Past

In 1986 I started diving at age thirteen in St. Thomas and as far as I can tell the last time I went diving was around 1994 off the coast of Florida.  Either way give a take a year or two it’s been a long time.  I was certified back in 1989 by LeRoy French in St. Martin.  My father (Ray Jr.) and Sam R. were both certified at the same time.  I don’t think the 3 of us ever dove together again after that trip.   The past few years I talked about getting back into it and then I would be sidetracked and scuba would be forgotten again.  However in the last 6 months it’s been on my mind just about every day.

Present

This past August 2012, we took a family and friend vacation to the Outer Banks in North Carolina.  On that trip my brother’n law and I talked about diving a few times and even joked about him and his wife getting certified and we all take a 2 week vacation next year to the gulf coast to fish and dive.  It all sounded great to me.  Later on that OBX trip I was at a surf shop in Kitty Hawk called WRV – Wave Riding Vehicles buying a new skateboard deck and talking with this guy who worked there.  During our conversation diving came up and he told me about this steamer tug boat that was a hundred or so yards off the beach, directly east from the Wal-Mart that was down the street.  He said that they would paddle out with their surf boards and free dive the wreck and swim thru the boilers.  That was all I needed to hear and I was thinking that we could take my small air boat out from sure with dive gear in it and take turns going down and really check it out.  Then a sales girl who heard us talking said that she was just out there at the wreck last week and she thought it was really cool.  Anyway, I left WRV and heading back to out beach house in Corova, NC which is out in the four-wheel drive area.

That was it… I made my mind up to take a refresher course in to next month or two and get back into the sport which I loved so much.  So I contacted Divers Den on Harford Rd, in Baltimore and made arrangements to have a private instructor work with me.  2 weeks later we met up at Goucher College’s Aquatic Center and 4 hours later I was all charged up and ready to get some diving in.