Why do you dive?
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Like others, my reasons have evolved. at first I did it because of lloyd bridges, and diving being something that no one else did. I will admit I did not fit in the groups of my time. Then I went into the military , navy, submarines, sonar. after a while your ears tell you more than your eyes can. Possibly because you have no eyes. Some years after getting out of the nav I took up diving again. first to reestablish lost intrest and because of my first dive in nassau. Now I think what motivates me is to see the things I pictured from sound, and have been amazed with being one ( ohhhhhhhm) with the environment. to see such things like sharks cuda eels turtles lobster and other sea life that with out being a diver and seeing them live in their surroundings, would keep you awake at night form fear. Granted scuba is expensive and I may be poor at the bank but richer from the experience.
K
KeithG
Guest
To see the little fishies.
My side objectives have changed slightly over the years - from not drowning, to going EVERYWHERE, to being able to identify EVERY fish, creature and coral (good luck!), to just watching and appreciating the strange underwater world.
I have no interest in challenging or exciting conditions. Low (no!) current, high viz and long bottom times are preferred.
I am now very happy to float around, discover and observe what is down there and if possible capture an awesome picture of it. But the camera comes second.
My side objectives have changed slightly over the years - from not drowning, to going EVERYWHERE, to being able to identify EVERY fish, creature and coral (good luck!), to just watching and appreciating the strange underwater world.
I have no interest in challenging or exciting conditions. Low (no!) current, high viz and long bottom times are preferred.
I am now very happy to float around, discover and observe what is down there and if possible capture an awesome picture of it. But the camera comes second.
I dive now for the same reason I took the sport up in about 1968. I like the water, I like being near it, on it, in it and under it and all of the activities there associated (by water I generally mean salt water). Because I am a waterman.
I dive, I boat, I fish, I lay on the sand and watch the waves come in, because it is what I do (among the other things I do, which have nothing to do with the ocean or diving).
Get more hobbies/sports, that way when you tire of one you can wear yourself out with another and then the one you were worn out with will be like all new and shiny.
My problem with diving is that if I could live a thousand years I could not do all the things I would want to do and many of those things have nothing to do with diving. At some point, the clock ticking away becomes more noticeable and the understanding that one's time here is finite, so much to do, so little time. And there are indeed other things to do besides SCUBA dive, that is my problem, not lack of interest or funds but time and many roads yet to travel.
And you know, I got better things to do other than to be nannied in the Keys over and over, so instead, perhaps this year, I might go back packing and maybe wrassel a griz, have not done that in a while, or heck, maybe something entirely new. Like ride a Harley to Sturgis with all the other fat old men in black, if my wife would let me. Now that is a problem! She says that is dangerous. I cannot say if she only knew, because she mostly does, sorta! I may have to settle for driving my Jeep to the end of the world. I sure wish they would fire me at work so I could have an excuse to retire.
Bored with diving, pashaw, is there something the matter with you, or something?
N
I dive, I boat, I fish, I lay on the sand and watch the waves come in, because it is what I do (among the other things I do, which have nothing to do with the ocean or diving).
Get more hobbies/sports, that way when you tire of one you can wear yourself out with another and then the one you were worn out with will be like all new and shiny.
My problem with diving is that if I could live a thousand years I could not do all the things I would want to do and many of those things have nothing to do with diving. At some point, the clock ticking away becomes more noticeable and the understanding that one's time here is finite, so much to do, so little time. And there are indeed other things to do besides SCUBA dive, that is my problem, not lack of interest or funds but time and many roads yet to travel.
And you know, I got better things to do other than to be nannied in the Keys over and over, so instead, perhaps this year, I might go back packing and maybe wrassel a griz, have not done that in a while, or heck, maybe something entirely new. Like ride a Harley to Sturgis with all the other fat old men in black, if my wife would let me. Now that is a problem! She says that is dangerous. I cannot say if she only knew, because she mostly does, sorta! I may have to settle for driving my Jeep to the end of the world. I sure wish they would fire me at work so I could have an excuse to retire.
Bored with diving, pashaw, is there something the matter with you, or something?
N
Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
I remember growing up in Carmel, CA in the 60's. We used to go to the beach all the time. One day my mom yelled "Hey look, a skin diver"! as he was coming out of the water. I was about 4 -5 years old looking at this big guy all dressed in black with a shiny all metal second stage glinting in the sunlight hanging down, and I vividly remember the BFK on his leg (not making it up). He had big black fins with holes in them which I also remember. I have a photographic memory.
Then one day my mom got rid of my dad and married another dude. This guy was really cool and used to take us out on the ocean in his boat to fish. I loved to go fishing. That started a direction which wouldn't have been possible unless that breakup and remarriage happened, to go fishing in the ocean and a chance to be on the water with the sights, sounds, smells.
