Sas
Contributor
How's that working out for you? I don't know many chicks who dive!!!
With me, I'd always been interested in deep sea creatures and also shipwrecks. When I was a kid (about five) I wanted to be a deep sea diver. Along with all the other things I wanted to be (astronaunt, marine biologist, doctor, race car driver, etc, those are the ones I remember
) I kind of forgot about it for a while (I'm now a software tester 
) and never thought about diving until I was on a trip to Egypt. When we were in Hurghada I was with a group of people and we got offered to go snorkelling or scuba diving. No one wanted to dive other than me so I headed out to a boat alone, they geared me up and chucked me in the water. I really struggled with breathing through a reg so my guide held my head under the water until I stopped struggling and then we swum around for a while - he operated my BC and so on and held my hand through the dive. I hadn't been taught about equalisation (or not to hold my breath) and at one point I dropped too deep and got excrutiating pain in my ears. At this point I bolted to the surface with my guide hanging on my legs. Anyway, despite all this I went back for a second dive, survived that one too - it was terrifying - I remember any time I got too close to coral I would swim madly away in case it stung me and my guide kept trying to calm me down. But I came out of the dives rapt at just the experience of being underwater.
When I got home I never thought about diving, figuring it was something that one only did in the tropics as I'd never even heard of scuba diving locally and I thought the only places to dive in the world were Egypt and the Great Barrier Reef. In Februray last year I happened to be walking down the street right near my house and noticed a scuba shop. On a whim I walked in and signed up for a course, thinking I'd head to the GBR. My OW course was terrible - I was hopeless in the water and scared s***less about being without my mask. But again something about about diving just kept me interested and I passed in the end. Anyway, I've been diving non-stop ever since, mostly local dives, spent over 300 hours in the water, spent an obsene amount of money, been diving in a few different places (Sydney, South West Rocks, Fiji, NZ but still no GBR dive yet!) and been starting to do some training to be able to dive the wrecks and caverns locally. I've also discovered a love of underwater photography and I'm quite comfortable without my mask on now
I haven't found another hobby that even compares to diving.
