How you met scuba diving

[edwardjohnson]

Thunderball was my first exposure to scuba diving, but I've always been one of those people who wants to try everything.

I chose pursuing scuba diving before my private pilot's license because the PPL was going to run me around $15,000. I'm now convinced the PPL would have been cheaper

Long story short, it was a bucket list item and I fell in love.

I guess this one´s pretty similar to mine, as a bucket list now that I think about it...

 

[Storker]

I never saw the Costeau documentaries, but I inhaled his books when I was in middle school. Couple that with a love of the water (swam at five, spent as much of the summer as possible in the water with a cheap mask and ditto fins), and you've got a sure-fire recipe for wanting to start SCUBA diving. However, I never managed to cough up the money before I suddenly had a family and a mortgage, so I sort of told myself it'd have to wait until my next reincarnation.

Then, when I was well into middle age (pushing the big five-oh), my son got the bug. It's a lot easier to start diving when you have a bit of that disposable income you missed as a college kid...

 

[SMAE]

The thought of being a scuba diver never crossed my mind. While sitting at the travel agency trying to decide on a vacation spot, my daughter tells the agent that she wanted to learn how to scuba dive. Miraculously, the lady knew an instructor who happened to be giving a class the next day in our neighborhood. We showed up at the pool and after taking our first breath underwater we were hooked. Now I blame my daughter for my scuba addiction!

 

[tom041959]

Jacqueline Bisset

 

[mikeycanuk]

Chinchorro banks back in the summer of '09 or '10. We were doing a snorkeling trip there and Tal the lionfish hunter got a free trip out as our gringo guide, there was already a Mexican guide and boat captain on board. He came fully equipped to dive and my 9 year old son was absolutely fascinated and wanted to go "down" like Tal was doing. Our son took the padi seal team pool sessions a few months later and when he turned 10 we all became certified. The 3 of us just broke 100 dives each last week in Coz!

 

[iamrushman]

great stories in this thread..........

i was always a water person growing up in Hawaii doing all the ocean things such as competitive swimming, snorkeling and surfing. one day i sign up for scuba lessons at a LDS near my house. when i put the regulator in my mouth and sat down underwater and took one breath without coughing or choking i thought it was a miracle. i gave up all other water sports. i have over 1000 dives now and i haven't stopped scuba diving yet. it's like truly being one with nature.

 

[Mike126]

For me like many others in my generation (50's) it was the Cousteau documentaries. Back then when we only had 4 or 5 TV channels (and had to hand crank the TV to get it to work and actually get up to change the channel!) these shows were a treat. I was in love with the sea and would sail whenever I could. When I graduated from college I decided to get certified. A year later my girl friend got her cert. That followed with my first real dive trip to the Caymans and a bare boat diving trip in BVI with 4 other friends.

Sadly, my wife is not a diver but I am trying to get my twin 14 year olds into diving. We have a trip to T&C this June so hopefully they will get hooked....

 

[Fundive123]

When I was young, I loved reading books about sharks and looking at pictures of sharks and wished I could learn how to scuba dive and see them in person and take pictures of them myself. It wasn't until After college, I came across one of my shark books and I told my girlfriend that I always wanted to learn how to scuba dive and asked if she would be interested in taking a certification class with me... later that day we both were enrolled and had our basic gear purchased Now we both try and dive as often as we can and enjoy showing pictures and videos of our scuba adventures to our families.

 

[Avonthediver]

Watching Flipper as a kid and all the trouble a kid could get into! But it was not till I was working or Lockheed Martin that I walked into a dive shop in west Texas and thought what the hell I need a hobby. And now 17 years later I still love the sport and have found I like teaching and seeing new divers take shape and still strech my own limits and move forward!

 

[ScubaSam]

On holiday at the Great Barrier Reef, I signed up for a Discover Scuba and was hooked.

No one in my immediate circle of friends or family dived but thanks to Scubaboard, I have met and dived with more wonderful dive buddies than I ever imagined.