Hi from Virginia!

[safewordisapples]

Hi all! Greetings from Northern Virginia. Just getting back into diving after a few years’ hiatus. I originally certified ANDI OW in 2010, then SafeAir in 2011. I completed the course work for AOW but, as a broke college student at the time, couldn’t afford the certification dives so I never certified. I was enthusiastic about diving for several years and had the opportunity to dive local quarries, vacation dive in Mexico and the Virgin Islands, and take a couple of outings to La Jolla when I was stationed at Camp Pendleton in CA. My last dive was in 2017 right before a deployment and unfortunately my busy professional life kept me away for far too long. Now that I’ve gotten settled in my post-military career and am wrapping up grad school I am very excited to take a skills refresher, get back in the water, continue my training, and get back to the sport I love. I’ve lurked on this board for a long time and the information and advice here has been invaluable in helping me plan to get back into diving safely, so a huge thank you to the whole SB community, glad to finally be a part of it.

I currently reside in Alexandria, VA and plan to be in this area for the foreseeable future so any and all local recommendations for LSDs, clubs, appropriate newbie sites to get some various re-familiarization dives in after retraining, or any random advice is much appreciated!

Much love,
Meredith

 

[narcedoutscuba]

Welcome home I have been in your same area for a year now. Local diving is Lake Phoenix in Rawlings VA about 2.5 hours from Alexandria. As for LDS visit all of them to see which fits your needs. For me I make quarterly trips to Florida for some cave diving. Good luck

 

[RyanT]

Welcome! You might consider Submerged in Rockville for your local LDS. Although I haven't used them myself, they come highly recommended from other dive professionals I know.

 

[safewordisapples]

Welcome home I have been in your same area for a year now. Local diving is Lake Phoenix in Rawlings VA about 2.5 hours from Alexandria. As for LDS visit all of them to see which fits your needs. For me I make quarterly trips to Florida for some cave diving. Good luck

Thank you! I’ve sent a few feelers out to some LDS I saw recommended on here previously to do some orientations, I figured it’s a good opportunity to meet staff, explore training agency/program options for the future, and of course go shopping for some new gear since I stupidly sold mine when I left Cali. Appreciate the tips! I’ll definitely check out Lake Rawlings. I have a friend locally who is newly certifying so once I get some pool time in with her and am comfortable with where we’re both at hopefully I’ll have a regular buddy to get there with. Love the idea of quarterly trips, sounds like fun! Not sure I’ll ever have the stones for cave diving but maybe someday, after I have a few hundred more dives under my belt and have expanded my training I’ll look into it!

 

[safewordisapples]

Welcome! You might consider Submerged in Rockville for your local LDS. Although I haven't used them myself, they come highly recommended from other dive professionals I know.

Thank you! I’ll definitely check them out.

 

[AustinV]

Welcome from not too far from you - I'm right by Dulles Airport.

It was mentioned already but check out Submerged in Rockville for anything you need. There are much closer dive shops to Alexandria, but none of them hold a candle to Submerged as far as in stock gear selection, training, community, etc. They even do in-house hydro testing now!

And yeah, Lake Phoenix is going to be your closest dive spot, but Morehead City NC and Wilmington NC are just a quick drive away and there is amazing diving there.

 

[safewordisapples]

Welcome from not too far from you - I'm right by Dulles Airport.

It was mentioned already but check out Submerged in Rockville for anything you need. There are much closer dive shops to Alexandria, but none of them hold a candle to Submerged as far as in stock gear selection, training, community, etc. They even do in-house hydro testing now!

And yeah, Lake Phoenix is going to be your closest dive spot, but Morehead City NC and Wilmington NC are just a quick drive away and there is amazing diving there.

Thanks! I have some friends down in NC on the coast so a good excuse to visit. Submerged definitely sounds like a great shop, and I hadn’t looked in MD before hearing from you guys here. I’ll bump them to the top of my list to check out!