Why do you dive?

[bowlofpetunias]

I realized on my last dive that I don't feel the same about diving as I did when I started. I started diving because I wanted to conquer my fear of the water and get to see what was happening down there. Someone told me that learning to dive to conquer fear was not a good enough reason to learn to dive. My answer was "I get to decide what is a good enough reason for me to do anything. Nobody else has the right to tell me my reason isn't good enough".

I conquered the fear and my reason for diving changed. I went diving to see the fish and share the experience with my buddies. Frankly after a while I started getting a bit bored but I decided I wanted to get a few pictures to show my family before I quit so I bought a point and shoot. I was having fun taking pics to share and found I enjoyed to the challenge of trying to find interesting stuff and take better pics with a slightly better point and shoot. I developed a bucket list of things I wanted to see and get shots of.

That started to lose the gloss but I discovered how much I enjoyed showing others our critters and watching their behavior. Some of our visitors told me they dived for the fun of practicing skills and perfecting technique. I didn't quite see that as fun but each to their own. We had an incident that kinda took the fun away from diving and I was struggling to find the joy in diving. I have just had a forced dry spell for medical reasons. I was hoping that getting back in the water would bring back the Joy I was missing. Well first dive back was yesterday .... no joy... the usual fish.. a few pics .. but it was just so relaxing.

I got to asking myself Why dive? I knew I wanted to continue diving but Why? Thinking about it made me realize that I have transitioned through many answers to Why dive? I have had dives where I hung there and thought "OMG this is MAGIC" but those are fairly rare. I realize that I don't need to find "The Joy of diving again" I just need to be happy with the sense of relaxation I feel when I am underwater. The thing that scared me the most relaxes me the most now. I think I have found my answer for now.. until it changes. I dive for the relaxation and the time I get to meet and share the experience with the wonderful people that make up the dive community.

So Why did you start to dive? Why do you dive now and has your reason for diving changed? I'd love to hear your story

 

[Wingy]

Because I don't know how not to dive. Its what I do.

For 10,000 selfish reasons ive paid a price for in many ways over the years, I live to explore this planet. Ive been a nomad since I was born. I was a baby the first trip to Ningaloo on unpaved roads while my Dad was out there in the late 60s and early 70s. My first nudibranch was a spanish dancer playing in the shallows of Ningaloo at Tantabiddi creek when I was 3 years old that I dragged my dad over to see as he came in from a dive to tell me the ''water butterfly'' i was trying to show him was a Hexabranchus Sanguineus - seriously he told a 3 year old that was what this ''thing'' was.

So I rebelled and decided to roam the planet and travel and I missed out on the opportunity to dive Ningaloo with him because I was a headstrong teenager....and Id give anything for that opportunity now.

Then sitting on a beach in Thailand this bright idea came over me that people actually annoy me because they have personalities, its not their fault, but if i was underwater...they couldn't annoy me there.

So I do that now. My kids have grown up enough to leave them for longer periods now and Im getting older and I have one life and I really dont want the slideshow at my funeral to be me at school assemblies or picnics.

The gloss has long gone off mainstream dive spots for me, they unfortunately end up too crowded and the reef and ecological damage saddens me so I find I travel further and further in search of a planet that hasnt been raped by humans - not just under the surface either.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

What a beautiful post :worship: thank you. When I was working I dived to get away from having to talk to people I refuse to dive with anyone who uses the underwater quacker noise things. I want to "Get a load of the serenity"

 

[Aqua-Andy]

I dive to get away from the world, when I'm in the water everything else just seems to disappear. To me diving is my version of a day at the spa, I guess that is the only way I have to explain how I feel after I get out of the water.

 

[Peter69_56]

Because I can't stop diving. It is my addiction of pleasure. I could not think of not diving. Because I love the challenge and the need to do it right, and in the end its all up to the diver to do it right. Other people cant dive for you and you can't get others to do bits of your diving so you sit back and take it all in. Whilst we have dive buddies, in many ways we are all alone under the water and have to rely on ourselves.

I dive because I can and love the risk/challenge and planning in doing the dive. I would love to do space travel but they are never going to ask little old me to participate so diving is my space travel adventure.

 

[AJ]

So Why did you start to dive? Why do you dive now and has your reason for diving changed?

Funny, I started diving for the same reasons as you did.

