My fascination with the underwater world started with typical kid stuff like tadpoles in streams, frogs around a lake, first fishing trips with a variety of men in my life, and mud. In junior high, I worked as a library assistant for a semester and discovered the marine research section. I read about Jacques Cousteau, Alvin, the Trieste, and many other explorers of the great unknown on planet earth. Float trips during high school included basic snorkeling and free diving in shallow water with a cheap mask and fins from Walmart. Later, my career in IT led me to work at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Marine Biological Laboratory on Cape Cod.
Too much time goes by . . .
My son (soon to be a senior in high school) volunteers with the TNT program (Tomorrow’s Naturalists of Today) at Wonders of Wildlife. It’s a great program for teenagers to both learn about conservation but also to get actively involved. They do educational presentations (including handling some live animals), help at camps and community events, and participate in conservation events like stream cleanups. At one of these stream cleanups at Bennett Springs State Park, there were scuba divers doing cleanup in the water as well as collecting data about the Hellbender Salamanders, which are sensitive to pollution and act as sort of an early warning system.
My son brought up a desire to learn scuba diving. It turns out he’d had a desire for a while and had talked some to a friend of ours who worked with the youth at our church. I was excited at this revelation and realized that it was something I needed to do as well. Our senior pastor and his adult daughter were also interested. So, the four of us decided to take the plunge, literally and figuratively, into the underwater world.
We all took our classes at Diventures in Springfield, MO. The the others took it in 6 sessions over 3 weeks on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I was a bit behind because of needing my doctor to OK it and being unable to use those weekdays due to other commitments. So I took a weekend Friday/Saturday/Sunday class. After the classroom and pool work, we were required to complete certification dives at a later date. We were able to do this together.
I hope to provide some good information and fun as I document my journey with this new hobby which looks like is going to consume a huge part of my life. I will also provide some reviews of my experiences with where we dive, the equipment we’re learning about, and hopefully a lot of photos for you to enjoy.
