Scuba diving PSers?

[star sparkle]

Travel Goddess' thread about visiting Thailand and wanting to stay at a PADI resort got me thinking, and I realized that there are probably other PSers here who enjoy diving just as much as I do! I don't know why I didn't think to connect the two before, but anyway, I finally did.

So, lovely PSers, are you a diver? How long have you been certified? Favorite dive spot? Any dive trips planned? Any tips on improving diving skills for new divers?

I'll start--SO and I were PADI certified earlier this year, and recently completed the Advanced Open Water and Enriched Air certifications. We've only ever been diving in Monterey, CA (only an hour away from where we live) and we love it! The water is cold and its a bit cumbersome to dive in 7mm suits/gloves, but it's all we know so not that big of a deal. I LOVE the kelp forests that Monterey diving offers for exploration, and the harbor seals just love me. I've never gone one single dive day without having a seal come right up to me to play, close enough for me to hug if I wanted to.

We're going to the U.S. Virgin Islands in February for a friend's wedding and plan to get at least 6 dives in during our trip. I'm so excited for my first experience with warm water diving, though I'm a bit worried that I won't want to go back to cold water after doing it!

As for tips, I learned by experience that you need to inflate your BCD WAYYYY quicker and with much more air when diving deep than if only going to 50ish feet. My first deep dive (we got to 95-ish feet) was during my advanced certification so thank goodness an instructor was with us, but up until then I had only been used to adding short bursts of air. Well, I quickly learned that those short bursts of air do absolutely nothing on a decent past 65-70 feet because I ended up sinking like a rock! I started panicking because I just kept going down, down, down, down, and the bottom was nowhere in sight. I felt like I was sinking into a deep, dark, cold abyss until my instructor made it over to me and clamped down on my inflator to get me buoyant. It's funny and comical now, but it was super scary at the time! I later learned that at that particular dive site, the bottom is at like 400 feet!

Looking forward to hearing your stories!

 

[kenny]

Great thread idea SS.

Back in the 70s I got PADI certified when I was stationed in the Philippines.
Scuba diving is absolutely one of the best experiences of my life; I recommend it to everyone!!!!
It was like flying or floating weightlessly in a dreamworld of coral, fish and color.

We didn't need wetsuits because the water was so warm.
In the dry season the water was so crystal clear that light didn't fall off much as you go deeper.
You had to be careful of sinking too deeply, where you'd use up your air very quickly.
They trained us to look at our depth gauges regularly.

Once I flew to Cebu island, and the diving there was spectacular!!!!!!!
I collected shells back then (forbidden, illegal and not PC today) and still have a wonderful collection that I have mixed feelings about.

Probably my most vivid and visceral memory is seeing a shark.
It was perhaps 20 feet below me.
I tried to stay calm by meditating as I swam to shore as calmly as possible.
I did not look back even once so I don't know whether it followed me.
I remember concentrating on my feet, anticipating trauma.

After living and diving in one of the best dive spots in the world for 18 months I just didn't have the heart to continue it here in California where the water is much colder so you have to wear a bulky wetsuit and weights and the visibility is lower and there are no coral reefs.

 

[TravelingGal]

Ah, I WISH I could dive again. TGuy will not try it, so I just haven't been.

Was PADI certified in 2001, and dove The Great Barrier Reef. Amazing, closest thing to heaven...I still miss diving, but would have retake a refresher course for sure.

 

[TravelingGal]

Kenny, I kind of feel the same way...I don't care to dive off our coast. We had warm waters in Oz. Gorgeous reefs, so much to see. I enjoyed the giant clams and the sharks too!

The local garabaldi just don't do it for me!

ETA, plus we're in a triangle for Great White sharks here in California. Apparently more here than people think...um, especially in Monterey, StarSparkle!

 

[kenny]

Kenny, I kind of feel the same way...I don't care to dive off our coast. We had warm waters in Oz. Gorgeous reefs, so much to see. I enjoyed the giant clams and the sharks too!

The local garabaldi just don't do it for me!

ETA, plus we're in a triangle for Great White sharks here in California. Apparently more here than people think...um, especially in Monterey, StarSparkle!

Yeah, snorkling in La Jolla Cove or off Catalina can be fun though.
But once you have experienced one of the best scuba locations you really get spoiled.

I'd love to dive the Great Barrier Reef before it's gone, though I have great anxiety about Great White Sharks.
I hear the GBR is dying off due to global warming since corals are very sensitive to water temp.

