Are you a Diver???

[Doctor_Reef]

Hey, calling all divers.... If you are a diver...tell us a bit about the kind of dives you have done, cert level, and any specialties you have certified in....

[Gottcha]

Just an open water diver ... been to several islands in the carribean .... nothing special ... although i did pay to dive with sharks in the bahamas ... never again though... lol

[Doctor_Reef]

I love the Caribbean waters...Nice and warm.... I do my share of cold water dives but really enjoy the warmer water...

How long have you be certified??? Are you working on any specialties???

[Gottcha]

Been certified for about 3 years but havent dove all that much ... maybe a dozen of so ... not enough to be totaly confident in my abilities ... id really like to take a photography course in the future though

[Doctor_Reef]

Sounds like you have gotten your feet wet with a 12 dives or so....
Have these all be ocean dives or have you done any fresh water dives???

PADI has a photography course. The old one was OK but the new one on digital and video is really very good...

[Gottcha]

did a few fresh water dives here:
http://www.dutchsprings.com/scuba.htm

[Doctor_Reef]

Very nice... Looks like a lot of fun!!!! Looks to have good depth also...100ft...makes for a nice dive... very interesting things to see too!!!

[JWright]

US Navy SCUBA school 1974, US Navy 2nd Class Diving School 1976. I can't even remember how many dives I made in the ten years I dove for the Navy or how many dives I made as a civilian. Navy divers are trained in a number of different specialties. We conduct salvage operations and perform underwater ship's husbandry (in-water maintenance of the hulls of vessels.) I never had the opportunity to assist in any high-profile operations, such as are going on in Minnesota right now. I did participate in the clean-up of the former atomic weapons testing site at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands prior to the return of the atoll to the Marshallese natives.

I've been diving in the waters off San Diego, San Clemente Island, San Nicolas Island, San Diego Bay (lovely place), under many different ships and boats, in Hawaii and Eniwetok Atoll. I've also snorkeled in Costa Rica, the Bahamas and Mexico.

I've used normal open-circuit SCUBA and four different types of surface-supplied equipment:

Mark V Deep Sea Suit

http://johnwright.smugmug.com/photos/104015992-M.jpg

Jack Browne Lightweight Mask

http://www.divingheritage.com/images/descomasker.jpg

US Navy Mark I mask (same as the Kirby Morgan band mask)

http://www.geocities.com/uhexso/1kmb8.gif

US Navy Mark 12 helmet

http://home.comcast.net/~dmtcd/images/helmet1b.jpg

[icereefer]

Cool. I use to dive in Calif I've dived around the islands off san francisco. few small reefs here and there along calif shore lines but nothing worth talking about, and that was back around 1975 to 1979.
I would love to get into it again but in the summer month's our lakes get ugly green and the winter month's I would have to cut threw 4' of Ice to get into the lakes here...LOL

[Doctor_Reef]

Nice guys.... I like the navy gear!!! Great stuff!!! Nice Jim... I Cal has a lot of nice dive areas!!!!

[JWright]

Nice guys.... I like the navy gear!!! Great stuff!!! Nice Jim... I Cal has a lot of nice dive areas!!!!

None of the gear I used in the Navy is still in service. The Mark V was replaced by the Mark 12 helmet, which was subsequently replaced by the Mark 21 helmet. (There is a Mark 21 helmet sitting at the feet of the Mark V suit in the picture in my first post.) The Jack Browne mask was replaced by the Mark I mask, which was replaced by the Mark 20 Lightweight Mask.

Mark 21 Helmet

http://www.defenselink.mil/dodcmsshare/newsphoto/1996-07/960725-N-6676W-023_screen.jpg

Mark 20 Lightweight mask

http://www.russh.com/catalog/dive/ots_mk20_7-7-03.jpg

[Doctor_Reef]

Very, very nice.... Great information!!!

[StainCast]

I'm a Nitrox certified Advanced Rescue Diver. I trained in The Red Sea in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. I lovvve Egypt. The dive sites are all amazing and theres some wonderful fish and large aquaria.

I've dived with A tiger shark which wasn't intentional and never again haha! I've also dived with reef sharks, Oceanic White Tips (Which absolutely scared the hell outta me. They look like great whites and they kept bumping into us and we had to kick at them with our fins haha!)