My step brothers were also into fishing but used to get dreadfully seasick, so bad that they wouldn't be right for days. I never got seasick and couldn't understand what their problem was, I just loved to be out there.
As a young adult and after a long hiatus away from the ocean because of marriage, kid, work, etc., I decided once more to re-introduce the ocean into my life. Lucky for me I now lived in Northern California with some of the best coastal access around. So I started fishing off the rocks trying to relive the magic of the old days when I was 11 years old. I had luck off the rocks, but being out there I started to notice other people fishing and what they were doing. I saw a guy one day fishing off a kayak, and when he came in he had loads of fish. After a conversation with him I decided to get a kayak. But in order to use a kayak safely of the North Coast one must be wearing a wetsuit, so I went to a couple dive shops and found a wetsuit. After going out there and becoming quite successful at kayak fishing I began seeing skin divers freediving for abalone. I loved abalone, if only there was a way to get them.
I sparked up a conversation with the ab divers and that sent me back to the dive shop to get the rest of the gear needed to start abalone diving.
I lined up a buddy and we went ab diving.
After a few years of that I started seeing scuba divers. That sent me right back to the dive shop for lessons and gear. The next thing you know I scuba certified. A whole new world of friends and fun opened up. Not to mention vacations to the GBR and Hawaii. But most of my diving was local.
Being in the scuba world you meet a lot of different people. I became pretty good friends with one guy in particular. He also happened to be an instructor who was also into tech diving. That started yet another conversation which lead to going the tech route. Then began the real spending, and piles of gear.
However, somewhere along the way I felt myself not being satisfied with just normal joyous diving anymore like I remember when I first got certified and everything seemed big, bold, new, and dramatic. I looked really hard at where I was headed in diving and more importantly, why I was headed in that direction. The answers were not reasons why people should be pursuing tech diving, to keep up with peers, meet another challenge, etc.
To me diving needed to have a purpose especially if it became expensive and more dangerous. I really couldn't come up with an answer as to why I needed to tech dive in my part of the world. There is nothing here to tech dive on, so while all my former buddies dropped out because they refused to go back to sissy recreational dives, I remained and found a new love for just plain joyous normal dives like I remember when I first got certified.
My primary reason for diving is to hunt for food, that aspect has never left. I love fresh seafood, I love everything about it, I love to cook it, I love to eat it. But I don't always have to hunt, I also just love to look at marine life, and some of the lush life I see in 10 feet of water by the shore is worth ten thousand times more than looking at sand in 200 feet. Like I said, numbers mean nothing to me anymore, I'm over it.
Since then, I've dabbled in some other things that looked fun like vintage diving for instance. To me it's kind of a re-enactment of historical diving, similar to those folks that like to dress up like medieval warriors and halfway beat on each other with dull swords. But after the infatuation wore off I moved on. I enjoyed the history lesson for sure.
My whole approach now is to do whatever turns me on and brings me joy and happiness. This could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, depending on where they are in their lives and their missions and goals.
If you enjoy it, do it.
My goal is just to be happy and have fun.
Then one day my mom got rid of my dad and married another dude. This guy was really cool and used to take us out on the ocean in his boat to fish. I loved to go fishing. That started a direction which wouldn't have been possible unless that breakup and remarriage happened, to go fishing in the ocean and a chance to be on the water with the sights, sounds, smells.
My step brothers were also into fishing but used to get dreadfully seasick, so bad that they wouldn't be right for days. I never got seasick and couldn't understand what their problem was, I just loved to be out there.
As a young adult and after a long hiatus away from the ocean because of marriage, kid, work, etc., I decided once more to re-introduce the ocean into my life. Lucky for me I now lived in Northern California with some of the best coastal access around. So I started fishing off the rocks trying to relive the magic of the old days when I was 11 years old. I had luck off the rocks, but being out there I started to notice other people fishing and what they were doing. I saw a guy one day fishing off a kayak, and when he came in he had loads of fish. After a conversation with him I decided to get a kayak. But in order to use a kayak safely of the North Coast one must be wearing a wetsuit, so I went to a couple dive shops and found a wetsuit. After going out there and becoming quite successful at kayak fishing I began seeing skin divers freediving for abalone. I loved abalone, if only there was a way to get them.
I sparked up a conversation with the ab divers and that sent me back to the dive shop to get the rest of the gear needed to start abalone diving.
I lined up a buddy and we went ab diving.
After a few years of that I started seeing scuba divers. That sent me right back to the dive shop for lessons and gear. The next thing you know I scuba certified. A whole new world of friends and fun opened up. Not to mention vacations to the GBR and Hawaii. But most of my diving was local.
Being in the scuba world you meet a lot of different people. I became pretty good friends with one guy in particular. He also happened to be an instructor who was also into tech diving. That started yet another conversation which lead to going the tech route. Then began the real spending, and piles of gear.
