Scuba Diving

It was lightning and pouring when I surfaced. The boat was far way towards the ocean, just the size of a match box. I could hardly see it. The other side is the shoreline. I could barely see the lights behind the storm. The wave, 6 feet, was moving towards me, tossing me up and down. I blew up my safety sausage and put snorkel in mouth. I knew the boat could see me. Then I started to review the pictures I just took 90 feet below – in the middle of ocean and shouting storm with six feet wave. I am a scuba diver and underwater photographer. This is the scene in one of my dives in West Palm Beach.

Diving and photography were totally two different things at the beginning. I signed up Yale’s diving class simply because I thought it’s cool. All I expected was jut to get certified. In March 2004, I went to the 50th Boston Sea Rover Clinics in Boston. I was immediately astonished by the underwater photography. It reminded me a TV program of photographing mantaray I watched with my did when I was a kid. Watching the show, I felt I was in a dream but never thought that one day I could jump into the water and do the same thing. In Boston, I met so many people working on photographing underwater world. I realized that a dream comes true. I started my underwater photography journey.

Diving to me is more than a simple sport. Any dive or dive trip involves lots of planning, preparation and the courage to do it. I enjoy the process and the feeling of accomplishment. I also bring both the challenging and the fun parts into my everyday life. Through diving, I have been to many exotic places that I would not have gone if I don’t dive. More importantly, I met lots of people full of love of life and became friends of them.  I have spent most of my time in New England.  Although I enjoy the colorful scene of warm tropical water, I truly obsessed of diving the harsh conditions – cold, deep and dark. I am pursuing the true challenge.

Many friends often ask me about the dive information. So I think it might be helpful to summarize some important information here for your reference. To learn diving, most likely you will obtain training from NAUI, PADI and SSI and get certificate from these orgnizations. The certificates will be recognized world-wide. The best way to start scuba diving is to check your local dive shops. You can easily find them in google and yellowbook. Give them a phone call. Most of them will offer training classes. Class schedule differs from different organizations. MIT offers good scuba training in Wang Center. Two local dive shops I resort are United Divers in Somerville and PG Dive in Newton.

If you need more information of diving, you can always ask me.