Dive Into Your Imagination

"Do not ask yourself what the world needs.  Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go and do that because what the world needs is people who have come alive."  I still pinch myself every time I fly back to "Sweet Home Chicago" to present at schools, organizations and of course Our World Underwater, celebrating it’s 40th year.  Our World Underwater changes lives.  It is as simple as that.  Thousands of people flock in sub-zero weather to spend three days dreaming of another life.  I should know, Stan Waterman’s film on the creatures of Lembeh Strait viewed for the first time at a Saturday night film festival in the mid-90’s changed my adult life.  I remember watching the unbelievable as real and vowing to myself, "I have to go there and see these creatures!"  Can you think of an experience that changed your life and caused a series of events to take you in another direction?  Have you ever dared to come to the edge of life as you knew it and take a quantum leap of faith and having the courage to try?  What is stopping you?  I jumped a decade ago and never looked back.  One week ago I was in a studio in New Jersey with legendary Stan Waterman recording the Narration for Sensational Seas 2 and we had a blast!





"What we think matters, what we say matters and what we do matters."  Less than five years after watching in awe from a seat in the audience, I was running a resort and filming the same creatures that I watched Stan presenting in the movies at a Saturday Night Film Festival.  Working together in the studio last week, we formed a mutual admiration club and compared notes on our latest dives.  Stan definitely one-upped me as he had just returned from a trip with Jim Abernathy down in Florida.  He dived with Ron and Valerie Taylor and about two dozen tiger sharks! 

When you do a voice over narration, you must like the sound of your voice.  The studio we worked in has been around for years and perhaps had the biggest microphones I have ever seen in my life.  When we began, we set up my video camera so we could shoot some behind the scenes footage.  Once the camera was in place, Stan and I did a six-hour marathon recording session each reading a section so that our voices would alternate on the DVD.  The script was written by William Warmus (who took the photos of Stan and I you see in my blog).

Between takes Stan remains the ultimate conversationalist and I definitely have another destination that I need to go too.  I am hoping to make it down to Florida to dive with the Tiger Sharks!  What passion lies dormant inside of you waiting to be awakened?  As a girl, born and raised in Chicago, I traveled the world by listening to others, reading and watching movies.  I didn’t learn to scuba dive until after I graduated from college and did not own an underwater camera system until less than a decade ago.   Our World Underwater, Stan and many others influenced me as I grew up, and now, I am passing this along and hope to inspire the next generation of ocean enthusiasts, scuba divers and imagination explorers.

There is much to be said for the power of imagination and we must continue to keep the dreams and the passion alive within our own selves.  Our happiness comes from within our own souls.  Dive deep and discover what makes you come alive and stop waiting for tomorrow.  Tomorrow is right here, right now.