However, somewhere along the way I felt myself not being satisfied with just normal joyous diving anymore like I remember when I first got certified and everything seemed big, bold, new, and dramatic. I looked really hard at where I was headed in diving and more importantly, why I was headed in that direction. The answers were not reasons why people should be pursuing tech diving, to keep up with peers, meet another challenge, etc.
To me diving needed to have a purpose especially if it became expensive and more dangerous. I really couldn't come up with an answer as to why I needed to tech dive in my part of the world. There is nothing here to tech dive on, so while all my former buddies dropped out because they refused to go back to sissy recreational dives, I remained and found a new love for just plain joyous normal dives like I remember when I first got certified.
My primary reason for diving is to hunt for food, that aspect has never left. I love fresh seafood, I love everything about it, I love to cook it, I love to eat it. But I don't always have to hunt, I also just love to look at marine life, and some of the lush life I see in 10 feet of water by the shore is worth ten thousand times more than looking at sand in 200 feet. Like I said, numbers mean nothing to me anymore, I'm over it.
Since then, I've dabbled in some other things that looked fun like vintage diving for instance. To me it's kind of a re-enactment of historical diving, similar to those folks that like to dress up like medieval warriors and halfway beat on each other with dull swords. But after the infatuation wore off I moved on. I enjoyed the history lesson for sure.
My whole approach now is to do whatever turns me on and brings me joy and happiness. This could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, depending on where they are in their lives and their missions and goals.
If you enjoy it, do it.
My goal is just to be happy and have fun.
I'll admit it. It was because of a woman. Basically my girlfriend at the time was a diver, and I figured it would be a fun thing to do together on vacation.
And I'm hooked. I dive for the meditative experience of such deep relaxation, capturing the beauty of the underwater world with my camera, and soon, to introduce other people into the wonders that await them under the surface.
And if I can get on that boat that found 22 wrecks in the Aegean this past summer (I know the guy who has the GPS coordinates of those wrecks and more - his father was a sponge fisherman) when it resumes searching next summer......
And I'm hooked. I dive for the meditative experience of such deep relaxation, capturing the beauty of the underwater world with my camera, and soon, to introduce other people into the wonders that await them under the surface.
And if I can get on that boat that found 22 wrecks in the Aegean this past summer (I know the guy who has the GPS coordinates of those wrecks and more - his father was a sponge fisherman) when it resumes searching next summer......
billt4sf
Contributor
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Because I was lousy at contact sports and don't like thrill activities. And I love nature. And feeling weightless.
One of the things that has kept me going is adding new skills. I love to be able to do the OW skills in good trim after taking Fundies, for example. Just learned shooting a bag at depth. Fun!
- Bill
One of the things that has kept me going is adding new skills. I love to be able to do the OW skills in good trim after taking Fundies, for example. Just learned shooting a bag at depth. Fun!
- Bill
- Messages
- 17,334
- Reaction score
- 13,743
- # of dives
- 100 - 199
I've always loved the water and learned to swim when I was five. Our dad encouraged us to play and have fun on, in and under water because be believed that the more comfortable we were in the water, the less was the risk that we'd drown if something unforeseen happened. He understood what we've learned from our diving, that panic kills. In the summers, we'd bathe and swim until our parents had to virtually drag us, shivering and with blue lips, up on land. We saved our weekly allowances and bought fins, masks and snorkels. I made my own pole spear from a stick and a straightened fish hook, and I was mighty proud of the minuscule flounder I managed to catch. I had an uncle who was a diver, and on one of my birthdays he gave me a book about diving. This was back when double hose two-stage regs were state of the art and single hose regs were cutting edge. I was deeply fascinated and decided I'd start diving when I was old enough.
I got older, and life happened while I was busy making other plans. School, friends, other hobbies, college, new friends, parties, other sports, a girlfriend - who later became my wife, graduation, house, mortgage, children,... Somewhere along that ride, in my twenties, I forgot my plans to start diving. Later I joked that those plans were postponed to the next time around, next life.
Then, when I was well into middle age, my teen-aged son developed a fascination for diving. He, too, had an uncle who was a diver. My wife and I were - at best - lukewarm to the idea. The gear is expensive, he didn't have any money. The diving itself costs a bit, even if it's just gear service and airfills, he didn't have a job. You need someone to dive with, he wasn't the type to just go out and make new acquaintances. Then his grandparents decided that he should get the class as a birthday present. Thanks a bunch, mom. Thanks a lot, dad. That was perhaps the one present you've come up with that has cost us the most. We had to join the ride, so he got the fins, mask and snorkel from us, and I signed up to take the course with him. My wife wasn't particularly thrilled about going under water, while I had once had a dream about just that, so that discussion was easy.