I've not yet dived with a Whale Shark which is really dissapointing. I think theyre amazing.

I dived with Dolphins too but our bubbled freaked them out and one charged at our Instructor. Wasn't nice! :p

[Doctor_Reef]

StainCast...sounds like you have been to a couple spots I am working at going to... I am going to the Red Sea, this spring... I may get you to tell me where the best spots are to dive there...

I have my Master Cert. With several specialties including the Enriched Air cert....
I have dove Most of the Hawaiian Islands, Cancun, Grand Caymans, Jamaica, Keys, Cuba, Rocky Point, San Carlos, Southern California, Many freshwater lakes, Catalina Island, Cozumel, and other not so well known streams and rivers....

I have dove with a Whale Shark....Absolutly increadible...Manta's...again incredible. Several sharks, including the great white off the coast of california...didn't stay in the water long after this small female great white came into our area...but the experience was incredible... Got to close to a killer whale and got bumped but he was only checking me out... I was a bit sore for a week or so... they are incredibly powerful!!! Oh well, have to much to say for this post....

[coral_diver]

Shoot J they used to sling brass still then right :0 A friend of mine is a Navy diver, myself I just dive for recreation and am a former Navy controller
:) Good on ya!

[Doctor_Reef]

Where do you dive Desiree???

[StainCast]

Doctor Reef i can start by telling you that you absolutely HAVE to visit Sharm El Shiekh.

There are some amazing dive sites around there. I can even reccomend my favourite Dive Centre haha.

Ras Bob was where i saw the Tiger shark.

Shark Reef and Yolandi Reef are both in the same dive site. It's two very large pinacles of coral and you do a figure of 8 around them and then dive over a wreck of the yolandi cargo ship. There's toilets and sinks strewn all about the place as the cargo ship was carry bathroom fittings and you can see what's left of the captain's BMW car haha. On this dive site it's common to see large schools of Barracuda, and Great Hammerhead sharks. I havn't had the pleasure of seeing a school of hammers, but i have seen the school of barracuda. I don't know what was more scary.. the baracuda or the sharks haha!

[Doctor_Reef]

Sounds like a great time.... I will keep this info...and when I get there check these sites out!!! Thanks for the info...

[JWright]

When I was working the clean-up of Eniwetok Atoll back in the mid-1970's, we spent a lot of time walking the shallow water on the reefs picking up chunks of metal left over from WWII and the atomic bomb testing. As the tide came in over the reefs, so did the sharks. We had White Tips, Black Tips and Grey Reef Sharks swimming around our legs as we were working. What was interesting is that we didn't see any sharks when we went diving in the lagoon for recreation.

[Doctor_Reef]

Hmmmm....that is strange!!! Cool, but strange!!!! Do you have any pictures of those dives or days of cleaning the reef??? Would love to see some!!!

[JWright]

Hmmmm....that is strange!!! Cool, but strange!!!! Do you have any pictures of those dives or days of cleaning the reef??? Would love to see some!!!

Nope... I wasn't into underwater photography and it was an official military operation so I didn't have time to take photos. I don't even remember if I took a camera at all.

[Doctor_Reef]

LOL....Well, I understand that...I have been on some of those military ops myself, and like you, no photo's either... Would be nice though if I could have gotten some shots....

[crny11216]

NAUI Certified diver, only dives in Maine mainly research based.
Hope to go to the Bahamas this summer and help out on a coral research / data collection dive.

Any divers in the Newark/NJ area?

[Gottcha]

Newburgh, NY about an hour and a half from ya

[crny11216]

Cool. I'm hoping to be able to gain some gear by middle/end of spring. I hear that NJ has good wreck diving (not that I'm at that level yet). ATM, I only own a mask, but I want to plan a local diving trip. I'm used to cold water.
Btw, do you have reccomendations of people/vendors/sites that are good to do business with??
I know what type of equip I want, I just don't trust anyone, haven't been able to give a chance at earning it.

[Gottcha]

i bought most if not all of my equipment online ... the local shops around here are priced really high.

[Doctor_Reef]

That is one way to do it!!! I am glad I have a few LDS (Local Dive Store) here to try on and buy my gear!!!!