- Messages
- 1,035
- Reaction score
- 605
- Location
- Seattle/Singapore/Indonesia
- # of dives
- I just don't log dives
I grew up in NYC. At age 13, I was inspired after listening to a presentation by Bob Marx regarding underwater archeology in NYC. Afterward, I purchased a wetsuit (all rubber with heavy metal zipper), booties, a tin of talcum powder, and mask/snorkel/fins. Since we had little money, we used scrap iron and made our weights in 7th grade metal shop. We started to skin dive in the waters off of Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island, taking trains and buses. The following year, I saved enough money to purchase my own scuba equipment. I visited a shop in NYC and plucked down my meager life saving for regulator, cylinder, etc. Well, by dad heard about my plans and was not happy. He dragged to me to the store and asked that they refund my hard earned saving. Apparently my father did not think that a 14 year old should breath compressed air. I continued to skin dive and spearfish. We used to spear fish and used the local beach BBQs that were set up by local fishermen. They thought we were a hoot.
Scuba came later in Los Angeles, while I was attending graduate school in 1985. A scuba class was offered by a NAUI (ex LA County diver) as part of the PE curriculum. Since our instructor could only teach six of us, he had us swim 1000m and the first six to finish were accepted into his class.
The first three months consisted of two days/week in the pool with numerous drills and good natured harassment. During second semester, two days per week shore diving, mostly @laguna Beach. With freedive gear only, we had to ditch our weight belt, mask, fins and snorkel, surface, freedive back down and don it. Later, we did similar drills with our scuba gear. The class included shore dive rescues and night dives with unspeakable drills and scenarios. The last semester, we combined shore dives with boat dives to Catalina and Channel Islands out of Ventura (?). My nemesis was the water temperature. I used a 7mm rental wetsuit that flooded each time I moved underwater.
Scuba came later in Los Angeles, while I was attending graduate school in 1985. A scuba class was offered by a NAUI (ex LA County diver) as part of the PE curriculum. Since our instructor could only teach six of us, he had us swim 1000m and the first six to finish were accepted into his class.
The first three months consisted of two days/week in the pool with numerous drills and good natured harassment. During second semester, two days per week shore diving, mostly @laguna Beach. With freedive gear only, we had to ditch our weight belt, mask, fins and snorkel, surface, freedive back down and don it. Later, we did similar drills with our scuba gear. The class included shore dive rescues and night dives with unspeakable drills and scenarios. The last semester, we combined shore dives with boat dives to Catalina and Channel Islands out of Ventura (?). My nemesis was the water temperature. I used a 7mm rental wetsuit that flooded each time I moved underwater.
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