How Did You Find Your First Scuba Class?

[txgoose]

I have been snorkeling on family vacations for several years. Two years ago I was able to swim with small sea turtles three different days, twice with the same turtle (had a wounded fin that was distinctive). I have always been curious about snorkeling but that really fired me up. I wanted to be able to go down and stay down and just watch those creatures. I used a family plan to get to Hawaii in 2018 as the impetus to finally pull the trigger. I wanted to have each of us diving in Hawaii where the fundamentals of diving weren't completely brand new. I hope that by the time of our visit, trim/buoyancy (and associated situational awareness of our surrounding) and enjoying the scenery are the bulk of what we have to do. If we have made enough dives, the SPG checks and equalization and buddy checks, etc are approaching second nature.

A buddy told me about his instructor that he really liked. I called. That instructor wasn't getting to teach much but they recommended the instructor that we ended up certifying with. So happy. Much like DiverDownD3 I regret every day that I didn't do it sooner.

 

[Trailboss123]

I was living on a fairly remote island in Thailand near the Cambodia border. I have always been in the water since my youth, growing up surfing and body surfing in Southern California in the 60's and 70's. I traveled extensively through Asia and the South Pacific in my late teens and early 20's surfing and snorkeling. Not sure why I never got the scuba bug? I guess looking back, I was never really exposed to scuba diving. Fast forward many years and I found myself managing a boutique resort in Thailand and I had a lot of my guests going out diving with the one local PADI shop. I referred a lot of diving and snorkeling business to that shop. I would go out snorkeling with the shop on my off days and the bug hit. The rest, as they say, is history. I found myself coming back to the USA and the Pacific NW. Spent a number of years diving up in the Puget Sound and Hood Canal, where I proceeded to get drysuit, advanced, rescue and Divemaster certified. 8 months ago saw me come full circle back to So Cal for a new job. I have found a local dive shop and a number of Instructors to support in my free time and thoroughly enjoy making the Channel Islands my new house reef!

 

[DoubleAA]

Friends invited us on a dive trip to Turks and Caicos. Did a discover scuba in Mexico before the trip and got certified on the trip in Provo. Best decision ever. I now have more dives than those friends.

 

[Schwob]

After my son got certified on the Island of Elba (as part of a youth camp), I needed to catch up so we could dive together and just went with the best-selling deal I found locally on Groupon... Did not put more thought into it than that... That changed a little...

 

[txgoose]

To the OP, this is a great thread BTW.

 

[Steve_C]

Had snorkeled all my life. Just figured scuba was a lot of work and just got you closer to the fish. On a business trip to Hawaii I had a couple days to kill at the end and did a discover scuba. Did a shallow shore dive, swam with turtles, and I loved it. When I returned from Hawaii my wife had knee surgery and I helped her some on the recovery. Good friend at that time ran a dive shop and he sold my wife OW lessons for me. Got certified in a quarry and loved the actual diving from day 1. Its been about 12 years now. The original instructor is now one of my regular dive buddies. Creeping up on dive 500.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I had been freediving for a year and after seeing a leopard shark and batray I agreed with my wife that we should get certified so we could stay underwater longer than thirty seconds. We found a dozen local dive shops and checked out their OW classes. One shop didn't have a pool so they did their confined water portion in a cove where we free dived at. The vis is usually bad there so we skipped them.
One shop in Huntington Beach had the longest class, four weeks and most pool sessions so we went with them. After 28 years of diving I still enjoy it as much as when I was a newbie.

 

[victorzamora]

I stumbled into a cert-free scuba dive in Cozumel, Easter of 2001. My dad was certified but hadn't been diving since 1989. My mom and I were not certified at all. The three of us went with one instructor for an hour long dive. I got hooked and started begging for lessons.

In 2003, I finally convinced my parents to let me get certified. There was one shop in the entire country, so we swang by on my way home from school to sign me up.

 

[GreggS]

Like others have said, I had done some resort dives while on cruises and vacations over the years and had even checked into getting certified but just never got around to it. Three years ago, we were at an fund raising auction at a family resource center near our home and one of the items they were auctioning was a learn to scuba package. My wife bid on it and bought it for me at a ridiculously low price. So I took it, signed up, and became certified. The following year, I bought the package for my wife, although I didn't get it at quite as low a price as she got mine, but it was still ridiculously low.

We both ended up getting certified for much less than the full price for one certification.

 

[seeker242]

I just stopped at one of the local dive shops. There one like every 2 miles or so.