 

[TravelingGal]

Kenny, I kind of feel the same way...I don't care to dive off our coast. We had warm waters in Oz. Gorgeous reefs, so much to see. I enjoyed the giant clams and the sharks too!

The local garabaldi just don't do it for me!

ETA, plus we're in a triangle for Great White sharks here in California. Apparently more here than people think...um, especially in Monterey, StarSparkle!

Yeah, snorkling in La Jolla Cove or off Catalina can be fun though.
But once you have experienced one of the best scuba locations you really get spoiled.

I'd love to dive the Great Barrier Reef before it's gone, though I have great anxiety about Great White Sharks.
I hear the GBR is dying off due to global warming since corals are very sensitive to water temp.

When I went in 2001, it was glorious. We also were up further north.

After I met TGuy, we went on a snorking/dive boat (which is quite different than just a dive boat!) because all of TGuy's family were just snorkelers. I couldn't believe the difference. Granted, the boat left from Cairns and it was a pontoon spot, but there wasn't any color to be found.

But yes, apparently shortly after 2001, I saw a lot of press about how much of it was dying. I'm so glad I saw it at least once in my life...it was glorious.

I've done Catalina and the kelp beds are cool, but really, cold water diving isn't for me. I like dive boats, yummy lunches, and warm water!!

 

[TravelingGal]

Oh and re: sharks..I had WAY more anxiety as a snorkeler in 2006. I remember in 2001, I felt safe IN the water, vs looking up and seeing all that shark bait!!!

 

[kenny]

Oh and re: sharks..I had WAY more anxiety as a snorkeler in 2006. I remember in 2001, I felt safe IN the water, vs looking up and seeing all that shark bait!!!

Yeah, aren't sharks attracted to splashing at the surface?

Oh, I remember diving on a WW2 shipwreck and finding a large oyster that had a natural pearl.
It was an irregular shape and not terribly large or white, but it was natural, real and I found it.

My maid dropped it down the sink.
The full time live in maid cost $20 a month back then and that was considered a good job. (opps, threadjack)

 

[star sparkle]

Kenny-- Agreed that diving is a completely amazing experience! When non-diver friends ask how my diving was on any particular weekend, I try to explain just the feeling of amazement and how it's like being in a completely different world. I know it doesn't translate, and it's sad that I can't articulate the feelings and the senses of being underwater in an entirely new ecosystem. Do you have any dive photos? We haven't gotten a u/w camera yet, but we're hoping to before our USVI trip.

TGal-- Haha, I hear ya on the sharks! Great whites scare me, yet when we dive I'm somehow able to pretend they don't exist. I told SO that he can't read stories of shark attacks to me anymore, and I don't like watching shows depicting shark attacks because it just makes me scared. That may be lame, but hey, I give myself credit for overcoming that fear and continuing to dive. If I let it bother me too much, I would never have experienced some of the amazing things I have!


The cold water does wear on you after awhile, I don't think I've ever been completely comfortable temperature-wise while diving in Monterey. You get used to it, though, and I think the diving is well worth it. Obviously not if you end up out on a crappy day with horrible vis and strong surge, but on the good days? It's amazing. Monterey may not have the coral reefs or any wrecks to dive, but the kelp forests and resulting life/ecosystem are truly spectacular. I think the coolest thing I've seen thus far, aside from my playful seal friends, is on the aforementioned dive from my first post where I almost sank into the neverending abyss. We were about 90 feet down and turned the corner of this large pinnacle, and lo and behold was this HUGE wall of blue rockfish. It was at least 35 feet tall and just as wide, a solid wall packed full of fish. And they weren't bothered by us in the slightest! Way cool.

 

[TravelingGal]

Kenny-- Agreed that diving is a completely amazing experience! When non-diver friends ask how my diving was on any particular weekend, I try to explain just the feeling of amazement and how it's like being in a completely different world. I know it doesn't translate, and it's sad that I can't articulate the feelings and the senses of being underwater in an entirely new ecosystem. Do you have any dive photos? We haven't gotten a u/w camera yet, but we're hoping to before our USVI trip.
.

I'm telling you, it's my idea of heaven. No phones, computers, texting. Mostly silence and all you have to focus on is the lightness of being, and what you can see and touch. Oh, I miss it!

 

[star sparkle]

Kenny-- Agreed that diving is a completely amazing experience! When non-diver friends ask how my diving was on any particular weekend, I try to explain just the feeling of amazement and how it's like being in a completely different world. I know it doesn't translate, and it's sad that I can't articulate the feelings and the senses of being underwater in an entirely new ecosystem. Do you have any dive photos? We haven't gotten a u/w camera yet, but we're hoping to before our USVI trip.
.