When I went to college I passed a dive shop every day. Every day I stood there watching, looking at those beautiful pictures, the fantastic equipment and I said to myself: as soon as you earn enough money to learn to dive, you are taking a dive course. Well, more than 20 years passed (aka life) since then until I went to a NLP (neuro liguistic programming) course. One requirement to pass was: overcome your fear of something! I realised then my fear was sticking my head under water So I registered for a dive class and went to the diving school not knowing what to expect. First lesson: the pool was only 3 m deep, but I stood there with shaky legs not dearing to (litterally) taking the plunge. But eventually I did and what a ride that became

That was a little over a year ago. Since then I did some 135 dives in the Netherlands, Germany and Egypt. Fresh and salt. I am diving now dry suit with a double 12 GUE config aiming at Fundamentals Tech rating and Tech 1. Never imagined I would be doing this :cool3: stuff. Anyway, nowadays I am more training then real diving alas. Not much exciting dive spots around here, at least not to me anuymore. But when I do get to dive a great spot I know why I am putting up with all those boring training dives in the local mud pool. The peacefulness under water and feeling of almost zero gravity to me is still fantastic. The exitement of discovering what lies beneath poses such an attraction to me, that just a few divers a year make up for all those boring training dives. Oh yeah, of course it's also fun discussing gear and bragging about the size of the fish with my buddies

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Oh, my reasons definitely changed over the years I've been diving.

I got into it late in life ... at the age of 49. My ex-wife and I used to go to the YMCA after work ... she to do her jazzercise class while I played basketball with the boys. Now when you're in your late 40's and trying to keep up with a bunch of young bucks half your age, there's a tendency to push yourself a little too hard at times ... especially when you're basically shaped like the basketball ... and so I'd frequently come out of the gym limping, or with some other condition needing medical attention. One night as we were leaving she was going on about how I needed to find something safer to do when I noticed a sign on the wall that said "Learn to Scuba Dive" ... and the starting date for the class just happened to be my birthday. Without even thinking about it I said "Buy me scuba lessons for my birthday and I'll give up basketball" ... it never occurred to me that she'd take me seriously. But she walked right over to the counter and put the money down for the class ... that was nearly 15 years ago and I haven't touched a basketball since.

The class was a little different than most are today ... four weeks long, four hours of class and four hours of pool per week. I'll never forget that first night in the pool ... first they made us do a swim test, then we spent an hour or so learning basic snorkeling skills, and the final hour they finally let us put on the scuba gear, slip into the shallow end of the pool and kneel down. There I was, with the surface just inches above my head, kneeling down in the bottom of the pool breathing underwater. It was amazing. The instructor finally looked at me and gave me a big thumbs-up. "Oh hell yeah, this is the coolest thing I've ever done", I thought as I gave him a big thumbs-up back ... suddenly he stood up and I noticed everyone else but me was also standing. He taps me on the head, and when as I lifted my face out of the water to see what he wanted he explained that the thumb means go to the surface. Oh yeah ... I vaguely remembered him telling us that before we got in the water. But I didn't want it to end ... it was just so amazing.

After the first week they took us out on a "Discover" type dive to make sure we'd like it before we continued. I discovered it was nothing like being in the pool ... there was just so much gear, the wetsuit was constricting, the weights were heavy, the water was cold, and as soon as you touched the bottom everything suddenly went brown ... and you couldn't see your hand in front of you. It was a bit scary, it was exhilarating ... it was the love of my life. I attacked every bit of it with an intensity that, looking back on it, had to have given my instructor some measure of worry that I was going to push myself farther than I really should go. But I made it through the class ... and in the process made a connection with my first "alpha" dive buddy, someone who was every bit as intense and hooked on it as I was. Starting the day after class we hit the water every chance we got.

Initially my reasons for diving were simply that it was a new, thrilling experience ... something to "conquer", and a way to develop a new social circle of friends. As my skills improved I came to realize that what I liked about it was the serenity, and the sense of weightlessness ... I learned how to relax, and that's not something that comes naturally to me. I started diving not for the thrill, but for the sense of relaxation that it brought. It was a great way to "decompress" after a day at work.

Then one day I had to rescue someone. It wasn't a big deal, really ... just a diver caught in a current who needed some help getting back to shore. I remembered my tows sufficient to get us both to a buoy where we could hang on till the current slowed down, then we swam to shore. But that guy kept telling everyone how I'd saved his life (not really ... he would've gone for a ride, but he was on the surface already by the time I got to him), and how I would make a good divemaster. So I thought, "why not", and enrolled in that class. It changed everything. A year and a half later I was an instructor ... and my whole view of diving had fundamentally changed again. I suddenly wasn't doing this so much for me anymore as I was for others. My goal became to help others become better divers.

