Where was your first OW dive?

[Scuba_Signer]

My first OW was off the AquaCat liveaboard in the Exumas, Bahamas.

Steve

 

[Natasha]

These are great. Thanks guys..keep 'em coming.

 

[Robert Phillips]

La Jolla Shores in San Diego, CA.
5 feet of vis until we dropped to the sand and started digging it up!

 

[deep6diver]

Oh Wow! Archive data.. Octopus hole in hood canal washington,middle of winter, it was snowing, water temp first 10 ft was 35degrees, below that to 60 ft was 45 degrees. Two dives, sure remember taking that mask off. brrr 3/8" beaver tail farmer john wet suit. feb 1985, sure wish i hadnt lost that log book.. wonder what i wrote. I do remember seeing my first octopus hehe

 

[Bretagne]

Rodrigues island, Indian Ocean. In August, so the water was not very warm (21 C only), but it was great.

 

[sbloomer]

1989, on the wreck of the Het Huis de Kraaiesteyn, wrecked in a storm in 1698 just south of Cape Town, South Africa. The water was about 6DegC :errrr: , and the visibilty in excess of 30m. Found a couple of cannon and saw my first ever live nudibranchs! I still think it was one of best dives I ever had. It was also the site of my first night dive too...

 

[Padipro]

1985 in the East China Sea off the coast of Okinawa, Japan. I was stationed in Okinawa with the US Air Force and there wasn't much to do there except scuba diving. I remember it was winter time and it seemed cold and the vis sucked, but once summer rolled around the diving was fantastic and I was hooked for life.

 

[heymonkey]

First OW dives (following checkout dives) were at the Coronados Islands of Mexico. The boat was great fun, and after doing checkout dives in a local lake, we were floored by our first ocean experience. My eyes popped wide as soon as my mask hit the water... all those clouds of fish hanging in the blue.

 

[dripdrypoet]

So, where was yours?

I started diving before being certified was a big deal. As a matter of fact, my introduction to the underwater world was a Senior Chief Petty Officer tossing me a tank, and with the instructions “Don’t stop breathing.” we waded into the warm clear waters off of the San Blas Islands in Panama. This was, obviously, in a time (1967) that preceded the popularization of the word “lawsuit.”
It was fun, it was freedom, and the sense of wonder and absolute joy has never left me. It also succeeded in turning me into an addict. Only later did I discover that those strange looking skinny fish I was cavorting with weren’t really fish at all, they were sea snakes. My buddy, like a true know-it-all 20 year-old SEAL type, didn’t really blanch all that much when we got back to shore, he just looked at me in a very peculiar way, shaking his head and muttering something about the grunt having a lot of dumb luck.

 

[Delhi Diver]

My first OW dive was summer 2003 at Dutch Springs, a quarry in Pennsylvania. The surface temperature was 72 F and below the thermocline at 60` it was 56 F (brr). It was a memorable weekend because on my fourth dive, at 26`, I had an OOA emergency! I followed the correct procedure, indicated to my buddy that I was out of air, and suckled from her octo like a thirsty calf. I did manage to inhale some water while swimming towards her without any air coming through my regulator, but I did keep my cool and grab the octo rather than her primary regulator, as some panicked divers are wont to do!

Yes, I keep a careful eye on my air now.