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mcpowell

ScubaBoard Supporter
ScubaBoard Supporter
Messages
347
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Location
Georgia
# of dives
100 - 199
I've been trying to add detail to my old dive logs. My original logbook had enough room for about 1 sentence in the "notes" section. I've started using Subsurface, which I suppose may have unlimited notes, and have been going back to my old logs and adding where I can remember. So I've started reminiscing....

I'm not talking about the first time you breathed scuba in a pool, that doesn't really count. I'm talking about the first dive that made an impression....

In 1985...my college roommate and I drove all night from Atlanta to Key Largo (in a Honda civic) to complete our checkout dives at Pennekamp. Our initial dive was in the lagoon (that doesn't count as the first dive) and was poor visibility and about 30' deep. The dive master (named Al) helped us with our weights. Mine was zero because I had no body fat and was diving with a borrowed Scubapro Mark 7 (must weigh 3-4 lbs), aged horsecollar, 1 second stage regulator, and twin 40 cubic foot steel tanks. The only thing I owned was my mask, fin + booties and snorkel. This borrowed stuff was so old, when I got on the dive boat the crew were all checking it out. I distinctly remember one guy looking at it and quietly saying "oh my God".

We went out on a cattle boat out to French Reef. I remember waiting my turn to back roll into the water with the nauseating diesel fumes floating around us pretty thickly...bleh. At this point I need to mention I am red/green colorblind. Not completely, but enough that I always fail the little dot tests, so colors are much more vibrant to you than me. After my back roll I oriented myself in the water and the bubbles cleared. It was a sunny day and I remember thinking I had never seen anything with such beautiful coloring. I could see all these bright colored fish, corals, etc. It was one of the most awe inspiring sights I had ever seen, and remains so in my memory. We dove for a few days, loaded up the Honda and drove home. We kept up a trip or two a year, but then life got in the way. Now my son is my dive buddy and I have a renewed interest. We're having fun.
 
My first memory of diving is the one when our homemade surface supply dive helmet flooded on me. I assume I'd used it before, but that's the one that is solid in my memory.

Ditching it and weights and clawing my way to the surface in two pairs of jeans and my brother's boots was pretty unforgettable.
 
First dive was in 1982 in the Edmunds Underwater Park outside of Seattle Washington. I was in a dry suit and was still cold. Did not see much but the old barge. After the second dive I was done but my friend convinced me to do the other two dives the next day. He said that at least then I would be certified and could dive again. We dove together a few more times over the next couple of years. But he gave it up while I continued.
 
I absolutely remember my first dive. Sort of. My OW check out dive site was "Lobster Shack" in the Coronado Islands just south of San Diego. I remember the sense of foreboding as I descended, never having been so deep before. Unfortunately I didn't really get a good look at the site because I was so fixated on my gauges and going through in my head all the stuff we had learned during the course. Just remembering "which button" on the inflator to use and when took up the processing power of a few brain cells. I had no brain cells left to watch the fish go by.
 
My first dive was Thanksgiving weekend in 2009. My mask didn't fit well and the dive shop hadn't attached my Air2 properly to my BCD, so it constantly leaked air. I jumped in and had a terrible problem with my mask flooding. After a few minutes, I had the instructor and a DM trying to tighten my mask down to fix the problem (it didn't) when all of a sudden I spotted a turtle about 10 feet away. I pushed them off and went to see the turtle. I've always considered seeing a turtle good luck from then on. Got a different mask, had the hose connection fixed, and it's been an adventure ever since.
 
My first dive [not counting OW check out] was in August of 1977 at John Pennekamp State Park off of Key Largo, FL. I used a steel 72 cubic foot tank mounted on a back-pack, a Healthways ScubaAir-J regulator with a US Divers SPG, a US Divers DepthMaster III depth gauge, four pounds of lead, manually inflatable Seatec horse collar vest, Voit Skin Diver closed heel fins, and a GSD mask with a simple J snorkel. My watch was a Seiko lent to me. I was paired up with an experienced diver, taken to French Reef, and told by Captain Bill Crawford [anybody remember him?] to be back within an hour or at 300 PSI, whichever came first [it was 300 PSI by the way]. Never forgot the excitement of my first dive on a coral reef. Still going strong more than four decades later.
 
We were in Thailand and it was not on my radar that I would ever go scuba diving or have the desire to. My partner/now dive buddy asked if I wanted to dive. I asked if he was certified and he said yes, for a long time now and asked if I needed to be. I learned something new about him that day!

I did a discover dive....and had a terrible time. I couldn't equalize by pinching my nos. The snorkel mask or their rental masks did not make it possible due to the poor fit which is the only way I can equalize despite being able to do it without touching my nose for planes and car rides. I then resorted to swallowing saliva which did the trick....except I swallowed a bunch of air doing that and on the ascent, I couldn't burp it out so I was incredibly nauseated and bloated. I ended up sitting out the 2nd dive and took some random Thai drugs to fix it. It knocked me out cold and I woke up feeling 100% better as they were surfacing from the 2nd dive.

Fast forward to a wedding in Hawaii...Mr OOO asks if I want to get certified because doing it in Monterey would suck. We didn't have a trip planned but I thought, hey, why not.

Fast forward even more and now I am a dive trip addict and a liveaboard addict. I do 2 big trips a year for 3-4 weeks at a time with 50+ tanks scheduled each time...It's a slippery slope and I'm much poorer than I was prior to all this. :D
 
My watch was a Seiko lent to me.

Hey! I forgot about my watch! I did own my very on Casio G-shock. I have one of the originals, I think it is a 1983 model. Anyways, it's still "ticking" upstairs next to the sink in my bathroom. I dove with it last summer before I broke down and got a dive computer. Still works fine, but the little backlight is feeble.
 
1994 on the Great Barrier Reef with my little brother. Was so hung over I could barely function but I still remember everything about the dive. The intense colors and sheer amount of life....and the sharks. Lots and lots of sharks.

Was a life changing day. I knew I was hooked from that moment on.
 

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