I'm telling you, it's my idea of heaven. No phones, computers, texting. Mostly silence and all you have to focus on is the lightness of being, and what you can see and touch. Oh, I miss it!

Agreed! There's no talking, no noise (other than the sounds of breathing through your regulator), and you're completely focused on what you're seeing and experiencing. I love that you can be down there and see things that most people will never see in their lifetime, and spend so much time exploring without ever seeing another person (besides your buddy, of course).

To me, it's also amazing how much SO and I have grown together through this whole diving thing because we're learning to communicate without talking! We tried a slate once and it didn't work very well, but I tell ya, I'm now more in tune to his facial expressions, his eyes, his body movements, etc. I can tell when something is wrong without him giving me the "stop" signal, or when he's just seen something neat that I haven't seen yet, or when he's miserable and wants to go back to the surface. Of course there are still sometimes when we have no clue what we're trying to say to each other, and that's amusing too!

 

[pierreone]

Yay, a scuba diving thread! Diving is one of my favorite hobbies.

DH and I have been PADI certified for over 11 years. We live in the midwest so we got certified in a fresh water quarry on October 31 (temp was 45 degrees at the time and had to wear big, thick 7mm wetsuits - yuck!) All the diving we've done after being certified has been in warm water - so much nicer! We both have a little over 100 dives, which isn't a lot but not too bad for living in the midwest. We've dived:

• the Bahamas a couple of times
• Turks & Caicos
• Grand Cayman
• Belize
• Roatan, Honduras
• Cozumel
• different places in the Keys

Our favorite thing to do is live-aboard diving. You stay on a dedicated diving boat the whole time (usually we've done 7-day trips). The boat has small rooms for 20 or so divers, bathrooms, a salon and dining room (with awesome cooks), plus a dive deck. The boat moves around to different dive sites and you can usually get in up to 5 dives per day, including a night dive. It's a great way to get in maximum diving with the least amount of equipment hauling and set-up. We've done two different live-aboards in the Bahamas and one in the Turks & Caicos.

Turks & Caicos was probably my favorite trip overall. Fairly clean, healthy reefs, sharks on about 75% of the dives, and pretty good visibility. Other highlights from different trips include:

• Having huge sea turtles (literally at least 4ft in length) swim with us on a dive in the Bahamas
• A shark feeding dive in the Bahamas - although I'm not quite sure I really agree with the practice
• Snorkeling for an hour with a pod of 6 Atlantic spotted dolphins during a live-aboard in the Bahamas
• Seeing a 6ft, green moray eel free-swimming along a reef in Roatan
• The cool little things - Peterson cleaner shrimp, flamingo and fingerprint tongues, cute little blenny fish

Here are a few pics from some past trips:

 

[pierreone]

Here are a few more pics:

 

[star sparkle]

Wow, pierreone, your photos are amazing! I think dolphins are so fascinating and it's so cool that you were able to snorkel with them! I'd never thought of a live-aboard dive boat, that's some serious diving!

I've told SO in the past that if I ever see a shark while we're diving I'll probably have a heart attack and he better be there to rescue me when that happens, so I'm very impressed that you went on a shark-feeding dive and got pictures of those reef sharks. Way to go!

Diving is quickly becoming one of my favorite hobbies too, but dang is it expensive. I've been acquiring all my gear piece by piece, and usually secondhand through either craigslist or ebay. Since we both only started diving this past year, we didn't want to spend a ton on all new gear since we weren't sure if we'd even enjoy it all that much. And now we're talking about dive trips and such, it's just mind-boggling.

Please post more photos if you can, I'd love to see them!

 

[kenny]

Sorry no pics.
Back in the 70s underwater cameras were too expensive for me poor little Kenny.

One time in the Philippines we were around 60 feet down in crystal clear water on a windless day.
The water surface must have been like glass because I looked up and saw white billowing clouds in a huge blue sky.

Unreal!

 

[kenny]

Pierreone, amazing pics.

So when you saw the sharks did you just ignore them and continue to enjoy your dive, or did you get the hell out of the water and get some beers like I did?

I can't imagine just ignoring them.
What if they took an interest in you?

 

[pierreone]

Wow, pierreone, your photos are amazing! I think dolphins are so fascinating and it's so cool that you were able to snorkel with them! I'd never thought of a live-aboard dive boat, that's some serious diving!

