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Last night I was doing a presentation for one of our local dive clubs and I found out that a good friend of mine is being honored by Dive News Network as "diver of the year" at our upcoming regional scuba show. I'm happy to see this recognition, because for the 13 years that I've known him he's always done a lot for the dive community, working with local governments to keep some of our most popular dive sites open, donating time to various causes, and often paying out of his own pocket for the maintenance and repair of buoys and other gear used at local dive sites. But the thing I remember him most for happened the day we met ... when I was a very new diver.
It was my second ever boat dive ... my first after AOW class. I was buddied with a similarly-experienced friend ... I don't think either of us had even 20 dives yet at the time ... and we were headed to one of the most popular dive sites in Puget Sound ... Possession Point Ferry. The dive site is advertised as "advanced", and neither of us really understood what that meant. What we knew was we both had a card that said we were "advanced", and for the boat captain that was good enough.
We show up at the boat ... the only two people on board diving wetsuits and rental gear. Most of the folks on board, while sociable enough, kept well clear of us. But this fellow came over and started an amiable conversation. He was clearly enthused about going out and doing this dive ... and more than willing to tell us all about it. As we approached the dive site, pulling into our wetsuits, he asked us if we'd like him to show us around the site ... "I know where all the good stuff is". Are you kidding me? Of course we would! This guy's spent his whole life as a diver, doing thousands of dives as first a military then a commercial diver, and he's asking a couple barely wet behind the ears newbs if we'd like a tour? Lead the way, dude! He looks at this little SL4 dive light my buddy's carrying, and noticed I didn't even have that much, reaches into his bag and pulls out this big-ass eight-cell primary light and hands it to me ... "you're going to want one of these", he says. And with all the enthusiasm of a kid on Christmas Day, off the swim step we go ... 70 feet down to one of the premier wreck dives in our area.
Back in those days I was a human shop-vac ... my dive buddies used to tease me they could see the sides of my tank move when I inhaled ... and so 20 minutes into the dive I'm giving the thumbs-up, indicating that I'm down to the agreed-to pressure. At the surface, I was embarrassed when I noticed that his gauge still read over 2000 psi. He was all enthused about the dive, and what he'd shown us, and I was thinking we probably wrecked this fellow's dive day with such a short dive. I'm changing tanks without saying much, thinking he'll dump us for the second dive. But as the boat sidled over to a place called "The Fingers", he comes up and starts briefing us about the dive site ... just assuming that he'll show us around again ... and seeming just as enthused about it as he had on the previous dive. Off we go on another incredible dive, and once again after what I'd today consider half a dive, I'm giving the ascend signal. Up we come, back on the boat, and this fellow's still all smiles and enthusiasm.
It stuck with me. I've done probably a hundred dives with him since then, took an advanced nitrox/deco class from him years later, helped him with some of his projects over the years, learned a lot about moving heavy objects around underwater, and maintained a friendship that I value to this day. But it's that first dive that always comes to mind when his name comes up.
We see a lot of talk on ScubaBoard about training ... usually it's less than complimentary about how inadequate it is. So I'd like to use this thread to share some stories about the other side of training ... your experiences with mentors who showed you things you may have not even heard about in class, and helped you learn and hone skills that the class only mentioned or introduced you to. And taught you valuable lessons about how to think about diving. In many ways, mentoring is as important to our development as a diver as a formal class ... in some ways more so, because there are no agency constraints or criteria. I've been lucky over the years to have had a few mentors who impacted my diving in ways that classes never did ... and I'll talk about another one of those at some point. But first I'd like to hear some of your stories.
