Wreck diving: Beware of entanglement

by B. N. Sullivan

What:  This photo of Jerry ascending from a wreck dive is a reminder that the potential for entanglement is one of the hazards of diving on natural wrecks.  Wrecks that have been intentionally sunk as artificial reefs and diver playgrounds usually are prepared ahead of time to minimize hazards that could lead to diver entanglement or entrapment.   Doorways and portholes are removed or welded open, and cables, lines, and other sources of entanglement are taken off the vessel.  This is not the case with natural wrecks, i.e., vessels that have sunk as a result of an accident, or war.  Proper training in wreck diving will educate the diver about how to recognize and cope with the risks entailed in diving on natural wrecks.

Where:  I took this photo of Jerry at the site of the wreck of the Zenobia, a modern ship that sank in 1980 off the coast of Larnaca, Cyprus.  The Zenobia was a huge vessel, more than 172 meters (560 feet) in length, with a beam of about 23 meters (75 feet).  Click here to see a photo of the Zenobia, just before she sank.

We made a number of dives on the wreck of the Zenobia in the 1990s.  In case you missed our series of articles about those dives (with photos), here they are:

• Diving the Wreck of the Zenobia - Introduction
• The Wreck of the Zenobia - A Brief History
• First dives on the wreck of the Zenobia
• Bottom Time on the Wreck of the Zenobia
• Diving Inside the Zenobia's Parking Deck
• Final Dives on the Wreck of the Zenobia
• Photo: Our friend Joe photographs Jerry on the wreck
• Photo: Diving on the Wreck of the Zenobia

Diving Is Not for Everyone

by B. N. Sullivan

We are contacted rather frequently by readers who want to know if we are diving instructors. After reading The Right Blue, they say, they want to learn how to dive, and they would like to learn from us.

We are always touched and flattered by those kinds of messages, but we have to say that no, we are not dive instructors. Both of us are trained and certified as divemasters, but we don't work as divemasters or dive guides either. As we explained in a much earlier post, we became certified as divemasters out of self-interest -- so that we would be qualified to manage our own dives, both at home and when we travel.

Nevertheless, we have coached many new divers to help them develop their skills, and we have advised many others on issues pertaining to diver training, equipment choice, and the like. We are happy to share what we know -- we just do it in an informal manner.

Quite recently, we have had a flurry of inquiries from people who are just beginning their first diving course, or who are thinking of doing so in the near future. Several have expressed a combination of enthusiasm and reservation: They want to learn to dive, but at the same time, they are more than a bit scared.

We have responded individually to those inquiries, but we thought it might be a good idea to share publicly some of what we said, for the benefit of other prospective divers who were too shy to ask us directly. This will be the first in a series of articles about learning to dive.

If you love being in and around the water, you're in reasonably good physical shape, you love to swim and are comfortable in lakes or the sea, and you want to learn to dive, go for it! Seek out a reputable instruction program that offers a widely recognized certification, and dive right in.

But what if you're not such a good swimmer? What if most of your swimming has taken place in pools and you're worried about diving in open water? Should you sign up for a scuba course and hope for the best?

Every dive instructor can recount stories of people who showed up for their first dive class, barely able to doggie paddle across the width of a backyard pool. What were they thinking? One total non-swimmer who showed up for a class run by an instructor friend of ours said she figured it didn't matter that she didn't know how to swim on the surface. She believed that having an air supply would make up for the fact that she didn't even know how to float! The instructor gently pointed out that eventually she would at least need to swim to and from the beach or dive boat, so if she couldn't do that, she would not be able to proceed with the dive course.

If you are not a reasonably good swimmer, or if you are not confident of your skills in the water, it might be a good idea to work on improving your swimming skills before you begin diving instruction. You don't have to be a champion swimmer, you don't need to be able to swim fast, and you don't need to have perfect form, but you should have mastered basic competencies like being able to tread water for several minutes, swim several lengths of a pool un-aided, and so on.

