah, I'm dating myself here), I instead found a fantasyland under water that has never ceased to fascinate me. And I think most other divers approach the sport with similar perspectives. However, I have been a bit shocked to encounter a very different perspective since coming onto the California diving scene in the past month...
I think my first rude introduction to this came when I posted (from the tropics) what was an admittedly naive question on this forum and received the following response:
"Please get some serious Monterey experience
before you even start to think about teaching here.
It's very different from the tropics. First and foremost,
tropical divers get very spoiled by the small buoyancy
changes with depth, and get really foxed by the large
buoyancy swings. And then there's kelp, and cold water, and
big surf, and ..."
Yes, there it is in a nutshell: "We California divers are the real macho men of the deep; the rest of you wimps should beware!" I see this attitude over and over again out here, and it really saddens me. There are lots of newcomers to the sport of diving around here who encounter this as their first image of the social climate of the California diving scene and quickly turn away from what could have been a lifetime of enjoyment for them. I will concede that there are a few extra hassles in wearing a hood and gloves, plus all the lead it takes to get down in a thick wetsuit or in a dry suit, but it only took me a few dives to get used to all that. And the reward I've found for mastering those few extra hassles has been a fantasyland right here in my own back yard that is every bit as enchanting as the one at my winter home on Little Cayman Island. My only regret now is that for the 20 years I've lived in California I spent all that money flying back and forth to the Caribbean so I could get my diving kicks in short bursts instead of being able to do it whenever I wanted.
Tomorrow morning there are three of us who are going to take a group of 22 high school students out on their first ocean dive ever. I spent all day in the pool with them yesterday working with them on the basics, and I have no doubt tomorrow will be one of the most memorable days of their lives. Please don't anybody try to tell them diving is an "extreme sport" which is only for macho men! In the first place, over half of this group are women. And in the second place, they're really looking forward to just going down and hanging out with the fish and checking out all the cool starfish on the bottom!
Sorry to rant, but I think some of us need an attitude check. Pacific diving need not be an extreme sport.
Bruce