I've told SO in the past that if I ever see a shark while we're diving I'll probably have a heart attack and he better be there to rescue me when that happens, so I'm very impressed that you went on a shark-feeding dive and got pictures of those reef sharks. Way to go!

Diving is quickly becoming one of my favorite hobbies too, but dang is it expensive. I've been acquiring all my gear piece by piece, and usually secondhand through either craigslist or ebay. Since we both only started diving this past year, we didn't want to spend a ton on all new gear since we weren't sure if we'd even enjoy it all that much. And now we're talking about dive trips and such, it's just mind-boggling.

Please post more photos if you can, I'd love to see them!

I can't take credit for the photos - DH is the photographer. I always feel like I need to be the alert one of us when he's engrossed with his camera.

I love dolphins, too. The captain of the boat said we needed to snorkel, not scuba, because the dolphins don't like the bubbles/sound from the regulators.

I agree with you about the expense. Between equipment, flights, and then either hotel or live-aboard, it can be really painful. We've never done more than one trip each year.

Here are a few other photos I have readily available. I'll see if I can find any other semi-decent pics.

 

[pierreone]

Pierreone, amazing pics.

So when you saw the sharks did you just ignore them and continue to enjoy your dive, or did you get the hell out of the water and get some beers like I did?

I can't imagine just ignoring them.
What if they took an interest in you?

Kenny, in that picture of the two sharks, I definitely kept my eyes on them but continued to enjoy the dive. As long as they're just reef or nurse sharks I'm fine, since they're not really aggressive, just curious. I would absolutely freak, though, if I ever saw a bull shark. I'd be out of the water so fast!

There are trips where I've only seen sharks on one or two dives out of 20, but there was one trip where we saw sharks on probably 75% of the dives. They would swim around the divers a bit, sometimes coming as close as 3-4 feet, but then just swim away. Like I said, though, they were just reef sharks. Bulls, tigers, or great whites and I'd be outta there!

 

[sonnyjane]

I have been certified for 5 years. I have a regular open water cert as well as a drysuit cert, which I got when we lived in the San Juan islands off the coast of Washington state. That might be my favorite spot, with huge octopus, kelp forests, and walls and walls of giant, white plumose anemones. I haven't been to very many places... The Florida Keys, the Bahamas, the Florida panhandle, Washington, SoCal, and Maui. Of those, Washington and Maui were the best. In Maui we dived the Molokini crater and really enjoyed the garden eel bed and the caves where dozens of turtles just sleep.

Sorry I don't have any pics either I just have a waterproof point-and-shoot and it's only good to 30 feet so I don't take it with me.

Kenny, did you ever think of doing drysuit diving? It kind of makes you look like a wussy, but I dive with one here in San Diego. I like it because you can basically wear warm, fuzzy pajamas while diving

 

[star sparkle]

pierreone - way cool! Thanks for sharing!

sonnyjane - funny you should say that drysuit diving makes you look like a wussy! Most people here, including the veteran divers, all dive in a drysuit. BF and I want to drysuit dive, but we're waiting until we acquire the rest of our gear before spending thousands on drysuits. But yeah, our instructors have all said you couldn't pay them to dive Monterey in a wetsuit anymore!

 

[sonnyjane]

pierreone - way cool! Thanks for sharing!

sonnyjane - funny you should say that drysuit diving makes you look like a wussy! Most people here, including the veteran divers, all dive in a drysuit. BF and I want to drysuit dive, but we're waiting until we acquire the rest of our gear before spending thousands on drysuits. But yeah, our instructors have all said you couldn't pay them to dive Monterey in a wetsuit anymore!

I got a second-hand shell suit at a dive shop that was going out of business for a decent price. A lot of people down here, aside from just diving a 7mm with hood instead of a dry, prefer a neoprene drysuit to a shell, so I am REALLY an odd woman out when I go, BUT, I prefer the shells. That's what I got my cert in and the one day that I tried a neoprene drysuit, it leaked whereas a shell suit, as long as your seals are in good shape, has always been awesome for me.

I haven't witnessed this myself, but when I was getting my drysuit cert in WA, my instructor, who goes on dive trips around the world all the time, told me that she is seeing more and more people dive drysuits in warm water just to, well, stay dry. She said she has seen a growing number in Hawaii and the Caribbean wearing drysuits with no under-layer because I guess even if the water is warm, prolonged exposure can get cool overtime.

The only rough part about diving in WA with surf temps in the 40's was that the drysuit kept my body warm, but there was nothing I could do about my face. It was pins and needles all over my face as soon as it goes underwater. Fortunately you just go numb after a while lol! If I could, I'd dive in those big full face masks they use on the Discovery Channel so that none of my skin had to touch that water lol! I miss it up there though..really awesome wildlife.

