Hopefully you'll forgive me for not posting last weekend. It was Thanksgiving and even workaholic divers need a break sometimes :)
This week I was interviewed on my own podcast, by my fellow co-hosts. You can listen to this new episode of Dive In the podcast tomorrow on your favourite podcast app.
A lot of the questions that my fellow hosts asked me were about my past, which honestly despite being a "Dive Shop Kid" was very... well not scuba filled. My parents opened Torpedo Rays Scuba in 1997, and I was born in 1998 resulting in me literally being raised in the dive shop. In fact, most of my memories as a kid are spent drawing scuba pictures with the highlighters Dad had in his desk, or throwing rocks in the ocean while hanging out at the dive sites. I never owned swim goggles as a kid, only little masks and snorkels. My dad would put me and my sisters in scuba gear and we would swim around in the pool, and I was a total water baby.
(Check out what we are reading lol)
Now, all of this is sounding very scuba related. The thing was, in my brain, my dad being a scuba diver was as normal to me as my friend having her dad be an accountant. Although other people thought it was really cool... I saw it as totally normal. Scuba Diving was a totally normal thing to me and in no way was 'special'. I mean I was exposed to it since day 1, how could it not be?
(WOW terrible quality but we didn't have fancy cameras then lol)
When I was 12 my dad tried to teach me to dive. I did a few pool sessions and told him I didn't want to do it anymore. I just wasn't overly interested. Much to the point I stressed earlier, it wasn't an incredible cool opportunity... it was just "what my dad does" and as a 12 year old girl totally obsessed with skiing and soccer I really didn't care.
I still had a love for the ocean, being an east coaster born and raised, and living on the ocean my whole life. I loved swimming, boating, snorkeling, and smelling the salty air. The want to dive hadn't come to play yet. Until I was in grade 12... all of the sports I was playing for years started wrapping up and I wasn't sure what to do. So I thought, well diving might be a good sport with all this new free time I have.
I did my confined water training, and well I still wasn't taken by this sport. It was doable... I really hated flooding my mask... but this time I figured I was gonna do it and just get certified even if I don't love it. My first ocean dive changed everything. It was fox point beach on a toasty sunny august afternoon. There were lobster everywhere and the water was crystal clear. I couldn't believe it. Instantly I was hooked. It was that AH HA moment everyone talks about. I couldn't believe it took me this long to get into it.
After that, the rest was history. I immediately started diving 3-4 times a week (and up until my move to Ontario that was the case). My good friend Nick J really took me under his wing and pushed me to be the diver I am today. Of course I went on to become a DM, create The Sea Foxes, and become an instructor.. but that is a story for another day.
I guess the message I'm trying to get across... not everyone's path to scuba is the same. I mean I had the opportunity to be a diver from day 1... and I'm sure I'd be a way better diver at this point than I currently am if I would've started when I was 8! Maybe my passion wouldn't have been there though. Everyone's journey looks different, we all don't necessarily have to be dreaming about becoming a diver since we were little. Sometimes it's the retired high school athlete who just needs something to do in her spare time... and falls in love!
Happy Diving :)
April