Sometime after that I discovered wrecks ... and my foray into tech diving began. That changed my reasons for diving yet again. I wanted to seek them out and explore what was inside. I took the training and developed the diving circle for that type of diving. That led to deep dives, trimix, and all the requisite toys needed for deeper dives. And for a year or so I found myself seeking out reasons to go to 200 feet or below and see what was down there. My reasons for diving became the fascination of depth. Then one of my tech buddies scheduled a trip to Florida, to go cave diving ... and that led to yet a different reason to dive. I wanted to see what was inside those holes in the ground. I went to Florida, signed up for a class, and my diving fascination took yet another turn. That one was always limited by distance and the time needed to make trips across the continent, or to Mexico ... and was relatively limited.

Meanwhile, I purchased a camera from a friend and discovered another fascination ... taking pictures underwater. It challenged me to rethink everything I thought I knew about diving. I found that the skills I thought I had "mastered" ... buoyancy control, situational awareness, buddy skills ... were suddenly insufficient. I had to re-evaluate what I thought I knew about diving and improve not just my physical skils, but my mental approach to doing a dive. As Uncle Pug ... the guy who sold me that first camera ... told me after a misadventure where I'd become separated from my dive buddy, "you have to rethink your approach to that dive". And indeed I did ... and that ultimately led to my decision to take up solo diving.

Diving solo led me to yet another reason to dive ... isolating myself from all of the distractions of day to day life. Nowadays, one of my favorite ways to dive is to show up early in the morning ... before dawn ... and watch the "shifts" change as daylight approaches. It's the ultimate in peaceful ... there isn't another human being in the water with me, no boat traffic, no distractions ... just me, my camera, and the wildlife. It's a great way to relax and start the day. I'm often finishing up just as the first other car pulls into the parking lot to start unpacking for their "early morning" dive. That hour or so of "quiet time" is therapy.

Scuba diving has changed me in other ways ... it's given me motivation to keep myself reasonably fit, so I can continue doing it into my older age. It's helped me find a whole new circle of friends ... actually, it pretty much defines my social circle since most of my friends are fellow divers. You can't walk anywhere in my house without seeing either scuba equipment or pictures on the wall of marine life. There is no other activity I've ever done that has so fundamentally touched other aspects of my life. I've gone through a succession of "why I dive" phases, but I can't imagine ever not diving ... perhaps when I'm too feeble to get a tank on my back. But then, I've known people who dived well into their eighties. There's a name for those people ... role models. Maybe I'll just become one of those ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[divad]

I dive to stop language (almost).

 

[Neilwood]

My reason-the relaxation I feel while under water, the things I can see and the people you can meet.

Did I know that when I went for my course? No, it was one of my bucket list items (I want to dive the great barrier reef and of course you need to be able to dive lol) but once I was in the water I just felt at home.

I have also had the opportunity to dive with some incredibly nice people (all of which seem to have a screw loose ) and a wonderful time after the dives have finished with a few beers

 

[ScubaSam]

So Why did you start to dive? Why do you dive now and has your reason for diving changed? I'd love to hear your story

I started diving because I fell in love with the floating and the souring sensation when I did a Discover Scuba Dive at the Great Barrier Reef. Floating weightless as I visited the underwater critters in their world was thrilling and relaxing at the same time. How is that possible?

The following year I got certified and fell in love with wrecks in the Keys, North Carolina, St Lawrence, and Tobermory. A year later, I fell in love with the cenotes and now the majority of my dives are in the fresh water caves of Florida and Mexico.

The only change in my diving has been the dive environments. I always thought I would strictly be a recreational vacation open water diver who visited the reefs once or twice a year. Never in my wildest imagination did I expect to be doing staged, deco, DPV dives in overhead environments. Never did I expect to be diving several times every week, not just on vacation but every week. Diving has shattered all preconceived limits I placed on myself as a diver. It has pushed me out of my comfort zone and I am forever changed because of it.

The most incredible perk of diving has been the people I have met through it. Diving increased my social circle exponentially with all the incredible dive instructors, dive mentors, dive buddies, their non-diving significant others, friends, and children. My life is so much more "richer" because of the people that diving has brought into my life. How fortunate am I?

Special THANKS to Scubaboard because I count many of its past, and current, members as my favorite dive buddies. They are no longer my online acquaintances, they are now my real life friends. Note the plural. Again, how fortunate am I????