Who or What Inspired You to Dive?

[H2Andy]

the fish, the reef... the sea.

i grew up in Cuba, snorkeling in the shallows and messing around the reefs.

then i grew up, got a job, etc. etc.

then, on Grand Cayman, i went snorkeling again and rediscovered everything i had
forgotten about the sea.

took a resort course.

the rest, as they say, is very expensive and cold in January.

 

[Delhi Diver]

Jacque Cousteau's The Living Sea that transfixed me when I was 11. Finally got certified about two decades later! I almost did it at the age of 23 but a bloody storm landed on Lakshadweep the week I was supposed to go there! Better late than never, I say!

 

[BacardiSpice]

Family home is on a cliff overlooking the sea - in between overseas postings, I've lived most of my life by the ocean. Among my earliest memories is watching documentaries on subjects like the Andrea Doria. I was always poking around in rockpools and trying to get *under* the surface, always wondering what was beneath. Most of our family holidays when we lived overseas had to be near the ocean.

Soon as I'd left Uni and landed my first job, I signed up - will never forget the excitement of the first backwards roll. Was like I was living all those docos I'd thrived on as a child.

 

[SeanQ]

As a kid I was obsessed with the ocean and its inhabitants. I finally got certified about 6 years after moving to the coast from the landlocked interior. I have no plans to stop anytime soon.

 

[down4fun]

I was looking for a new hobby. I love the water and the sun. Then my hockey buddy, whom I went to games with, told me about diving. I had a mad crush on him, so of course I got certified. I loved it immediatley. I did 100 dives my first 7 months and only 4 were with him. I am a completly addicted to it.

 

[Tom Smedley]

That's cause she's at my place.

I was sitting on the beach, starring into the blue abyss, when all of a sudden a mermaid appeared. She was stunning, long curly blond hair, and the bluest eyes. She asked me to join her on her travels......never seen her since.

 

[Nalidixic]

For me, it was watching shows as a kid where they would go diving. Also, going to IMAX in elementary was always neat when it was on things like GBR. So, for my grad present, my parents bought me scuba lessons and I haven't stoped since! I still haven't dove any warm water, but I still love the cold water we get here on the BC coast My drysuit keeps me warm

Nalidixic

 

[Swan1172]

My Dad did some diving in the late 60s and early 70s. I remember him buying a mask, snorkel and fins for me as a kid and teaching me to skin dive when we went to the beach. I always wanted to get certified, but haven't had the spare time or money until the past few years.

Ironically, my Dad passed away five years ago and I never got the opportunity to talk with him, as a diver, about his diving experiences. I still have some old slides of him diving in Cozumel and the Caymen Islands before I was born. I wish he was around to compare my experiences in the same places almost 40 years later.

 

[shugar]

Hey There Folks,
With all the threads about Books, and Greatest Divers, I thought I would pose this question. What got you into Diving?
For me it was seeing those Cousteau shows when I was a little kid in the seventies.
And then pretending with a snorkel and mask in my local swimming hole.
Then I became like most of us interested in Marine Biology, I have a cousin that is a MB. And if Music would have never stolen my heart I would have pursued Marine Biology or Oceanography. In some ways getting certified and get addicted and consumed with Diving, Marine Life, Reading about these subjects is one way of
re-connecting with my earliest dreams and also discovering something totally connected to my life now.
I am curious for all of you how did it happen for you?

for me it was a piled-up combo of:

• cousteau shows on TV (even the endless reruns)
• my dad and uncle's old dive magazines lying around the house
• my learning to love the water before i began to walk or talk
• countless days snorkeling the tiny (not so back then) house reef off my uncles old beach house in calatagan
• endless hourse of discovery channel and national geographic
• loving every moment i'm in the water, ocean type highly preferred + not having a fear of water or depths
• knowing a few dive pros
• having the fantasy of inventing an u/w breathing device like what they used in star wars episode 1... i ought to get royalties for that by the way... i thought if that in the 70s!
• getting frustrated because i could only snorkel so deep
• you couldn't find biiiiig fish in 15 feet of water
• chicks dig divers
• divers dig chicks
• there are chick divers
• my wife would look hot in a wetsuit... just have to get her to do her OW
• a post-dive beer is one of God's greatest gifts to man
• the camaraderie is amazing - strangers on the surface, good buds 1 dive later...
• my little princess will become dad's dive buddy or so help me...

i might have to stop here... i'm starting to crave ocean water again... hmmmm... will the boss notice i've skipped work and will just appear again on monday?

Jag

 

[Queen]

Ditto!!

Hey, Queen, central IL is my neck of the woods. Wanna dive some time? Or do I already know you?

theskull

Hiya Skull, don't know if we know each other...I'm in Urbana and went through my classes back in '79. Did some diving with Brad and the gang at MSC. Most of my "hometown" diving was ESDA (yuck!), I dove Kickapoo and enough borrow pits that Midwest diving has lost it's allure. Now I'm a warm water diver...I go to the Keys as often as I can.