If most of your swimming has been in pools, and rarely in natural bodies of water - lakes, rivers, sea -- then you may feel anxious when you first venture into open water. There's something about all that open space -- the lack of visible walls and a nice flat, clean pool bottom -- that unnerves some people the first time they go swimming in the ocean or a large lake.

Lots of pool swimmers have good basic skills, but they have to learn what to do about things like surface chop, swells, waves and currents. They often have initial fears about all those creatures in the open water, too. If you have been mostly a pool swimmer, we advise that you spend some time snorkeling in natural bodies of water before you begin scuba lessons, just to become more comfortable with the conditions and surroundings.

Some people sign up for scuba instruction solely because they are urged to do so by someone else. Their spouse or significant other (or parent, child, cousin, friend) either is a diver, or is learning to dive, and wants a companion. We would be the first to tell you that having a regular dive partner that you know well away from diving is a wonderful thing. But if you are going to take dive lessons only because someone else has urged you to do so, it may be a mistake -- especially if some of the factors above, relating to swimming skills and comfort in the water, also apply.

Lots of couples and pairs or groups of friends learn to dive together. Some become lifelong dive companions. However, if you are otherwise uninterested in diving, or you are uncomfortable in the water, but you are being nudged to go through a course to satisfy someone else, you might want to reconsider.

Again, the key factor is comfort. If you are not at ease while swimming in the ocean or a lake, if you are not confident of your swimming skills, diving may not be right for you at this time. Once you spend more time in the water, and once you improve your skills so that you feel relaxed, then you can think about learning to dive.

We hope the title of this article does not put off would-be divers. We like to promote sport diving for people who really want to do it, but some people are just not well suited to be divers. We think it's better to take a realistic look at your own suitability -- your skills and limitations -- ahead of time.

If your skills or comfort level in the water are less than optimal but you really want to dive, you can and should prepare to do it. If you are planning to learn to dive only because someone else wants you to do it, think again. Diving is not for everyone.

Air Sharing Pointers for Divers

by B. N. Sullivan

Basic diver certification courses all include instruction on air sharing. (For our non-diving readers, 'air-sharing' refers to more than one diver using the same air source.) This is a very basic and essential skill, and these days it is also quite easy, in principle.

Back in the day when I first learned to dive, SCUBA regulators only had one second stage, i.e., the part of the regulator that includes the mouthpiece. In order to share air, one diver had to take the regulator out of his/her mouth and hand it to the other diver. The second diver would take a breath or two, and then pass the regulator mouthpiece back to the first diver. This alternating pattern would continue until the divers could surface. The procedure worked, of course, but it could be quite awkward. Also, since neither diver could breathe continuously, both divers could end up experiencing considerable anxiety.

These days, most divers use regulators that have two second stages, each attached to its own low-pressure port on the regulator's first stage, i.e., the part that connects to the valve of the air cylinder. Look at the photo of our friend Dan on this page. You can see that his regulator has two second stages. The hose of the primary one passes over his right shoulder, and he is breathing through the mouthpiece. The hose of the secondary one passes under his arm, with the mouthpiece attached to his vest with a quick-release clip. This is a standard sport diving configuration.

In a popular alternative configuration, the inflator hose for the diver's buoyancy compensator has a mouthpiece on it so that it can double as a breathing device.

The advantage of using regulators with two second stages should be obvious: two divers can share the same air source simultaneously and continuously, without the need to pass the mouthpiece back and forth between them. This makes air sharing much easier, and is less anxiety-producing.

Divers are taught how to signal to each other that they need to share air, and the procedure of handing off the secondary regulator to the diver in need of air is practiced during training. They are taught that as soon as air sharing begins, the divers should begin their ascent together.

I take issue with this aspect of diver training. It seems to assume that the divers are right underneath their boat, or near to their exit point if they are shore diving. In real life, things are not often so tidy.

