Why is Diving MORE than a Sport?

[diverbrian]

When I think of a sport, I think competition. In a sport you have winners and losers. Diving is as much a sport as hiking, mountain climbing, and white water rafting.

In diving the winners include everybody that participates. (Extra point is having a good story to tell about your dive, whether true or not. Although true is far more preferable, like that fierce little crappie that attacked my camera while I was trying to photograph it's brave watch of a sunken boat last weekend.)

It is my life outside of work because it is peaceful and quiet. It is my meditation time and I very seldom want to come back up. I think through my problems during a dive as being under the water puts everything in a different light.

It is also something that not everyone does and I see sights that not everyone will ever see. To me diving isn't a sport, it is an adventure that makes me what I am. I am only sorry that I didn't take it up fifteen years or so before I did.

 

[Zagnut]

How else can you fly with the fishes? Scuba is very pacifying...it's like meditation or something...and besides..chicks dig it!

Hey DA Aquamaster!

Welcome to the board! I noticed you are in Spearfish SD. Cool! I used to live in the NE panhandle. I have a friend that lives with his wife in Spearfish. My friend Shane is a drummer and has his own PA system. I believe he is running sound for other bands these days. I don't know if he is currently in a band or not. I used to sit in on gigs with his old band in Nebraska when I was up that way. Spearfish is a small town, I wonder if you know him? So there is a scuba cult in Spearfish? Cool! My wife and I were up in the Black Hills a few years back and went through Spearfish heading to Sturgis. As soon as we turned that bend by Lake Pactola I saw that beautiful lake and thought, "I wonder how the diving is in there?" I've always wanted to go back and dive that lake. Have you ever dove it? Where do y'all dive up there?..anyhows, Welcome to the board!

Sorry about hijacking the thread...now why again was diving more than a sport?...anyone?

 

[Big-t-2538]

IF by "more than a Sport" you mean passion....then that is the category I am falling into.

I love diving with my friends, and I like the idea of going in a wreck sometime in the near future. Just seeing something that is literally a part of history and figuring out how it got where it is sounds like a damn cool thing to do.

I love to dive b/c I love the water. I love to dive b/c it is fun, and damn I like having fun. I only hope to be able to teach students that are interested in diving one day. Right now I am a DM and am working on getting some more experience before I start teaching. I would love to teach with the same passion that MHK and Sonya displayed with us in my Fundy's class 2 weeks ago.

 

[Otter]

Big-t-2538 once bubbled...
IF by "more than a Sport" you mean passion....then that is the category I am falling into.

Yes, Big-T, I think you hit it on the head and I should have asked the question as "Why are most people so passionate about SCUBA?". Actually at times, I wonder why the once-or-twice a year resort divers ARE NOT passionate about it.

It is SIMPLY AWESOME!

 

[jomrchntscuba]

I know people that are terrified of thought, of diving. What about sharks, what about this, what about that? I'ts if your a diver you share a bond with other people. People you may not normally talk to. it doesn't really matter what type of diver you are, they usually get a long. Divers are truly a group of their own.

 

[Dyno Bill]

Passion, thats quite the description. Diving is at best a bit more work than little league or socker. The preperation, the travel required not to mention the cleanup afterwards. And the expense is at least noteworthy to most. I sat in a kelp forest off San Clemente Island at 4:30 in the morning and watched the changing of the guard as the sun slithered into the otherwise dark arena of the forest. Thats why I have been going back for yrs and yrs. We humans seldom have the chance to just hang mid column in a kelp forest next to a small room where a storm has left a void, watching the sun and the marine life chase one another back and forth, again there are just some things that once felt never leave us....the passion for ocean.
Bill, Dive Safe

 

[zeN||]

Moving effortlesslly thru sensory stimulating 3 d i m e n s i o n a l space, weightless, searching, descending, feeling alive in the liquid medium ........zeN||

 

[DA Aquamaster]

There is a wonderful quote from Philippe Diole in "Down Time" that describes how I feel about diving far better than I ever could have expressed it myself:

"Like many others, I do not feel in perfect harmony with our age and the solitude of diving lulls and stays a deep rooted dissatisfaction. Down below, where dream and action move silently forward, side by side, through the dense waters, man feels for a moment in tune with life."

 

[Otter]

Turks and Caicos a week or so ago. It was so funny to hear him talk. He loved the diving and all he could think about was getting home, getting his own equipment, quitting his job, and opening a scuba shop.

I agreed with the first two items, but quickly pointed out that the latter two were "not prudent".

I told him that he sounded like me several years ago. I am still looking for away to increase the union between my vocation and avocation (passion).

Otter