I'd been thinking about for years, but just didn't ever get around to it.  I
was in Cancun with a friend and we went snorkeling one day at Xhel-ha.  I
came out saying, that was great but it just isn't enough.  Back at the
resort, they had those guys hanging around with the scuba gear for the
tourists to try out in the pool.  I jumped in loved it, came home, signed up
for classes, two of my friends signed up with me.  Love it, so sorry I
waited.

 Chick in tight rubber.
   

                     
                                    Popeye
                        Popeye's Peanut- Always
                    on the tip of your tongues, girls.

Watching an Australian kids series called 'Barrier Reef' when I was
about 8 years old and then the Cousteau documentaries.

The local dive shop had a special deal going on OW certification.
I remember doing my pool sessions and I knew then the diving was
something I wanted to do.

My only regret....I didn't start sooner.

laurel schrieb:

Hans Hass' books, Sea Hunt, Cousteau's films,

Matthias

Sex with manatees? <snicker>

How fun; new divers are always so excited, it is often infectious.

WATCH OUT FOR THEM SELLING YOU LOTS OF EXPENSIVE GEAR RIGHT OFF THE BAT!

If you stay with diving, most of it will end up on eBay for ten cents on the
buck.

I used to snorkel in the bath tub.

1st time I ever saw a SCUBA rig, I begged until the gentleman (Hugh
Bouchard) allowed me to
breath off it in the deep end of the pool. I was around 8 years old or so.

After I enlisted, I conned two of my buds to teach me.

I used to have dreams of flying until I started diving, now I dream of
diving; I think they were the same.

Couldn't afford standard dress.

My gills didn't work as advertised.

Dave.

Ex-wife wanted to kill me....

Fear of drowning.

Bryan

laurel left this mess on Tue, 23 Mar 2004 09:30:21 GMT for The Way to clean up:

My mom threw me into a pool when I was four and told me to swim. The rest of my
aquatic career, from holding state swimming records to snorkeling in Hawaii to
learning to scuba, stems from that: I never learned to fear the water and I was
excited by learning more about what goes on down there.

Tao te Carl
"It takes a village to have an idiot." - Carl (c) 2003

(Kudos to Cap'n Jim Wyatt for this link) BEFORE you ask a dumb-a.s question
here...http://www.speakeasy.org/~neilco/bart.gif

   Born & raised in Central Florida, my Dad taught me his love of the
water.  Spent many hours growing up and as a younger adult immersed in our
freshwater lakes and springs.

   My first experience with scuba was at age 10, at Ponce DeLeon Springs
campground (now Deleon Springs State Rec Area).  A friend of my father, from
our camping club, was a diver, and gave my father and I a quick, simple
taste of breathing underwater.  I still vividly remember the experience, and
watching him at future outings at Manatee and Blue Springs.  Time passed,
had other interests, interest got sidelined.  I would get interested while
snorkeling, especially at places where I could go down and watch divers
wonder how I was visiting them without a tank.  ;-)  But never followed
through, until.......

   In my 40th year, decided to follow through, and signed up for scuba
lessons with a nephew.  True to my earlier interests, on the weekend of my
40th birthday, less than 4 months after starting, I was doing a cavern
course so I could take lights into the springs.  My interest just got
stronger, certain good sources of info in this newsgroup (you gotta sort
them out from the bullchit yourself) connected me with the right bunch, got
my cave ticket, and the rest is history......6 years active diving.

   Was surprised, figured someone so good at picking on Greg was already a
diver.   ;-)

Curtis

Watching Jacques Cousteau and the movie The Deep when I was a kid.  I was
hooked, my parents couldn't get me out of the water at the beach.  I finally
talked them into letting me take a NAUI Jr cert course.

Star Trek.

From very very young, I have always loved to swim across the bottom of a
pool to see how far I could go before needing to surface.  When I could
finally afford scuba gear, the idea of being able to stay down there for
ages without having to surface was awfully tempting.  Throw in the added
plus of seeing a world no one else sees except on TV, and how could I
resist?

David Luecke
Titusville, FL
http://community.webshots.com/user/david_luecke

A woman I dated was into diving.  I helped her set her stuff
up for a trip (we'd only been going out for two weeks) and
started asking questions.  We ended up running an errand in a
scuba shop and while we were there, I signed up for a class.

Regards,
Ross

-- Ross Bagley       http://rossbagley.com/rba
"Security is mostly a superstition.  It does not exist in nature...  
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."  -- Helen Keller

laurel <laurel@pandora.be> pounded away at his keyboard resulting in:

I was walking into a rec center and there was a sign saying scuba
lessons this way ==>,  so I went.

Dan Bracuk
If at first you don't succeed, you run the risk of failure.
The Best of rec.scuba http://www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/RecScuba/

Chics man, why us guys do most everything we do. Actually the first
girl I
began dating after moving to FL was certified however she had done no
actual diving after certification, I thought to myself, this could be
fun and i better
get with the program down here so I got certified. I was certified,
kinda split
up with the girl went on to log 40 or 50 dives in the following year
and
eventually took the girl who gave me the idea on HER first boat dive,
it was
pretty cool, I did take her to 100' by mistake (oops) on her first
boat dive,
those reefs sure do drop off fast on the east coast, nobody told me
that.
Anyway 2 years later i've had a couples buddies turned dating and
actually
working on something pretty promising with a new woman I've met who is
also a
diver.

Kevin Falconer Fort Myers, FL

The promise of cheap easy women scuba divers.....

Sea Hunt, Cousteau and all those great articles about treasure ships in Argosy
and True magazine.

Dennis

I'd "always" kinda fancied it, but what pushed me into the water was a
*stunning* redhead instructor on a dive/snorkle boat in Queensland
(Rum Runner, out of Cape Tribulation). She said 'why don't you try
SCUBA?'.

Always had a thing about redheads...

Mike
http://www.corestore.org

'As I walk along these shores
I am the history within'

I've always been a swimmer, but never could afford scuba, got married and
divorced very young.  Single mom raising two kids early on.  My kids grew
up, I grew up, went on a trip to the USVI with my now husband, he was
certified, took me diving and I just had to get certified.

Jane

Ummm... agorophobia?  Or maybe it was something else...

Sevengill : The Shark and Me
by Don C. Reed

... and living on a rock in the middle of the Atlantic helped.

"We Come From the Sea" by Hans Hass.
Ando