What happens if the divers are a good ten minute (or longer) swim away from their boat or exit point? What if they are near the deepest point of a deep dive? What if it is not prudent to surface immediately because of some other hazard -- e.g., boat traffic, or a strong surface current.

Over the years we have been in a few situations when we had to share air, and we have witnessed many other divers in such situations. Rarely, if ever, have these events happened right under a boat or very near to our exit point. Divers need to understand this and prepare for it, or they may find themselves in deep trouble (pun pointedly intended).

If the diver always stays very near to the boat or exit point, and doesn't go very deep, air sharing using the procedure taught in initial training, which I described above, probably will be sufficient. Otherwise, divers need to plan for -- and practice -- sharing air during a long swim, and during an ascent that may have to include a five minute 'safety stop' at 5 meters.

In order to facilitate swimming a longer distance while sharing air, one of the regulator's second stages should have a long hose. When divers are sharing air via a regulator with a 'standard' hose length of, say, 27 inches, they necessarily have to be very close to each other. It's difficult to swim while physically close to another diver, but that is what's required when both are sharing air and both are attached to the same air cylinder by relatively short hoses. It is much better to have a much longer hose on one of the second stages -- say 40 inches or even longer.

Won't a longer hose be a nuisance when not sharing air? Not really. You can do what cave divers do: bundle it and secure the bundle with a bungee cord. Alternatively, you can feed the longer hose under your right arm and across your front, securing the mouthpiece somewhere on the left side of your gear, instead of the right side where most divers stow their secondary reg mouthpiece. (Just be sure you show your buddy where it is before you begin the dive!)

By the way, if you do need to share air from a regulator using two shorter hoses, and you have to swim any distance, we figured out that it is easier to swim with one diver positioned above and a little behind the diver with the air supply. Imagine that the diver with the air source is going to give the air-sharing diver a piggy-back ride -- except the two divers swim, one a bit above the other. The 'top' diver can hold on lightly to the other diver's shoulder to maintain position and stay in place.

Now, a final note, but a very important one: practice. Practice air sharing while swimming longer distances. Practice air sharing while hovering at a depth of five meters as you would for a safety stop. (This is much easier to do if you have a regular dive partner, but even if you don't, get someone to practice with you from time to time.)

Ever since we began diving together, we have occasionaly practiced swimming at least ten minutes while sharing air. We also have practiced sharing air while hovering in place for a safety stop. We have done this exercise three or four times a year. Then one day, while we were more than a 10 minute swim from our exit point, and at a depth of about 120 feet (37 meters), a high pressure hose on my regulator popped. Oh the bubbly froth that instantly ensued! But there was no panic. Jerry passed his secondary reg mouthpiece to me right away, and turned off the valve on my air cylinder. The two of us set off toward our exit point, swimming easily together -- side by side, but with enough space between us that it was not at all awkward or cumbersome, thanks to a longer-than-standard hose length on Jerry's secondary reg. We even did a five minute safety stop before surfacing. Our practicing had served us well.

Learning to dive, 1970 style

by B. N. Sullivan

From the moment I first put on a dive mask at the age of 10, I was hooked on seeing whatever there was to see under the surface of oceans and lakes. And from the time I knew there was such a thing as scuba diving, I wanted to learn how to do it. My chance to become a scuba diver came in 1970.

I was living in Greece at the time. In those days, most Americans living in Greece belonged to the American Club, a focal point for expat activities. The club was housed in a once majestic old hotel building in Kifissia, a suburb north of Athens. Among other amenities, its facilities included restaurants; a bar; a bookshop full of the latest American newspapers, magazines, and books; meeting rooms that were let out to members for various activities; and a very nice swimming pool. Every American I knew stopped by the American Club at least once a week for one reason or another.

One day in the spring of 1970, I dropped by the American Club and saw a hand-lettered notice on a bulletin board there. It advertised an upcoming scuba diving class. I couldn't believe my eyes. I was ecstatic!

