Your Dive Mentor: Who, why and what have they contributed

We frequently tell folks to find a good dive mentor. A diver with more experience and skills to help you fine tune your skills as you explore new dive sites.

I've been fortunate to have alot of help and support. I'd been a warm water diver since 1983, until I landed in SoCal in 2008. The first year I trudged long shore distances in heavy uncomfortable gear with layers of inflexible neoprene just to get beat up by the surf. After each dive I'd get in my car and on the drive home I'd swear I was going to quit 'cause I'm too old/cold/tired/out-of-shape, etc. But my wonderful dive pals kept me here, knowing that if they can do it, someday I could do it too. I had the priveledge of diving once again with one of my fav and most patient SoCal dive mentors, Greg Cooke. He has 1000+ all SoCal rec & tech dives and 14000+ hrs commercial diving (the boy just likes to be in the water ALL the time). Greg has been with me on all of my SoCal wreck dives, most of my 16 drysuit dives, and has helped drag my crawling carcass out thru surf plenty of times. He always smiles and says "it's all good". We did 4 dives on Sunday. Diving cold pea soup in a blender (dark, cold, silty, very surgy, very poor vis). But yet what would have creeped me out enough to thumb a dive in the past, I now took as a learning opportunity to work on drysuit bouyancy and "Helen Keller" diving skills, etc. I felt like I had really accomplished something when Greg said to me"I hope I helped a little. You are a good diver. I want to dive with you again but this time we will work on trim and beach . California is a hard place to learn to dive. I stopped working with OW students because it's a waste of my time. I teach divers. You are a diver."

So who is/has been your mentor(s) and why? What have they contributed to your skill level and ultimate enjoyment of the sport?

If you have reached a point where you are now "paying it forward", when did you realize you were ready to help the next "newbie"?

I met my friend Tim in my Divemaster class. After we finished skills diving with OW sutdents we would finish off our tanks with a short fun dive. He had been tech certified for many years and loved wreck diving. Since I had a boat, we became wreck diving buddies. After many dives on the well known local wrecks he asked me if I had any interest in some of the deeper, little-dived wrecks. He was happy when I said yes.
He gave me his IANTD and TDI manuals and made sure I could answer any question before he would give me any coordinates. He also made me do valve drills and discuss the dive plan before letting me get in the water. On my first dive at the Caissons (165') we had a school of yellowtail circle us for most of the dive. During our deco stops a Yellowfin tuna swam past. It's the only one I've seen. Soon after, we were diving deep wrecks and reefs for the next few years. Tim disappeared during a dive at Farnsworth in 2001. I will forever be grateful for the lessons he gave me and the thrill of diving sites most divers will never see.
Four years ago I met Merry at Marineland. She was a new diver who only knew what she was taught by the instructor/salesman from her LDS. She had every piece of gear that has ever been laughed at on Scubaboard. I began diving with her a few weeks later and explained my gear and procedures to her. She realized they made sense and was angry at having spent $700+ for a BC that nearly drowned her at Vet's. She used to call dives early because she was cold in her Body Glove wetsuit. She eventually got a backplate/wing and drysuit, and after getting floaty feet, traded her Mares Avantiquattro fins for Jetfins. A prescription mask and better light followed. She still has a console on a retractor, but I let her slide.
For the past four years we have been making dives together on local wrecks. Even at 61, she's always willing to make a 1/4 mile surface swim at Marineland with me to reach the better diving. There is nothing better than having buddies who are interested in the same types of dives.

Well, as most everybody here knows, my first mentor was NW Grateful Diver, who picked me up at a "Big Buddy" dive here in Seattle. Dear Bob; he worked with me to learn such simple things as how to descend without landing on my back. He got me roughly horizontal and doing a nice modified flutter kick, and he started to teach me how to "see" the cryptic critters of Puget Sound. He taught me about using lights for communication (and my husband cursed him for giving me the can light idea) and gave me my first glimpses of working as a team. He sent me off to take Fundies, something for which I can never thank him enough.

I haven't had a steady mentor since, but I have to give thanks to KMD, who has done a lot of cave diving with me, and cheerfully drops back from the dives he's normally doing to accompany me at my level. I've learned a lot from watching Kevin, both in the caves and elsewhere. He is steadfast in his determination to stick to his principles of diving, even when under pressure not to do so, and that solidity has been a good lesson for me.

I probably began trying to mentor other divers before I should have, but I felt as though I had been given some exciting information, and I couldn't wait to pass it along. Nowadays, I actually have the skill and the experience to be a good mentor, I think -- but it's been a while since I've talked to a local diver who has the thirst I had to learn and improve. I keep offering, and nobody's taking me up on it.

