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Posted by JohnC on February 11, 2010 at 12:11:49:
What got you into diving?
I’m 51, which means like a lot of kids, I grew up glued to the TV watching the undersea world of Jacques Cousteau. It forever etched in my mind the sights and sounds of a world only few seemed privileged to explore.
We had a next door neighbor in Santa Barbara who had a boat and was a diver. He would come home with large Fish and abalone for us. Those must have been the golden days for sea hunters. He had the old double hose regulators, beaver tail wetsuits and adventure!
I did the pilgrimages to Marineland as a child and a trip to Oahu Hawaii when I was 14. While there I made my first free dives snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. I left there dreaming one day to scuba dive.
Fast forward 20 years, including 6yrs of surfing, deep water survival training in the navy, several trips to Sea World, and a mid life crisis and you have a recipe for the need of adventure.
Early in 2002 I was again on vacation in Oahu and decided to take an introduction to scuba at our hotel. To my disappointment they were not doing any that week. I called a local dive operator and they had one boat going out of Waikiki with advanced divers. They said I could go it I was up for it.
10 minutes out of the harbor and after a 5 minute lesson I found myself suiting up for my first dive. The deck hands were taking bets privately to see if I was going to freak out, they didn’t know I was a fish.
Looking back on it I don’t think that operator should have taken me on an intro dive to 60fsw, but I’m glad he did! 2 yrs would laps before I was in the water again snorkeling La Jolla Cove. That was it, at 44 I went home and got certified at a LDS here in Ventura Co.
Since then, I have made several dives at Catalina, Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Refugio, Deer Creek and my new favorite Old Marineland. I enjoy taking pix and just being in the water. In the future I would like to do some wreck and oil platform dives.
So what’s your story?
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