The scuba diving classes were being offered by an organization called the Marathon Diving Club (MDC). The club was founded by a couple of American men who had learned to dive in the U.S. Navy. They started the club as a means of getting together a pool of potential dive buddies in the Athens area. The only trouble was, scuba diving was quite a new sport in those days, and there were few people about who had learned how to do it. So, hoping to recruit new divers into the fold, the club's founders decided to offer diver training classes.

They ran their first class in 1969. I was in the second class, in 1970. The basic classes were held in a meeting room at the American Club. The MDC instructors had learned to dive in the Navy, and since that is what they knew, we learned to dive the U.S. Navy way.

They put together their own syllabus, and taught us the basics of underwater physics, diver physiology, principles of diver safety, and dive gear maintenance. We had no text. Instead, our instructors gave us hand-outs that were excerpts from the U.S. Navy Diving Manual. (I subsequently ordered a copy of the manual from the U.S. Government Printing Office, and I still have it on my bookshelf -- all 668 pages, not counting the index!)

When we had learned all the theoretical bits to their satisfaction, and had passed our written tests, our instructors took us into the American Club swimming pool. There we would eventually learn basic practical skills and try the equipment, but not before the instructors were satisfied that we could 'handle ourselves' in the water.

We had to demonstrate that we could swim the length of the pool underwater, without coming up for a breath. We had to retrieve heavy objects from the bottom of the deep end of the pool, after having swum there underwater from the shallow end. We had to tread water for what seemed like hours - with no fins, and with hands above the head. Only then did we get to put on a mask and a scuba tank to see how that felt.

We learned how to clear water from our masks and our regulator mouthpieces. Then we did an exercise called "doff and don," in which we had to go into the pool in full scuba gear, swim to the bottom of the deep end, take off all the gear, put it in a neat pile, and swim back to the shallow end without it. That was the "doff" part. For the "don" part, we had to dive back down to the bottom of the deep end and put all of the gear back on, piece by piece, and swim back to the shallow end of the pool underwater with everything on correctly, masks cleared, and breathing through the scuba regulator. We did this exercise over and over and over.

When the instructors were satisfied that we knew how to use the equipment properly, they took us to Schinias Beach on the Marathon coast so that we could repeat the exercise in the sea. The spot they selected was about 30 ft deep, with a sandy bottom. We had to suit up on the beach, swim out to a marker, dive down to the bottom, remove all of our gear, pile it up on the sandy bottom, and make a free ascent to the surface. After a few breaths of fresh air on the surface, we had to free-dive 30 ft back down to the bottom, put all of our gear back on, and then make a controlled ascent to the surface.

For those who managed to survive the dreaded doff and don exercise in the Aegean Sea, the final phase of training consisted of diver harassment. Yes, that's right -- harassment. Remember, these instructors were Navy divers, so they taught us much like they had been taught themselves. Hey, if it was good enough for U.S. Navy divers, it was good enough for us!

As the students swam around underwater on their first dives, happy as all get out to be diving in the sea on scuba at last, the instructors would sneak up from behind and turn off a diver's air, or suddenly pull off his/her mask (and other such indignities). The rationale was that a diver had to be ready for any emergency or irregularity, and be able to solve the problem in place. We were supposed to be able to cope, without panicking. In short, we had to know how to rescue ourselves.

This brand of diver training was not for wimps, to be sure, but the upshot was that the MDC instructors turned out a lot of very competent -- and confident -- divers over the years. I did not realize how good my initial diver training had been until, years later, I undertook several more advanced training courses. For example, I remember noting that most of the emergency procedures and 'advanced' self-rescue principles that were taught during my Rescue Diver course were a mere review for me. I had been required to learn most of that in my initial course, so many years before.

Next, I'll begin telling our readers about some of the amazing adventures the members of the Marathon Diving Club had together, way back when. First, I'd like to say thanks to an old friend, "Big Jer," my first dive instructor. We chatted at length on the phone yesterday, reviewing how the MDC and its diver training course came to be. I wanted to be sure I had all the details right, before I set forth the story here for all the world to read. (By the way, Big Jer still dives!)

