BeijaFlor
Contributor
Hello, ScubaBoard - I've been diving for close to 20 years, but only occasionally. I'm a 'tropical vacation' diver, though I've done a fair share of cold-water diving - wrecks off the Delaware coast (just staying outside) and training/practice/bubble-blowing dives in quarries like Guppy Gulch, Bainbridge and Willow Springs, PA.
I wanted to dive since I saw Thunderball as a kid - and got turned to Cousteau's The Silent World by a smart librarian, soon after - but I didn't actually make the plunge until after I took my Mom on a Caribbean cruise for her 80th birthday. I went snorkeling one afternoon in Cozumel, over the "Airplane Reef" near the old cruise terminal, spotted a trio of scuba-divers down on the reef, and got an immediate case of what Sigmund Freud would have had to call "tank envy." Got certified the following winter, and went diving on cruise-ship vacations with Mom until she couldn't go any more - dead, y'know. Did a couple of trips to Palm Beach (and got my first DCI hit, there, some years ago), then I dropped out for a few years and picked it up again in 2010, with a trip to 'the Islands, mon' - now I take two or three trips a year, to places where I can enjoy the reef-life during the day, and the night-life after sunset ...
My certs are NAUI Basic/Advanced, SSI Nitrox (penance after the bends), and most-recently PADI Rec Sidemount. I did that course last December in Pattaya, Thailand; I'd been thinking of trying sidemount, because I'm an air-hog, and the availability of the course plus the poor visibility made it a good option for me. My most recent dives were at the end of April, when I took my newly-rigged sidemount kit to Key Largo for a series of tune-up dives - and a good thing, too, because I had to work out some troublesome problems. Sidemount is finicky ... and I'm still pretty new to it ... but now that I can handle two resort 80s, I won't be first to get low on air. (But I've been warned that sidemount is an entry drug to tech-diving...)
Next week, I'm headed for Boca Chica, just east of Santo Domingo, planning to dive in the La Caleta Underwater National Park. I hope to bring back some good photos that I'll share with the board. And I'm looking for new destinations where I can combine diving by day with ... uh, well ... you know ... kinda like Pattaya?
I wanted to dive since I saw Thunderball as a kid - and got turned to Cousteau's The Silent World by a smart librarian, soon after - but I didn't actually make the plunge until after I took my Mom on a Caribbean cruise for her 80th birthday. I went snorkeling one afternoon in Cozumel, over the "Airplane Reef" near the old cruise terminal, spotted a trio of scuba-divers down on the reef, and got an immediate case of what Sigmund Freud would have had to call "tank envy." Got certified the following winter, and went diving on cruise-ship vacations with Mom until she couldn't go any more - dead, y'know. Did a couple of trips to Palm Beach (and got my first DCI hit, there, some years ago), then I dropped out for a few years and picked it up again in 2010, with a trip to 'the Islands, mon' - now I take two or three trips a year, to places where I can enjoy the reef-life during the day, and the night-life after sunset ...
My certs are NAUI Basic/Advanced, SSI Nitrox (penance after the bends), and most-recently PADI Rec Sidemount. I did that course last December in Pattaya, Thailand; I'd been thinking of trying sidemount, because I'm an air-hog, and the availability of the course plus the poor visibility made it a good option for me. My most recent dives were at the end of April, when I took my newly-rigged sidemount kit to Key Largo for a series of tune-up dives - and a good thing, too, because I had to work out some troublesome problems. Sidemount is finicky ... and I'm still pretty new to it ... but now that I can handle two resort 80s, I won't be first to get low on air. (But I've been warned that sidemount is an entry drug to tech-diving...)
Next week, I'm headed for Boca Chica, just east of Santo Domingo, planning to dive in the La Caleta Underwater National Park. I hope to bring back some good photos that I'll share with the board. And I'm looking for new destinations where I can combine diving by day with ... uh, well ... you know ... kinda like Pattaya?
