Interesting thread. I'd say my diving (interest, at least) has plateaued a number of times.
Back in the early 90's, my brother and I were kicking around Cancun, basically being low-budget-hippie-stoner-chick-chasing-surf-bums, but then stumbled into getting certified by a buddy that worked for Aqua World, diving virtually every day that wasn't pouring rain, and through him and another instructor freind, clawed our way through the cert levels to Divemaster.
Various "adventures" ensued (like,
seriously), but I eventually went to work for a small mom-and-pop marina, then did a PADI IDC, and went to work as an instructor for Aqua World myself, basically doing sales and instructions at one of their hotel spots (while my brother was also at Aqua World by this point, divemastering and running their videography gig).
I was still in love with diving, and regularly volunteered to divemaster the night dives, since the day crews usually didn't want to unless they had to, and it was a way to get some bottom time.
Somewhere along this point I was briefly introduced to cave diving, as well as deep/technical diving, which really piqued my interest, and I dove into borrowed copies of various manuals, and started making weekend trips down to Playa or Cozumel.
I eventually got a foot in the door of Cozumel, via a buddy that went to work for the husband/wife owners of two small operations there, and started divemastering boat trips, for virtually no money, but absolutely loved it !!! Those were truly "the best of times!"
They let me do multi-tank deco dives when I wasn't working, which was what I was into (at this point, I was stupidly hoping to beat Bret Gilliam's depth record on air, not even realizing his record had already been topped.)
But, i got over the deep phase (as evidenced by the fact that I'm still alive!), but later started the series of cave certs, finished those, and me and a buddy started doing long exploration dives. At this point, I basically
lived cave diving.
But, one year, high season rolled back around, meaning free time was going to be scarce, I kinda lost that loving feeling, and sold all my beloved Dive Rite cave gear, and went back to splashing around the shallow-end with the tourists.
I was in kind of a holding pattern/limbo mode, and only diving when work required it (one of the aforementioned plateaus).
I did have a brief photography phase, and an antique bottle hunting phase, where I'd hop on the afternoon boat trips, and jump in by the Plaza Las Glorious, and solo dive with the current back to the pier in town (and I do have a pretty cool collection of interesting old bottles to show for it).
But mostly, I was kinda bored, so I decided to bail on the tropics and head back to the states.
But, 6 months of a "real" job, and I got to missing the whole thing again, so I finagled my old job back, packed up and moved back to Cozumel. Got my tan back, rode off a little belly weight, and
bazinga ! It was like I never left!
I was loving it all over again, even just divemastering trips, but then, it eventually got to just be a job again, (another plateau) and I got bitten by the bike racing bug, and devoted most of my attention to that for a couple years, and again, only diving when work required it.
By then I was in my early 40's, and felt like my bike racing 'career' (LOL) was wrapping up, and the whole scuba diving / living-in-paradise-thing was starting to wear thin, and once again, (like an idiot), I packed up and moved back to the states (a long distance relationship with a girl back here, was also a factor).
But, lo & behold, as the years went by, I gradually started missing the water again, and have been ruminating on heading back down to the isla at some point. I still have a number of freinds down there, that I keep in touch with, and I've even scraped together a pretty decent pile of scuba gear, on the cheap, mostly via Ebay and Craigslist, so......
who knows ?
(apologies for the long-winded autobiography, I got carried away!!
)