Diving then and now - Part 1

by B. N. Sullivan

One of the earliest posts in The Right Blue tells about our training as divers. In the post I mentioned that I first learned to dive in 1970. That's right -- 38 years ago!

Diving has changed a lot since 1970, mostly because of improvements in equipment. We decided it would be fun to review the progression of those changes for our readers. This exercise will take several posts, so bear with me.

To start things off, have a look at the picture at left. That's me, in 1970, when I was a newly minted diver. (No, I wasn't angry -- the sun was in my eyes!)

When we first unearthed this old photo, I had to laugh. That red thing I'm wearing looks like a life vest pilfered from an airliner, but it's not. Known as a 'horse-collar' vest -- for reasons I'm sure are apparent! -- it was used primarily for surface flotation.

Dive gear is very heavy, and can be cumbersome. Swimming on the surface with, among other things, a metal tank on your back, and lead weights arrayed around your waist can be incredibly daunting at times. When the flotation vest was inflated, it helped counteract that weighed down feeling, and enabled divers to keep their heads above water while waiting for a boat, or swimming to shore. Those horse-collars were not very comfortable, however.

The vests had little CO2 cartridges inside. The CO2 could be released to rapidly fill the vest in an emergency, but most of the time, we blew the things up by puffing into the little inflator hose. The CO2 cartridges were single-use only, and it was expensive to replace them all the time, so we really did restrict ourselves to using them only when we were struggling or in a jam.

Fortunately those dopey horse-collar vests with the CO2 cartridges are no longer used by sport divers. They've been replaced by buoyancy control devices (BCDs for short), in the form of vests, jackets, or pouches (called 'wings') attached to a harness. These days, BCDs are inflated at the push of a button, with air supplied from the scuba tank through a special low-pressure hose. Divers can and do still use the BCD for flotation on the surface, but they also make use of the device underwater. By adding a little puff of air to the BCD at depth, divers can adjust their buoyancy, compensating for the weight of their gear.

The next thing I spotted in the photo was the tank -- or rather the valve on the tank -- and the regulator. We were using "J-valves" on scuba tanks at that time. There was no such thing as a submersible pressure gauge, so we could not monitor how much air we had left in our tanks once we entered the water. Tanks fitted with "J-valves" had a mechanism that blocked the diver's air supply at a certain (low) pressure level. The valve had a lever on it that the diver could pull to release the remaining air, known as the 'reserve' air. Believe me, that reserve wasn't much, but it would provide a few more breaths -- usually enough to get to the surface (we hoped!).

The regulator in the photo is a single-hose demand flow regulator, which was a pretty sophisticated rig at that time -- compared to, say, a double-hose regulator. Those old double hose regs required the diver to sort of suck the air out of the tank! We still use single-hose demand flow regulators, but the ones we have now have numerous ports on the first stage -- the part that attaches to the tank valve. To those ports we attach various pieces of gear, including power inflators for our BCDs, submersible digital pressure gauges so that we can continuously monitor our air supply, and one or more extra second stages -- the part of the regulator that has the mouthpiece -- to facilitate sharing air with a dive partner if need be.

Note the clunky old analog depth gauge that I'm wearing on my wrist in that photo. Key pieces of dive management gear in those days were the depth gauge and the dive watch or timer. Those relics now have been replaced by digital electronic decompression computers which continuously sense depth, keep track of elapsed time, and recompute every few seconds how long we can safely remain at a given depth -- as well as many other bits of information that I won't go into until another time.

Even our wetsuits have changed. The one I'm wearing in the photo had no lining and was extremely difficult to get into -- just rubber against skin. Everyone carried a box of cornstarch or a can of talc in their gear bags then. We applied it liberally before donning our suits, but it made quite a sticky mess, and often didn't help the process all that much. These days our suits are lined with Polartec or other soft materials that make them as easy to slip into as a pair of jeans.

Ahh, the good old days!

