What got you started in diving?

[Diver0001]

I was colour blind (come to think of it, I still am) which meant I couldn't become a pilot or an astronaut. My uncle was a marine biologist and pushed me to take up diving. Seeing as how I was too handicapped to leave this planet I thought....achhh... why not...

R..

 

[Bratface]

I loved watching Sea Hunt and Cousteau documentaries on tv as a kid. I even had this plastic diver who went swimming in the bathtub with me. Then I had a contract to work in the caribbean a few years ago. Met someone at a party who owned a dive shop. He invited me down to try it out, and the rest is history.

 

[markfm]

I went out with someone briefly, who suggested a trip to Aruba. I don't get into gambling, am not a party person, wondered what the heck there was to do there
(She was a non swimmer -- we drifted apart, I took a scuba class up here )

 

[Vayu]

I've always been a child of the ocean and as a kid I simply wanted to be reunited with her. One day my mother took me aside and told me my father was a bottlenose dolphin. Since then I've been searching for my real family and waiting for the day that I can say to the anthropoids...

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

-V

 

[TheRedHead]

I was colour blind (come to think of it, I still am) which meant I couldn't become a pilot or an astronaut. My uncle was a marine biologist and pushed me to take up diving. Seeing as how I was too handicapped to leave this planet I thought....achhh... why not...

R..

Your colorblindness strikes me as so sad because you're unable to experience the wonderful colors of the reef. I've always loved fish and perhaps that is why I decided to get close them.

 

[piikki]

I guess I have to give you the longer version of the story I told on the first session of OW lessons.

My diving career started when at my 6th birthday we moved into a house that instead of a shower had a bathtub. Since then my mother was worried I’d grow scales. Summers were short above Arctic Circle, so prior to that she hadn’t had to worry about my fascination with water - but now I spent all the long winter nights in the tub, submerged competing in breath holding with my plastic figures (just imagine my disappointment when the instructor informed me that my breath holding skills would not be much good during scuba training!)

Now what comes to real scuba, I got started late. I never saw a scuba diver where I come from. They probably worried drifting over to the Soviet Union side – yes it was called that during my childhood, probably more than freezing their buns off under the ice that chilled the lakes/rivers longer periods than nowadays. Then I went off to study and got involved in other (cheaper) sports, then moved around the world a bit too much to settle on too many new hobbies, and finally found some more frigid waters in upstate NY this year to start scuba lessons when knocking on forty.

It was a long time waiting. If only we had more than one channel on the telly (rest of the country got 2, we were too far north to count for the second one) when I grew up! Maybe then I’d been exposed to something cool and realistic a bit earlier because the interest was always there. I think I was born too late for the Jacques/Sea Hunt, the first rounds were already over, and the nostalgia for reruns (rare when you only have 2 channels!) wasn’t there yet.

 

[PAdiver93]

...lack of gills... plus I am a lot better looking underwater.

 

[colby]

I grew up on the West coast of Canada. I learned to swim when I was young, and we lived 2 blocks from the beach in White Rock, and I swam in the ocean almost every day. When I was a teenager, I took up snorkling and continued to do just that, dreaming about diving until I had the opportunity to go to the Turks and Caicos and got a chance to dive. I finished my OW certification there and there is no looking back

 

[Tanked]

I got certified 9 years ago, right after high school, with some friends. I never really took it seriously until earlier this year, when I started going through my divorce. Going diving every week was one of the things that really helped mw keep my sanity. Now I'm hooked. Hopfully if I ever get remarried, she'll either be a diver, or somone that understands my obsession.

 

[dpbishop]

A lot of People mention Sea Hunt as an inspiration. Does anyone else remember the Aquanauts?

It was on for only one season and starred Keith Larsen and Jeremy Slate ( Ron Ely replaced Kieth half way thru the season). Much hipper than Sea Hunt with more Bikini Clad Women.

(I just wasted half an hour searching for it because I couldn't remember the name)