Who were your mentors? How did they impact your diving? And what did you learn from them? One thing I learned from this first mentor that always stayed with me is that the priority in diving isn't about how good you are, how many dives you do, how many cert cards you own, or what equipment you use ... the priority is to have fun. It's something that I try to instill in new divers, because it's so easy for them to put pressure on themselves, to obsess over gear, or their lack of skills, or their fear of "ruining your good time". And remembering this fellow ... who could have probably had a much better dive without the burden of a couple of newbies ... coming up with a huge grin on his face after those two dives has helped me always keep in perspective why I got into diving in the first place.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
It was my second ever boat dive ... my first after AOW class. I was buddied with a similarly-experienced friend ... I don't think either of us had even 20 dives yet at the time ... and we were headed to one of the most popular dive sites in Puget Sound ... Possession Point Ferry. The dive site is advertised as "advanced", and neither of us really understood what that meant. What we knew was we both had a card that said we were "advanced", and for the boat captain that was good enough.
We show up at the boat ... the only two people on board diving wetsuits and rental gear. Most of the folks on board, while sociable enough, kept well clear of us. But this fellow came over and started an amiable conversation. He was clearly enthused about going out and doing this dive ... and more than willing to tell us all about it. As we approached the dive site, pulling into our wetsuits, he asked us if we'd like him to show us around the site ... "I know where all the good stuff is". Are you kidding me? Of course we would! This guy's spent his whole life as a diver, doing thousands of dives as first a military then a commercial diver, and he's asking a couple barely wet behind the ears newbs if we'd like a tour? Lead the way, dude! He looks at this little SL4 dive light my buddy's carrying, and noticed I didn't even have that much, reaches into his bag and pulls out this big-ass eight-cell primary light and hands it to me ... "you're going to want one of these", he says. And with all the enthusiasm of a kid on Christmas Day, off the swim step we go ... 70 feet down to one of the premier wreck dives in our area.
Back in those days I was a human shop-vac ... my dive buddies used to tease me they could see the sides of my tank move when I inhaled ... and so 20 minutes into the dive I'm giving the thumbs-up, indicating that I'm down to the agreed-to pressure. At the surface, I was embarrassed when I noticed that his gauge still read over 2000 psi. He was all enthused about the dive, and what he'd shown us, and I was thinking we probably wrecked this fellow's dive day with such a short dive. I'm changing tanks without saying much, thinking he'll dump us for the second dive. But as the boat sidled over to a place called "The Fingers", he comes up and starts briefing us about the dive site ... just assuming that he'll show us around again ... and seeming just as enthused about it as he had on the previous dive. Off we go on another incredible dive, and once again after what I'd today consider half a dive, I'm giving the ascend signal. Up we come, back on the boat, and this fellow's still all smiles and enthusiasm.
It stuck with me. I've done probably a hundred dives with him since then, took an advanced nitrox/deco class from him years later, helped him with some of his projects over the years, learned a lot about moving heavy objects around underwater, and maintained a friendship that I value to this day. But it's that first dive that always comes to mind when his name comes up.
We see a lot of talk on ScubaBoard about training ... usually it's less than complimentary about how inadequate it is. So I'd like to use this thread to share some stories about the other side of training ... your experiences with mentors who showed you things you may have not even heard about in class, and helped you learn and hone skills that the class only mentioned or introduced you to. And taught you valuable lessons about how to think about diving. In many ways, mentoring is as important to our development as a diver as a formal class ... in some ways more so, because there are no agency constraints or criteria. I've been lucky over the years to have had a few mentors who impacted my diving in ways that classes never did ... and I'll talk about another one of those at some point. But first I'd like to hear some of your stories.
Who were your mentors? How did they impact your diving? And what did you learn from them? One thing I learned from this first mentor that always stayed with me is that the priority in diving isn't about how good you are, how many dives you do, how many cert cards you own, or what equipment you use ... the priority is to have fun. It's something that I try to instill in new divers, because it's so easy for them to put pressure on themselves, to obsess over gear, or their lack of skills, or their fear of "ruining your good time". And remembering this fellow ... who could have probably had a much better dive without the burden of a couple of newbies ... coming up with a huge grin on his face after those two dives has helped me always keep in perspective why I got into diving in the first place.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)