Lynne, you are every Scubaboarders virtual mentor with your many insightful clearly stated posts on so many topics. Well at least you've been one of mine.

It was 1977, I was 13 years old, and wanted desparately to learn to scuba dive. I somehow (don't remember the details exactly) found the Ajax Scuba Club and had saved enough money (by mowing lawns and shovelling snow... not in the same season) and signed up for the 13 week NAUI Scuba Diver Course. I attended the first evening of class (driven there by my Dad) and came home with the waiver...

My Dad refused to sign it. I, of course, hated him for it, not understanding his concern for my safety, but rather focused on the fact that he was stopping me from doing something I had dreamed of for years. When I was 6 or so, I straped an empty gallon milk jug on my back as a scuba tank and did the wreck of the underside of my bed - penetration and everything!

So, the following week at the next scheduled class my Dad sent me in to collect my $85 and hand back the textbook (Diving for Fun). I was crushed. The Instructor, seeing how upset I was, stalled the class and came out to the parking lot to talk to my Dad - I don't know what he said, but somehow he convinced my usually immoveable father into letting me take the course.

I relished every minute of the course, won the prize for the highest mark on the final exam in the class and was finally in my element on the open water dive weekend.

After the course, the Instructor took me diving - no driver's licence, and oh, no car, really hampered my efforts to go diving! He took me on all kinds of dives, we did shore dives, dove from his small boat, river dives, night dives, wreck dives and eventually ice dives. We became good friends and dove regularly until I moved away from Ontario to pursue my career on the west coast in 1989. I should have stayed in touch more...

In 1999, he visited me at the Aquarium - proud that I had achieved the career I had always wanted, but also dying of leukemia. In 2002, on November 26th, my scuba instructor, mentor and friend, Norm Keil died at home.

A co-worker and friend just gave me a hand-written note today, saying how much they appreciate what I've done to mentor them, how much they have grown with my help. After reading the note I thought to myself, "Don't thank me, thank Norm".

Thanks Norm.

My mentor, dive buddy, and friend ... Uncle Pug. He taught me a whole new way to think about diving, which turned out to be the most important lesson I ever learned because it applies to every dive I do. He didn't do it by telling me what to do ... or how to fix a given problem. Rather by giving me feedback on what he saw me doing and encouraging me to "rethink my approach" to a solution. In that respect he not only taught me how to be a better diver, but a better mentor and instructor.

He encouraged me to learn to just relax, completely motionless, and enjoy the scenery around me. He worked with me tirelessly to achieve a back kick. He was with me on my first doubles dive ... and patiently got me to the point where I could manage to use them without struggling or swimming myself head-first into the bottom. He taught me that when working through problems, humor achieves success far better than frustration ... and to always be aware of how my emotions were affecting my breathing, which in turn was affecting my buoyancy control.

I've had a few really good mentors over the years ... as well as some excellent instructors. But more than anyone, Uncle Pug helped me most to become the diver that I am today ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

I did not exactly have a true Dive Mentor (in the sense of a dive buddy with lots more experience that is). I met my most regular dive buddy (helimvee on the board) for the first time after about 20 dives (he had only slightly fewer dives), and we dove together for hundreds of dives in almost every condition. We were able to help each other out and allowed to comment on each other's diving habits (good or constructive). We have practiced skills together and travelled to the exotic dive locations. We have seen current you could not fight, zero vis, 100' vis and calm, tropical storms, dives with lots to see and dives with nothing to see. I think I am the diver that I am today because I had a buddy that I knew I could trust (not only to help in a pinch but also to always dive the same way) and that was as passionate about diving as I was.

Well really Max Bottomtime has been a mentor, and friend/enemy.

But Greg Cooke has saved MANY a dive for me.
If it broke, or I forgot it, he had it in his truck.
Awesome dude!

ppO2diver (Duane) Precision Diving - The Great Lakes and Chicago Premier SCUBA Dive Training

I don't remember exactly how I first met him but he introduced me to DIR, mentored me from dive #12 all the way through GUE fundamentals (#140ish). Taught me buoyancy, trim, propulsion techniques, etc. Also helped out a lot with gear purchases, gear maintenance, and general diving advice. I think I'm at a spot where I could help out someone just getting interested in diving, I'd love to bring in some more local DIR divers Most new divers around here though are getting certified for their upcoming vacation and are too worried about their unmatching rental gear.

Duane Johnson "AKA" ppo2_diver of Precision Diving - The Great Lakes and Chicago Premier SCUBA Dive Training is a mentor to many people including;