 

[Iowa Lizzy]

Yay diving!

Right now, I have my OW certification with a few specialty certs -Peak Performance Buoyancy, Dry Duit and...... Underwater Pumpkin Carver. Our local PADI course director was actually the guy that invented the pumpkin carving cert. You know what? It's freaking hard! Pumpkins like to float. A lot. So getting it down 20 feet and then carving it is a lesson in patience. I think I sucked more air during that cert than any other.

DH is currently a Dive Master candidate. I'm holding off on getting my Advanced Open Water certification until he's teaching (or assisting). Right now it looks like he'll be a DM by March and then he'll start Assistant Instructor training. We are in the midwest so the place we go for local diving is Mermet Springs in Southern Illinois. It is actually a pretty great training site. There's a sunken Boeing 727, an ambulance, train car, motorcycle, multiple censnas, a school bus and lots of other things to explore. I would highly suggest it for any other Midwesterners who want to get some dives in but can't get away to the ocean. They have a website and a fb page. Look 'em up!

We are leaving in six weeks on a cruise and will be diving in Cozumel, Roatan, Belize and Costa Maya. Then, as my other thread said, we are planning on hitting Thailand at some point in the next year.

My parents are getting us LavaCore wetsuits for Christmas this year. I wanted to get DH a SeaLife DC1400 camera, but it's a wee bit more than I'm willing to pay right now. Once he's teaching for our dive shop, he'll start getting equipment at a really great price, so we've been holding out on buying some new stuff until he's able to get everything much, much cheaper.

 

[sonnyjane]

Travel Goddess! How fun that you guys love to dive together. My husband will go on dives with me, but it's not necessarily his cup of tea. He is in the military and part of his job requires a lot of diving, and when I say a lot, I mean several dives a day for weeks, if not months at a time. He's logged well over 1,500 dives. Obviously his aren't leisure dives, but it's enough to make him not really want to go on his days off! Meanwhile I have a marine biology degree so I would go a lot more frequently if I could. I'm still a novice though compared to him with only about 40 dives total.

Have you ever been to Roatan before? I've been looking into staying that the Anthony's Key dive resort down there - they get really positive reviews on TripAdvisor.

 

[tyty333]

Ive been certified 20+ years. Dont get to do it much anymore though.

Places I've been diving
-Bahamas (several different islands)- probably the best diving I've had because we took my Dads boat over and could go pretty much
anywhere we wanted. Shark alley was fun. We had 3 sharks in the water with us at once. Later saw about a 10 foot hammer head
from the boat.
-Aruba - no good reefs, was a waste of time hauling our equipment
-St. Martin - diving was nice
-Cayman - nice wall diving, spotted eagle rays were amazing, stink ray city was fun. Cayman had nice diving
right off the beach.
-Cozumel - beautiful - I think I saw a cuttle fish on one of my dives
-Florida Keys - nice but too many divers

 

[moosemom]

Love this thread! I love hearing the stories and looking at the wonderful pictures.

I miss diving so much right now. DH, our two daughters and I were certified in Guam while stationed there a a couple of years ago. It was awesome there - 86 degree water temperature year-round. We shore dove every weekend. It was great to just pick a spot, park, throw your gear on and enter the water. The boat dives were great there too - always something to see from turtles, eels, rays and sharks to ship wrecks and sea planes from WW2. My two favorites were a shore dive when a pod of spinner dolphins joined us for 40 minutes and a dive where I got to put my hands on a ship wreck from WW1 and one from WW2 at the same time.

The only other places I have been able to dive were in Palau and on the Great Barrier Reef. Palau is by far the most amazing place I have ever been. We spent 8 days there doing nothing but diving and kayaking. We hope to go back someday soon. DH went to dive all the Japanese wrecks from WW2 in Chuuk. Since wreck diving is his favorite he said this is the best experience he ever had diving.

Since moving back to the States DH has been dry suit certified and was able to dive off the NJ coast and a couple of quarries in the East. I like warm water so I haven't taken the plunge yet, so to speak.

We hope to do an anniversary trip this summer somewhere in the Caribbean. If you guys could pick one place to dive down there where would you suggest?

 

[vintagelover229]

What a WONDERFUL topic!


