All About Me

All about me!

Ever since a child I have had a keen interest in diving of all forms: everything from historical diving to commercial to SCUBA, so I decided when I could that I should try it out and see if it is as good as it looks. I finally got the chance in 1995 when a local diver training company were offering free try-dives. So I decided to “take the plunge” as they say and give it a go!

The day dawned for me to do my try dive, and I was as nervous as anything! Kept having second thoughts throughout the day. After filling in all the usual paperwork and signing my life away, I travelled off the pool where the dive was to take place. It was an out-door pool in March in England! “This is going to be cold!”, I thought to myself but we were fortunately provided with wetsuits. We had a talk through the equipment and finally hit the water.

At this point the cold hits you! I put the regulator in my mouth and took my first breath. It was such a weird feeling but it also seemed nautral. I put my head under the water, at which point most people panic, as it is not a usual thing to do, but I found it so easy. After a few minutes of getting used to it I started to swim around the pool. I was beginning to enjoy it. The whole dive was around 30 minutes and I even managed to do some skills training too, like removing the mask underwater and removing and replacing the regulator. I wondered why I had been so nervous – this was a lot of fun!

It still took me until October 2000 to get around to doing my PADI Open Water course at Aqualearn in Paignton, Devon – a one week intensive course. I even managed to get my sister to join me on the course as she had always wanted to SCUBA dive – something I was not aware of until I booked the course. We had a fantastic week and our instructor Michael Ingham was excellent.

Picture of David at Mevagissey

Dispite the gap between my first try-dive and when I actually did my Open Water course, I was still following the diving world. I found out about a group called the Historical Diving Society. Their members have a keen interest in the older forms of diving equipment and techniques. They promote the old techniques and equipment to the public to keep it alive, and make people aware of how we developed modern forms of diving.

In 1998 I joined the Society and have been a member ever since. I have had the luck of going to one of their Working Equipment Ralleys, which was a lot of fun. Since being a member my interest in historical diving has grown along with my interest in the modern forms of diving like Commercial and SCUBA. In 2002 I had a great opportunity to fullfill my interest in this field when I was invited over to a Dive Rally run in the United States.

I had the opportunity to dive in all the types of diving equipment which I was interested including historical, commercial and SCUBA. Over the 3 day weekend I managed to do 10 dives, the result of which can be seen in the Dive log I have been invited to go back any time I can, which I will certainly do in the coming years. Picture of David at Willow Springs

The experiences I have had in 2002 have really reinforced my passion for diving and all forms of it. After a bit of searching I have discovered various places and organization in the UK that can offer experiences in various types of technical, historical and commercial diving equipment. I also do have a regular dive buddy and I hope we both will get to dive more in the future. If you are reading this and thinking that you would like to try the historical or commercial diving equipment then see my Links page. There are also links from my dive log entries.

Thank you for taking the time to look around my website and I hope you enjoy it. Please keep coming back as I will be keeping it up-to-date.

David
Safe Diving
Keep Bubbling!