Fast-forward three years, and I've logged well over hundred dives, and I'm the safety officer in one of the local diving clubs. I already was a hobby photog, and even before I'd graduated OW I had bought a housing for my compact. I started shooting UW straight after my OW cert, although I've always been very diligent that the camera should never be allowed to take too much of my mental bandwidth. Maybe that's the reason I'm never quite satisfied with my pictures? On the other hand, I've never had a close call, even if I carry a camera on >90% of my dives. But dang, it's an expensive hobby. As of now, I've probably spent more money on camera gear than on all the other diving equipment together. Although I've been an avid hunter and fisherman for many years, I don't hunt underwater; handling the camera is enough for me. However, I have a great subject in my son when he's hunting with his pole spear.
I don't know if this, like other stuff I've done before, is a hobby I'll grow tired of, or if it's going to be a life-long passion. What I do know is that the feeling of weightlessness underwater gives me a kick every time, almost as intense as the first time I floated weightless in the water column during my first pool session. Especially if I'm hovering over a black abyss with a vertical wall beside me and the light coming down from the surface way up there above me. I love spotting critters, both known and unknown species, and I've developed an interest for marine biology. And the feeling I get on night dives, that the universe is just a small bubble around me and my buddy with everything else gone, still gives me a deep thrill. And the satisfaction I feel seeing how my son has grown to become one of the few buddies that I'd literally trust with my life is something very few other things can match.
I got older, and life happened while I was busy making other plans. School, friends, other hobbies, college, new friends, parties, other sports, a girlfriend - who later became my wife, graduation, house, mortgage, children,... Somewhere along that ride, in my twenties, I forgot my plans to start diving. Later I joked that those plans were postponed to the next time around, next life.
Then, when I was well into middle age, my teen-aged son developed a fascination for diving. He, too, had an uncle who was a diver. My wife and I were - at best - lukewarm to the idea. The gear is expensive, he didn't have any money. The diving itself costs a bit, even if it's just gear service and airfills, he didn't have a job. You need someone to dive with, he wasn't the type to just go out and make new acquaintances. Then his grandparents decided that he should get the class as a birthday present. Thanks a bunch, mom. Thanks a lot, dad. That was perhaps the one present you've come up with that has cost us the most. We had to join the ride, so he got the fins, mask and snorkel from us, and I signed up to take the course with him. My wife wasn't particularly thrilled about going under water, while I had once had a dream about just that, so that discussion was easy.
Fast-forward three years, and I've logged well over hundred dives, and I'm the safety officer in one of the local diving clubs. I already was a hobby photog, and even before I'd graduated OW I had bought a housing for my compact. I started shooting UW straight after my OW cert, although I've always been very diligent that the camera should never be allowed to take too much of my mental bandwidth. Maybe that's the reason I'm never quite satisfied with my pictures? On the other hand, I've never had a close call, even if I carry a camera on >90% of my dives. But dang, it's an expensive hobby. As of now, I've probably spent more money on camera gear than on all the other diving equipment together. Although I've been an avid hunter and fisherman for many years, I don't hunt underwater; handling the camera is enough for me. However, I have a great subject in my son when he's hunting with his pole spear.
I don't know if this, like other stuff I've done before, is a hobby I'll grow tired of, or if it's going to be a life-long passion. What I do know is that the feeling of weightlessness underwater gives me a kick every time, almost as intense as the first time I floated weightless in the water column during my first pool session. Especially if I'm hovering over a black abyss with a vertical wall beside me and the light coming down from the surface way up there above me. I love spotting critters, both known and unknown species, and I've developed an interest for marine biology. And the feeling I get on night dives, that the universe is just a small bubble around me and my buddy with everything else gone, still gives me a deep thrill. And the satisfaction I feel seeing how my son has grown to become one of the few buddies that I'd literally trust with my life is something very few other things can match.
I started to dive for the adventure, lured by the TV show Sea Hunt. I continued to dive for the mellow.
Over the years, my interests evolved. I dabbled with photography, but found myself always returning to fish watching. After I got pretty good at identifying fish, and finding unusual critters, I became more interested in interactions: cleaning, browsing, reproducing, hunting etc. Along the way I found I enjoyed sharing the love of diving with others, so got into teaching for several years.
But the near constant is the mellow, mostly induced by watching the interesting critters. Its a great escape from any worries of the top-side world.
note: I intentionally wrote this before reading the other responses. Im now struck by how common are the themes of escape and serenity.
Over the years, my interests evolved. I dabbled with photography, but found myself always returning to fish watching. After I got pretty good at identifying fish, and finding unusual critters, I became more interested in interactions: cleaning, browsing, reproducing, hunting etc. Along the way I found I enjoyed sharing the love of diving with others, so got into teaching for several years.
But the near constant is the mellow, mostly induced by watching the interesting critters. Its a great escape from any worries of the top-side world.
note: I intentionally wrote this before reading the other responses. Im now struck by how common are the themes of escape and serenity.
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