Since you've asked: Answers to readers' questions

You may have noticed a tab that says "Contact" up there on the navigation bar in the header. If you click on it, a form opens where you can type a private message to us.

Most of the messages we've had so far have been greetings from family and friends who didn't want to post a public comment, but wanted us to know they had visited The Right Blue. Other messages actually have been questions, which we have answered privately (as long as the questioners left an email address).

Some of the questions we get reflect curiosity about who we are and how we got to travel to so many places and do all these dives. One questioner asked it this way:

"How do you get to go to all these places? Are you independently wealthy or something?"

Independent, yes; wealthy, no.

Joking aside, please realize first that the stories and photos we feature here represent decades of diving experiences. As we explain on our About page, The Right Blue is essentially a memoir of our thousands of dives, so many of our stories are about events that happened quite a while ago. Indeed, we really did go to all those places, but we did so over a long period of time.

I should mention as well that we both did international work for most of our careers. Naturally that entailed a lot of travel, plus several stints of living overseas for years at a time. Some of the places we've dived may seem exotic, but they were relatively near to where we were living during a certain period, not halfway around the world. Many of our dive trips actually were tagged onto the end of business trips. In fact, we came to be quite well known for doing that!

Another question we have been asked repeatedly is whether we are instructors of either diving or underwater photography. The answer to both those questions is "no." Over the years we have coached many new divers and photographers, but we have never taught diving or photography in a formal way, nor do we intend to. We'll leave the teaching to the very well qualified folks who do that for a living.

Although we never pursued instructor training, we both are divemasters. We decided to get our divemaster licenses not because we wanted to work as divemasters or dive guides, but because it made our lives easier when we traveled to dive, especially after I began taking pictures underwater.

As a rule, underwater photographers do not like to dive with groups. For one thing, photographers like to move along at their own pace (and sometimes that means staying in one spot for the entire dive). Also, groups of divers are likely to scare off some of the critters the photographer wants to shoot, and they can stir up silt and sand, blow a lot of bubbles, or accidentally swim into the background of a scene at the wrong moment -- all of which can end up spoiling a shot.

It is customary for dive centers and charter boats all over the world to take divers in small groups to see the underwater sights, led by a qualified guide, for safety reasons. We discovered, however, that most operations will allow divers who are licensed instructors or divemasters in their own right to go off on their own if they wish, following a single check-out dive to verify skill level and familiarity with conditions. The reasoning is that if you are officially qualified to manage or train other divers, then you must be qualified to look after yourself. (In many cases, this boils down to a liability question.)

We went through divemaster training as a means to an end: We wanted to be able to manage our own dives if we wished to, regardless of where we were in the world. As it turned out, it opened other doors for us as well, but independence was the real reason we became divemasters.

Learning underwater photography -- the easy parts

by B. N. Sullivan

A lot of the tales that will be told in this blog will center on a photo, or series of photos, that I've taken underwater.  I came late to photography as a hobby -- underwater and otherwise. Until the late 1980s, I had never taken any photos except for the usual family stuff -- holidays, birthday parties, trips -- and always with a point-and-shoot camera.

From the time I began diving in the early 1970s, I had often wished I could show non-divers the wonderful things I saw on my dives. I'm usually pretty good with words, but in so many ways there were just no words to describe the stunning scenery or the fascinating critters I saw beneath the surface of the sea. So, I began to think about getting an underwater camera. I couldn't afford a "good" one until the late 1980s, when I bought my first Nikonos V camera body and a submersible 35mm lens for it, just like the one in the photo above.

My first attempts at underwater photography were truly dismal. I understood nothing about photography, and even after reading a few how-to books, I still couldn't figure out how to adapt terrestrial photography techniques to the undersea realm. I sorely needed some instruction.

I heard about a week-long underwater photography course taught by the renowned underwater photographer Jim Church. The course was taught on a live-aboard dive boat in the Cayman Islands, so it served as a diving vacation as well as an opportunity to learn about underwater photography. We both enrolled.

