A Lifestyle: Becoming Part of the Dive Community

Unlock the Ocean Portal - Lifestyle

My instructor told my husband and I, after our certification some years ago, that it is very important for a newly certified diver to book a dive trip. Studies have shown that scuba divers who do a dive trip within the first year after the certification will most likely continue to be an active diver. We get certified so we can go diving, right?

I think I had this challenge to get certified as a goal in itself for me, I didn't plan ahead where I wanted to dive after that. I had been snorkeling in the Keys before, it was then my husband decided it was time to get certified, so I had at least a small picture of what this new world looked like in my head. But still, I had no idea what a great world I entered when becoming a scuba diver. It is not just a new world under water that my curiosity drew me into another world or lifestyle above water opened up too; the dive community.

There are so many courses in different subjects you can take once you have the “diver license,” know how to dive. I started taking classes in Underwater Archeology, Underwater Photography, Wreck Diving and Boat Diving. Even if we had promised each other, me and my husband, to never do deep diving, it didn't take long until we both took classes in that too. And then it continued with more and more courses and the more divers I met, the more friends I got. Soon I found myself participating dive clubs, dive forums online and reading articles about diving or about unusual divers. Then I volunteered for almost a year as a diver at Clearwater Marine Aquarium. I volunteered with a “Reef-Clean up” which happens twice a year in Tampa Bay area and I helped pick up sea grass from the Mermaids stage in Weeki Wachee.

Diving is a social way of living. It is not an isolating sport since you should never dive alone. You meet people from different countries coming to Florida to share a common interest; to be in the nature and to enjoy the presence of sea creatures they have never seen before. The springs, reefs and shipwrecks we have here around the corner are certainly worth traveling to to explore.

Join us at Key Largo for the New Year!

Learn more about The Gulfport Dive Center online:

• Gulfport Dive Center Website
• Gulfport Dive Center on Facebook