What gave you the itch or motivation to take up diving

[justadyver]

watching sea hunt. I would dream about diving . started snorkeling at age 8 or 9 .got certified when I turned 17.
met my future wife at the dive shop. been my dive buddy for 40 years

 

[icechip]

I remember there was also a Saturday morning cartoon called Sealab 2020. That was cool.

 

[Kimela]

I love seeing everyone being inspired by Sea Hunt and Jacque Couteau! When I was a kid all that stuff wasn't even a pipe dream - it was as if it was for people from another world. Didn't occur to me that *I* could do that. My husband decided he wanted to get certified and told me an ex-girlfriend had done a resort dive with him once. That was enough to goad me into "I must be better, stronger, faster!" mode! One of the best decisions I ever made - even if it was for the wrong reasons.

 

[Scuba Lawyer]

I remember there was also a Saturday morning cartoon called Sealab 2020. That was cool.

Let's not forget Jonny Quest!

 

[Lorenzoid]

I remember there was also a Saturday morning cartoon called Sealab 2020. That was cool.

The new year recently jogged my memory of that show. The year 2020 seemed so far off back then, as was 2001. And where's my flying car?! At least rebreathers have turned mainstream.

 

[maj2]

Several reasons...
1. Living amongst the Great Lakes, I was always interested in the ships that went by every day.

2. I also knew that my great-grandfather sailed in some of those ships in the early 1900s, and that some had later gone down, and that he lost several friends in the great storm of 1913.

3. My parents had a cottage near Tobermory for several years, and I was interested in the shipwrecks around the area.

4. However, the final catalyst was a trip to Cozumel. I did the "resort course" Discover Scuba program and was blown away. When I got home from that trip, I started calling local(ish) dive shops and signed up for an OW class.

That was 2001 and before my daughter was born. My daughter is now diving with me. If all goes well this year, my daughter and I will finally get the chance to dive the wreck of the only ship that I have written documentation of my great-grandfather sailing on.

 

[JustSurfaceInterval]

Jacques-Yves Cousteau, when i was a young boy. They were all so cool...

And then, in the early 90s of the last century, my girlfriend and I, both students, came to the point that we should try out new hobbies.
She looked at the list of sports activities at our university and suggested that we enroll in dance classes. I also looked at this list and suggested we rather take the next item on the list: scuba diving.
The story unfolds better in German, where "Tanzkurs" means "dance class" and "Tauchkurs" means "scuba class" and both German words were in that alphabetical order in the list.
So my girlfriend became my dive buddy and then my wife.

And I still can't dance.

No regrets!

 

[drbill]

I wanted to be a marine biologist ever since I was a young boy living on the east coast of Florida a block from the ocean. I had little desire to spend my time in a lab or on a research vessel, so diving seemed a necessary thing for my work. This was a few years before Cousteau or Sea Hunt, but those shows added to my desire.

 

[Storker]

I've told the story before, but what the heck. It bears repeating.

As a kid I inhaled J-Y Costeaus's books. Me and my siblings spent as much time as possible in the water, wearing fins, a mask and a snorkel. When we got too cold, we donned our track suits, believing they'd work as wetsuits. Of course they didn't. At the end of summer, we were dark brown on our backs and chalk white on the underside. My uncle was a scuba diver, and I got a book about scuba diving as a b-day present. I was hooked. I was certain I'd start diving.

Then life happened. Highschool, college, girlfriend, marriage, apartment, mortgage, kids, house, career. Oh well. Perhaps in my next life. Then, as one of my kids was in their middle teens, they got the bug as well. I knew that one should never dive alone, so my kid needed a buddy. I took one for the team and volunteered to accompany the kid, which meant I had to certify and buy the gear.

And here I am. PADI RD, CMAS 3*, avid scuba diver.

 

[ontdiver]

I had an opportunity when I was about 8 yrs old to try out some gear at a local lake.Taking a course was in the back of my mind for many years but it was not until I was in my 30s during a trip to Australia that I finally got certified But another interval followed and I found myself in Cuba with an opportunity to dive again and this was the motivation to get serious about the sport.