How diving changed my life (part 1)
So, there I was, nearly 20 years ago, traveling around South-East Asia, Lonely Planet guidebook firmly in hand traveling what I thought was the great unknown and not realizing that by using the guidebook I was insuring the fact that I was going to be going to heavily traveled areas, when I stumbled upon diving completely by chance. It was a random stop in a random town in Thailand named Krabi that eventually ended up being my home for more than a decade.
I had already started a NAUI course in USA but due to inclement weather the course could not be completed (this was east coast USA, home of arguably the worst diving in the world.) So when I saw a sign near the guesthouses of Krabi advertising diving courses, I went in to have a look. I ended up meeting a fantastic group of people in ReefWatch Diving Academy and I am still friends with all of the people I met on that day. They introduced me to the Open Water course, which was a lot of fun – due mostly because of the incredible staff that worked there.
I was immediately enamored with their lives. We didn't speak about how much money they make, that wasn't important to me. I was just very intrigued about the fact that they wake up every day knowing that they are going to go and do something that I was now paying to do (but hadn't yet even seen.) We spend several days in the classroom and testing in a pool for safety purposes, but it is kept fun by the stellar staff working at ReefWatch (which, unfortunately, no longer exists as a company.) After a few days and completing my pool tests we were ready to load up the boat the following morning and get me out to sea on my first warm water ocean dives EVER!
I had never seen tropical diving and although I had done some snorkeling in the Caribbean, nothing could prepare me for the awesomeness that is tropical climate reef diving. I was immediately captivated despite diving in what I would later discover were not-so-great conditions. It didn't matter to me because I didn't know any better. To me, this was amazing.
It really is another world down there as they say and I was hooked from the first dive. I immediately signed up for the Advanced Course, completed it, and then it was time for my vacation to end because even though I was on what an American considers a crazy-long vacation (1 month,) it wasn't near as long as I wanted it to be.
I promised to keep in touch with the dive shop after leaving as we exchanged email addresses. Keep in mind this was long before just everyone had a laptop and a decade before the first smartphone was invented. However, from the moment my boots hit the ground back in USA I was already planning my next trip back. It took me a long while to make that happen though....
O my God, what manner of man are you? You've tried everything you talked about almost first hand during your youthful age, you must have almost nothing to regret about it.
I wonder how you managed to keep contact with those people till today despite how difficult it was to do. Well, I would like to read other parts to see how... Lol
Are you an American?
yes i am.
Would love to see you talking about America from your own perspective just like you've been doing with Thailand and Vietnam. Smile
I consider America to be my second country, I will like to spend part of my life in that country....
I like America, but in my mind anyway, it is too expensive to live there and the government is too involved in your day-to-day life. For me (at least for now) i prefer to be an ex-pat.
Smile, thanks for this, it will go a long way in making my decision about America....
incredible experience in your life as a museum, is like seeing an enigmatic world that many of us ignore, I love the sea, but I have never dived.
It is very good diving for health, although I see it very dangerous.
actually diving is neither good nor bad for your health. The idea whilst diving is to exert as little energy as possible for the sake of conserving the air that is in your tanks. There are lots of bad things that can happen to you while diving, but if you do the game right, it is incredibly unlikely. It is actually far more likely you will get injured from almost any other sport.
I love to swim too. I recently shared a video in which I was practising the freestyle stroke on my steem blog. I always feel like I'm in another world the moment I dive straight into pool. It's such an amazing and addictive experience. At a point, I had to swim every day of the week. The experience gets better when one is able to hold breath for a much longer period. Diving is life.
Haven't been in the open seas before yet, but i have been to 9 feet in the pool and man even that felt like a whooe new universe, i cnt imagine the experience of diving, i hope to enjoy some soon though
like it said in the article - it was diving initially. Lower cost of living and almost never cold weather are other factors
So u know diving too han. Thats great. U know many things. That is pretty cool. The story of how you learnt diving from time to time is great. Very inspirational. Encourage and appreciate your hardwork and commitment towards the diving.
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Great story @gooddream. How you started as a beginner in learning diving to nearly an expert. You worked hard and achieved what you worked for. You got lots of skills. Diving is a new one I just came to know about. You amaze me every second day. Thanks.for sharing. Keep up the good work.
It really must be a unique experience, doing what you really love is something that enlarges or makes you feel free