I first started diving in 2006. At the urging of a friend who told me that SCUBA was like snorkeling on steroids, I decided to go for it. I am a fairly fearless person so the idea of diving wasn’t so scary to me. I hear people all the time when I bring up the fact I dive have a ton of excuses loaded up as to why they “can`t” dive. Their ears won`t equalize, they`re claustrophobic, they`re afraid of sharks, and so on. My biggest excuse for not learning to dive prior to August of 2006 was I didn’t think I was going to look good in a wetsuit. So I was rolling out of a bar one night and right in the same plaza was a SCUBA center. It wasn’t far from home and so I decided to call them and sign up for lessons. That was in July of 2006 and by the end of August I was able to get in a class. I took a three day crash course and was eligible for my open water certification within a weekend. I wasn’t able to get on a trip to go for the open water portion until November. I purchased some good fins, a 5mm Henderson Gold Core wetsuit, some other tidbits such as safety sausage, whistle, dive knife, lights, and was ready to go. I found a carpool partner for the trip to San Carlos, Mexico. I had never been to Mexico before so this trip was a trip of firsts. My first time to Mexico, first time SCUBA diving, and first time visiting a strip bar. Details to follow on that last one.

The shop I dived with, Scuba Specialties was the best dive center in Arizona. The instructors were second to none, the facility was fantastic, and they did a great job keeping everyone together on the trips for the camaraderie and friendships being established. For the open water skills, my instructor was shop co-owner Frankie Smith. Frankie is a lot of fun as well as being a Master Instructor with loads of experience and a talent for making you feel calm and secure. We had to split the students up into two groups and I was diving with Frankie and a set of twin girls whose father was with us to help. Their dad was a divemaster. The first dive was just to follow Frankie around and get comfortable breathing under water and to look around at the marine life. There were a lot of sea lions there and they were swimming along with us and playing. Going through the skills is quite the gauntlet. I did pretty well until the last dive on the second day. I was getting tired and the second to the last skill I had to do was mask removal and clearing. During our classroom session, our instructor, Gary, said somehow, some time, somewhere, no matter how experienced you are, something is going to flip you out and you are going to spew your reg out. I thought, no way, not me! I`ll never do that! Well, when I removed my mask, I opened my eyes and I freaked out when the salt water burned them. I spit out my regulator and Frankie had to wrangle me back to reality, he jammed the reg back in my mouth and I completed the skill. I gave him the OK signal and he sent me off with Beau, a divemaster, to swim around and calm down. I had kicked up enough silt from flailing that I caused poor visibility, but I followed Dive master Beau for a while. We surfaced a little ways from the ship and had a surface swim. Being inexperienced I had way too much air in my BC and it was strangling me. I tried to swim but there was a current and I was exhausted from the incident down below with the mask. I begged Beau to help me and we did tired diver tow. I did my last skill which was releasing the weights and re-installing them. I had trouble with one of the pockets and Beau couldn`t even get it so he let it go. I got back on the ship, ditched my gear and went to sit on the bow to catch some sun and mellow out. We were at a site called Eagle Rock which is right up against a large rock wall where the waves roll and cause some light turbulence. There were waves and the ship was rocking. I started feeling worse and worse and worse. The guys were very attentive and kept asking me if I were okay. Being the rugged independent trooper, I kept saying I was just fine. Soon I admitted that I wasn`t fine. I was getting very seasick. They told me to get out of the sun and so I went and sat in the middle of the ship. Beau brought me some cold fresh water and I drank it, but he told me to pour it on my head. I did and it made me feel a bit better. But, that didn`t last and before I knew it I was chumming off the side. All I had in my stomach was water and so that`s all there was. Izzy, one of the instructors, laughed at me and asked me if I was feeding the fish. I said, well, kind of…if they like water! So I got my open water certification. I went back to my room and calmed myself for the night`s festivities. We went to dinner and I bought Beau a nice shot of expensive tequila. He asked me if I would be interested in going dancing and I said sure! Here`s where the strip club comes in. I was shocked at first, but thought there is one of two things I could do. I could get indignant and ask to be taken back to the hotel, or I could have more tequila. The tequila won out.

After that I was hooked on SCUBA. I made another trip to San Carlos the January after that trip. Once again I was with Scuba Specialties and this time the instructors aboard were Kendall, the shop owner, and John Flanders who is now the owner of Academy of Scuba. I was fun diving and ended up with Leslie, a Dive Master, as my dive buddy and roommate. January was mortal cold and it took some getting used to. I didn`t even complete the final dive on the last day as my feet were turning purple. But it was great being able to dive for the fun of it and not have to go through all those skills! I ended up driving down there all alone, I couldn`t hitch with anyone else nor did I have any passengers. I don`t mind going alone as I listen to audio books and keep myself entertained. As I mentioned, I am relatively fearless and don`t get too nervous about things like driving into Latin American countries by myself. On the first dive I lost my snorkel and the second dive, Leslie found it. We stayed at the same dive site and as fate would have it, there the thing was. I`ll bet there are a lot of snorkels and various other SCUBA knick-knacks laying on bottom. I had to surface first as at the time I was an Air Sucking Pig (ASP) and seemed to go through my tank faster than anyone else. I was feeling so mellow and at ease, but when I surfaced I noticed the ship`s motor was on and there was a commotion on deck. I saw three of the fun divers cutting the wetsuit off Ron, one of the students getting his open water certification. I hurried to get on board and John came up behind me and demanded me to move aside! I jumped back and let him on first. The surface support then helped me on and I stayed out of the way. Turned out the three fun divers were EMT`s and Ron had suffered a diving accident. Later on we found out what happened. They were on bottom doing their skills and when John went around the group asking everyone what they had left for air, Ron indicated 500psi. So John told him to get with Beau and head up. Well, Ron wasn`t too comfortable apparently because it does get harder to breathe when the tank is low. He began to panic and therefore started aspirating water in through the corners of his mouth. Beau was pressing Ron`s reg to his mouth to make sure he didn`t spit it out. After Ron was in full on panic, Beau released his gear and brought him up. He was unconscious by then and luckily the firemen EMT`s were on the job! They managed to resuscitate him and as soon as everyone was back on board we headed out. A faster ship met us up and took Ron, one of the EMT`s and Kendall out of there. They took him to the Naval Hospital in Guyamas for the night. Kendall stayed with him. Needless to say, Ron`s diving was over for the weekend. The next day we went out again and everyone completed their certification and I only dove the one dive that day as I was freezing.

Since then I have earned my advanced level PADI cert. I have traveled to Grand Cayman (see The Grand Cayman Adventure), St. Maarten, Bonaire, and Curaçao for diving. I have also been back to San Carlos many times.