Thank You, John and Paul. And yes, it has been just that. And a rocky one too. I started this road like in April of 2017. I decided I was going to continue as a NAUI Instructor. So, I contacted Hall’s Diving in Marathon, FL. I arranged to take the 10-day instructor course in June. As it turns out, I had to take two TDY’s in May so I had no time to do my pre-work for the course. That was about eighty hours of study before even getting there. I decided to put things off ’til September. Even so I can remember thinking “If I do this, there’ll be a hurricane”. I took three weeks off so I could take Rocket Dog to my folk’s house in South Alabama, spent a few days there then drove down to the Keys. I arrived on the Saturday afternoon of Labor Day Weekend. I have Day One Orientation on Sunday. Monday was Labor Day 2017 and we already knew the storm was coming. Tuesday was Day Two of the course. We did some classroom stuff and then went to the pool. When we got back to Hall’s after the pool the evacuation order was out; Tourist were to leave by 7 AM on Wed, followed by locals to leave by 12 PM. Now we had not been able to get across the street (Hwy 1) in Marathon all day. I told the other two guys in my class that if we didn’t leave that afternoon, there would not be any gas to go anywhere on Wed. morning. I left about 5:30 heading back to Alabama. Took two hours to get back to Key Largo. The first gas station off the Turnpike in Homestead was already backed up to the main road. A little further north and I turned onto I-75 and headed across Alligator Alley. Even on the west side of the state, traffic was heavy and gas was getting scarce. Finally made it back to the folk’s about 8 AM after driving all night. Marathon took a more or less direct hit from Hurricane Irma.
Fast forward to February of 2018. I was finally able to reschedule my instructor class. So, back to Marathon. I should have waited. I had not been in the open water since August. I wasn’t prepared mentally or physically. I lasted four days and bailed. It was a pretty miserable experience with one bright spot. I made a nice fun dive on the Thunderbolt wreck. I’m not much of a wreck diver; that was only the second one I have ever dove on.
After being back home for a few weeks, I decided to go one to Plan B and try PADI. My current shop owner put me in contact with Patriot Scuba in Occoquan, VA. Beginning in mid-April I began a three hour pilgrimage every Saturday morning to NoVA for the weekend. I would stay overnight, drive back on Sunday evening. This also required Rocket Dog to spend the weekends at the kennel. Instructor school was costly enough, especially after paying for it twice. Hotel and kennel bills every weekend was another drain. Five weeks of classroom, pool and a cold, murky quarry complete with copperheads and the class was ready to take the Instructor’s Exam. The two guys in my class, Kyle and Michael opted to travel to Dutch Springs, PA where the water was reported to be a “cool and refreshing 45 degrees”. The Rappahannock Quarry was 53 degrees, I had on a 5 mil wetsuit, skins, gloves, two hoods and about froze to death. All that also required me to put 24 lbs of lead in my pockets too. That is a lot of weight, even for me. I told my course director no way was I going to Pennsylvania. I ended up in Destin Beach, Florida. Ninety degrees, bright sun and a very nice pool for the confined water portion was had. The second day, we headed up to Vortex Springs for the open water portion. Again it was sunny, hot and 68 degrees in the spring. Cool but not 47 degrees water and rain like was going on in PA. Knew I had made the right choice.
So after more than a year of trying; two different certifying agencies; lots of time on the road and in hotels, I was finally a scuba instructor.
The Red Fins 