Dive Into Your Imagination

For the longest time I thought that the oil rigs off the coast of California were harming our ocean environment. Little did I know they are actually providing for it and the animals on it. Because of these huge structures many species have a home now including my friends the seal lions! This was my first dive on an oilrig and I will always remember it. You’ll never believe what happened on the dive!

It's time for the ocean!!! Yes, fish, urchins, sand, starfish, kelp, anemones, and.....mask removal!? Yes, part of getting scuba certified includes removing and replacing your mask. I had a hard enough time doing this in the pool and hated losing that sense of security, but doing it in the ocean was horrible! I am glad I got that over with because there is nothing worse than having the ocean going up your nose, well actually there is. On top of this discomforting experience was a small surge which would cause us to sway back and forth as we were settled in a graveyard of mussel shells and urchins.

The underwater world is amazing!

After our pool sessions, J. and I had to complete tasks on three open-water boat dives and two beach dives in order to complete our dive classes and certification. We had a busy, but exciting, week in the ocean!

I can’t believe I just got to be an underwater cinematographer for my first big shoot!  Annie and I have worked together for more than a year now, and she has been training me for moments just like this one. I have to say I was pretty nervous before the big day so Annie took me to the pool the day before to make sure I knew how to operate my camera and the underwater housing like the back of my hand.

Learning to scuba dive changed my life so profoundly that I have spent nearly the past two decades dedicated to the ocean. I knew becoming a scuba diving instructor was my gateway to freedom and travel. Find out why it's so easy to take diving classes!

Time for my first breath underwater! Well it was a crazy experience for me. Mostly because I stopped thinking about how much I was afraid of drowning. This fear has been ingrained in me because I've come very close to it as a kid. I also hadn't jumped off a diving board since I was about 8 years old because a kid who worked at the swim school I went to pushed me off and traumatized me! Haha. Kinda funny now. This reminds me of Annie's saying, focus on nothing and everything will appear.

I just breathed underwater for the first time!

J. and I had our first pool session for our SCUBA diving classes and certification. Here, we practiced lessons from the textbook in real life. It is one thing to read about an experience - but quite another thing to actually DO it!

Sometimes when you are in charge, life can be challenging. I was producing these segments of real divers learning to scuba dive and I was teaching J and Rebecca how to dive. This was not divers pretending to be students, we were recording J and Rebecca’s first experiences in the water. And from the night before I knew we were going to be challenged!

Born and raised in Chicago, I never dreamed I would be a scuba diver. Although I loved swimming and water, it wasn't until after college that I breathed underwater with a scuba tank. I knew in that one instant that I would become a scuba instructor and be able to teach others. I need all of the people who work with me to be given the chance to feel this feeling, to be neutrally buoyant, to defy nature and gravity. And so we began a journey teaching Jay and Rebecca how to scuba dive.

What happened over the class was incredibly special because Jay has a fear of water I did not know existed and Rebecca has dreamed of being a mermaid since she was a baby. Having students at such opposite ends of the spectrum was going to be interesting.