Flashback

My first dive experience was at the age of 12 as mentioned in my first post. I was on a family vacation in Pompano Beach, Florida. We found a sign up for a free SCUBA trial in our time share pool. We signed up the whole family, including my brother who was too young and my mom who does not like to swim. The next day we met Jose, a PDIC instructor. He let my sister, dad, and I play around in the pool with the SCUBA equipment and then hooked us into becoming certified divers.

There are 4 open water dives required to become a certified diver, 2 on one day 2 on the next. We got our bcs, regulators, weight belts, and wet suits, well I did not get a wet suit, I got a t-shirt from the dive instructor because I was too small to fit into any of the wet suits that he had, and then it was time to go on our first set of dives.

I was a little nervous on the way out, but I got all of my gear on jumped in the water and waited for the signal to descend. Jose signed that it was time to start our first dive. He went under and I froze. I no longer trusted that my regulator would work under water. Jose noticed that I did not go under, came back up, pointed at me, and signaled that I was going under. More afraid of Jose at that moment then the water, I quickly deflated my bc and began the dive. Still a little nervous, I kept one hand on my regulator and the other on my pressure gauges afraid that at any moment I would be left without air. This fear turned out to be rather unfounded because I regularly came up with more than half a tank when my dad was out of air.

Day number two of diving started with a deep dive, 60 feet. It was on a ship called the Sea Empress and was a feeding dive. We started the dive with the opportunity to feed sting rays and a moray eel. Jose did this dive with such regularity, he could coax the moray out of his hiding spot and wrestle with it. Once all of the food was gone, Jose led us through the Sea Empress. Before it was scuttled, it was completely gutted. On its way down, it flipped upside down providing an easy swim through. Each compartment had openings in the top to allow in light and easy egress if necessary. When we got back to the surface, Jose informed us that a nurse shark usually lived in the first compartment of the wreck. Needless to say, at the time I was very grateful that the shark was absent on that dive. It might have been more than I could have handled at that moment. Now I would love to see the nurse shark.

After the Open Water course with PDIC I was hooked on diving. Now I get the opportunity to teach others and pass on my excitement to others.