What do you enjoy most about diving?

[TMHeimer]

I got certified in 2005 and am presently a Divemaster Candidate. I have found many reasons to continue my education as a diver over 4 years, but none more than my original reason for diving: I am a shell collector. My collection is "scientific" in that it places shells according to location, though I am pretty familiar with the Latin names of shells. I collect live specimans and boil them to remove the animal and place the shells in my collection. I have been criticized for this on so many dive forums I can't name them. And it's against PADI's rules of not "taking souveniers" also. Not taking "souveniers" is even a possible question on the Divemaster tests. I don't take "souveniers", I am a shell collector. But hey, I plan a trip to Panama in the late Fall--the only Caribbean place I have found where dive charters permit taking shells!

 

[drbill]

So many, many things have kept me SCUBA diving for nearly 50 years. I'll try to list a few:

1. The "other worldliness" of the seas. It is such a different environment. It can easily be related to travel to some exotic culture.

2. The Zen-like experience of being almost totally in the moment.

3. The relative quiet of the undersea world. It's not "the silent world," but there are few sounds I actually have to pay attention to (like telephones, alarms, car horns, people foaming at the mouth)

4. The fact that after so many decades I still see new species or new behaviors that make each dive worthwhile

5. Oh, and I'm a marine biologist so spending time underwater is work as well!

 

[Orlando Eric]

No phones. No worldly bothers. Self reliance, I am my own diver and everything that happens I can either be proud of or ashamed of without credit or blame to others.

The wieghtless flying. I'd like to go back to Ugh and Pug and push them out of trees until feathers begin to sprout.

The colorful explosions on a reef is like sex. You can not describe it to someone who has not done it.

The commaraderie of a true "Dive Buddy" they are there to save your life and you theirs without blinking.

TeamsCasa is right on with the Video. If you can not FORCE them to let you show a video then bring pictures. Big glossy ones and a easel.

 

[Gen San Chris]

Here in the Philippines Its a great way to escape from the Japenese revenge for the Atom Bombs, Kareoke! when underwater you just float along in a different world with no noise, no complaining hotel customers, no bad drivers, no Larry King, you can lose yourself in the beauty and forget your problems! I wonder why the person actually invented the underwater MP3 player, Is this more revenge!

 

[gibbsliz]

To be able to share an amazing experience with a few others that many never get to see.

 

[thanksforallthefish]

I am thankful no one has invented an underwater ghetto blaster ... unfortunately I think it will happen

 

[princessaprilia]

I love the fact that while underwater, I am experiencing a place that my biology says I shouldn't be.

It's like pulling the wool over Mother Nature's eyes.

 

[vladimir]

If you enjoy witnessing wildlife behavior you can watch the Discovery channel or you can go diving. You could spend weeks in the jungle before you saw monkeys grooming each other, if ever; you can see hammerheads getting cleaned on any dive in Cocos. I trekked for days and squatted for hours in a Papuan jungle to get a glimpse of the mating display of a certain bird of paradise; you can see pairs of mandarin fish do a mating dance any evening on the house reef at the Lembeh Resort. You can probably witness the symbiosis between an oxpecker and a hippopotamus if you find a good guide and take a week-long safari; you can see symbiotic gobies and shrimp all over the Indo-pacific, on any dive. In general, wildlife is on display in the ocean, and it is, to a large extent, oblivious to you as a diver.

 

[highlandfarmwv]

Weightlessness. The animals. I feel like a cross between a fish and a bird when I'm there. At one with nature. When solo diving, I feel like I'm the only person in that world.

 

[Paco]

All of the above with a sense of exploration.