I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE to scuba dive. I took a course while in collage (wow-probably 3-4 years ago already ) and I can't believe how much I loved it. Like everyone else described-it was a whole new world. One I wish didn't have a time limit for how long you can hang out down there! I went to Mexico (playa del carmen and Cozumel) one year and LOVED it. It was SOOO much fun and we had such a good dive company working with us. We did quite a few dives (I'm horrible and didn't put it in my log ) but I would guess we did 6 dives at least when we were down there. I have some photos (my step dad took the pictures. I'm so sad his health is no longer well enough to dive but I'm so happy we got to do these dives together. Now I have to get my DH certificated and get my next level up. We only have the open water basis though DAN I believe-I can't remember now).


Anyways it was an AWESOME experinece. We did the cenotes in Playa and it was AMAZING as well as the reefs. I must admit I really want to go to a few other locations and get wreck certified as well as deeper waters. The deepest we went was 95ft and it was awesome!

When we were in Cozumel they actually let me drive the dive boat (in fact my dad and I were the ONLY 2 out of the entire group allowed to go on the top deck. Everyone else had to stay below. Not sure why I got special treatment but needless to say I LOVED driving the boat

I miss it SO much It's really my favorite thing to do-its so surreal and just takes you to a ZEN place and is so peaceful (minus the boats above your head in the reefs in Cozumel and them chopping up fire coral and you swim though it

 

[vintagelover229]

The first dive in the cenotes my ears wouldn't clear-so I had to go back

However the 2nd dive they did clear (yay!) and this is what we swam by in that dive. Good thing our dive guide did these ALL the time

I also while diving was by at least a 8' spotted eagle ray. It was AWESOME!!!

 

[star sparkle]

sonnyjane- You definitely DO go numb after awhile! The worst is being so cold that you're actually shivering, though, which usually happens to me by the second dive of the day. I'm always comfortable on the first dive, and then somehow it all goes downhill temperature-wise after that. I don't know what it is, because the water hasn't changed temperatures. That's interesting about drysuit diving in warmer temps. I hadn't heard of that before!

Travel Goddess- I've never heard of the pumpkin carver suit before, that's hilarious!! Sounds like a fun, silly time. Mermet Springs sounds like lots of fun, we don't have anything like that around here. There are also no notable shipwrecks or planes or anything in the ocean along this stretch of coast, so that kind of sucks. There's a sunken sailboat somewhere but I hear it's a pretty lame dive site so we've never tried to find it. And way cool about your DH becoming a Dive Master! BF thinks he wants to one day become an instructor, but as for me, I'll be happy with a Master Diver certification.

tyty- Thanks for sharing! Shark alley sounds too scary for me.

moosemom- Diving in Guam sounds great! I'd love to dive in Palau sometime, it sounds amazing. Also, how exciting that you'll get to go diving on your anniversary trip! I have a feeling that from now on, mine and BF's vacations are going to revolve around diving.

vintagelover- Hah, I hear ya on the time limit thing. It really sucks when there's so much to see, but you have to stop because you've run out of air! Love love love your photos!! I notice in your pictures that you dive with split fins - how do you like them? I dive with paddle fins, just because that's what alllll the instructors here recommend and they are like diving gods so I figured if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. It seems like such a personal preference, though!

 

[vintagelover229]

Star Sparkle:
To be honest they were the wife of the dive company owers that I used. It was her wet suit as well-all the other stuff wouldn't fit me. I liked them well enough but I don't have enough experience to really judge which is/isn't better. I will say though that they dive A LOT and have all the options in the world $ wise-their shop does well (so well in fact that they gave their winery to their son to manage so they could open another shop) so I'm assuming the ones I used were probably top of the line. Gotta love being petite so I can use the good stuff

If my DH gets certified (he has a really nice mask and I have an okay mask) and we do it often enough we'll get our own-but hauling them in suitcases/etc just isn't something I really care to mess with so it's easier to rent at this point.

I love everyones stories! I hadn't ever heard of pumpkin carving either but what a hoot that would be! I looked it up in google images and they look awesome!

 

[sonnyjane]

vintagelover- Hah, I hear ya on the time limit thing. It really sucks when there's so much to see, but you have to stop because you've run out of air! Love love love your photos!! I notice in your pictures that you dive with split fins - how do you like them? I dive with paddle fins, just because that's what alllll the instructors here recommend and they are like diving gods so I figured if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. It seems like such a personal preference, though!

I'm not vintagelover, but I do dive with split fins, as does my husband (actually the military issues split-fins). They are just designed to cut down on the effort you have to exert when kicking. There's nothing wrong with paddle fins, I think split-fins are kind of preferred around here though.