The first day was a shock as we watched all the other "students" arrive toting multiple Pelican cases filled with massive amounts of camera gear. I wilted. We showed up for the course with the one camera and one lens between us. We felt so naive!

Jim Church, bless him, put us at ease from the start. On the first day, he chatted with each of his students in order to get a fix on how much they already knew, and what they hoped to learn during the week. I admitted that I was a rank novice -- and apparently gravely under-equipped at that. Jim patted me on the shoulder and told me not to worry: He said that meant I didn't have any bad habits to unlearn. As for the lack of equipment, there was a whole range of cameras, lenses, strobes and various accessories for rent aboard the dive boat. I tried them all!

Each day we learned a new technique or two in our ad hoc classroom -- the vessel's dining room. Then we went right into the water to practice what we'd learned -- five dives each day, shooting scenes, fish, critters, divers. And speaking of photographing divers, we even learned a lot about managing -- and being -- an underwater model.

We'd do wide angle shots one day, macro shots the next, and so on. We shot in natural light; then we tried out different combinations of lenses and strobes. We shot in morning light, afternoon light, and on night dives.

At the end of each dive, we'd turn in our film for immediate processing. In the evening we'd all sit around the light tables in the dining room looking at our day's worth of slides, critiquing each other's work.

The week went by quickly, yet we learned an enormous amount about photography, camera maintenance, and how to deal with the underwater environment as a "studio" from Jim and his then-sidekick, Mike Mesgleski. [Side Note: Jim Church passed away in 2002. Mike is still teaching underwater photography -- highly recommended!]
It was a great way to learn about the basics of underwater photography, but unbeknownst to me at the time, choosing lenses, apertures and shutter speeds was the easy part.

As we go along, I'll point out some of the more challenging aspects of underwater photography.

Prologue: Our training as divers

by B N Sullivan

I've always loved the water. I learned to swim at a young age, and -- as family legend has it -- when we went to the beach, I was always the first kid in the water, and the last one to come out.

When I was 10 years old, my father gave me a dive mask, a snorkel, and a pair of swim fins. It turned out to be a pivotal event in my life. From the moment I first put on that mask and looked below the surface of the water, that was it: I was destined to be a diver.

That first experience was not even in the ocean. It was in a lake in Pennsylvania, where I spent my childhood. There wasn't a whole lot to see: pebbles on the muddy bottom, a few sprigs of some kind of aquatic plant, legs and feet of people wading in the shallows -- but I was utterly fascinated with being able to see what people on the surface could not. My fate was sealed.

From that time forward I found it difficult to venture into any natural body of water -- lake, pond, river, sea -- without my mask and snorkel. I dreamed of learning to SCUBA dive, and finally found the opportunity to do so in the spring of 1970.  I was living in Greece at the time, and my first instructors were U.S. Navy divers who were stationed there. They started a dive club, offered their own training course to prospective members, and issued a club 'certification.' (More on this in posts to follow.)

About a year later, still in Greece, I completed a course sanctioned by the British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC) and was duly certified as a SCUBA Diver by that agency. A number of years later I completed a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver certification course.

Enter Jerry...

When Jerry and I first met in the mid-1970s, one of the many things we discovered we had in common was a love of the ocean. He had grown up participating in ocean sports in Hawaii -- especially body-surfing, (board) surfing and snorkeling. He told me that he had often thought about taking a SCUBA course, but he didn't know anyone else who was really into that sport until he met me.

A year or so before we were married, Jerry became a certified Open Water Diver through a NAUI training program in Honolulu. Somewhat later he, too, acquired a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver certification. By then we had logged many hundreds of dives in each other's company.

Meanwhile, I had begun my underwater photography hobby, and we had begun to travel together to exotic locations around the globe to dive and take pictures underwater. At some point, we found it expedient to pursue additional dive training. We first trained together to become certified Rescue Divers. Finally, we qualified together as PADI Divemasters.