Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1089: Scott Taylor - SCUBA! Revisited

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Ep. 1089: Scott Taylor - SCUBA! Revisited · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for joining the Adventure Sports podcast episode one thousand eighty nine.
0:06
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a revisited episode with Scott Taylor on scuba diving.
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[SPEAKER_02]: This was our two hundredth episode.
0:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to a blast from the past.
0:31
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the Adventure Sports podcast, brought to you by one eighty-taque.
0:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Get out there and have some fun.
0:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Episode two hundred?
0:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
0:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Two hundred with Scott Taylor, Scooby-Diaming.
0:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi friends, clearly this is not episode two hundred, but man, what a lot of fun we've had since then.
0:54
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of you have told me that you've been listening to the Adventure Sports podcast since the very beginning, and I want to say thank you so much.
1:04
[SPEAKER_02]: That makes my day to hear that somehow we can contribute to your day, not once or twice, but since this episode for over nine years.
1:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, we're over ten years old now and I want to say another special thank you to all of our Patreon members who helped the show along.
1:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so very very much and also for all of those of you who leave comments and who give ratings and who subscribe all the things you know the routine enjoy this flashback episode today all about scuba
1:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Today is all about scuba diving and we have not done a scuba show for a long time so I'm really excited I don't know if any of you know but I'm actually a scuba diver and I have Scott Taylor with us who is scuba diver extraordinaire so Scott grew up in Colorado
2:07
[SPEAKER_02]: and his father-in-law ran a scuba shop.
2:11
[SPEAKER_02]: So Scott became a physical therapist.
2:13
[SPEAKER_02]: He spent four years in the Air Force, and he started diving in a nineteen seventy, and in nineteen eighty four, he took over the scuba business full-time.
2:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And he is the owner operator of A-One Scuba and Travel Aquatics Center, and I'll let him explain the title there, because it's kind of interesting.
2:32
[SPEAKER_02]: They have certified thousands of people to scuba dive.
2:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And so Scott is here to tell us about Scuba, about Adventure Travel, and Scott, welcome to the program.
2:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thanks, Kurt.
2:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, everybody.
2:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me today.
2:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you bet, man.
2:48
[SPEAKER_02]: This is going to be fun.
2:49
[SPEAKER_02]: We started talking before I pressed record here and almost did a full show just because we're having so much fun chatting about this.
2:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And so now we get to redo everything we just said.
3:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool.
3:00
[SPEAKER_00]: That'd be fun.
3:02
[SPEAKER_00]: We're making a sound old though.
3:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You gave a lot of dates out there.
3:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So if anybody's a mathematician, well, I am old.
3:09
[SPEAKER_00]: What can I say?
3:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you're kind of like me.
3:11
[SPEAKER_02]: We're celebrating multiples of our third year.
3:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's it.
3:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, incremental multiples, not thirty multiples, but we'll move on.
3:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So Scott, why scuba?
3:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Why did you start diving and why do you work in scuba full time?
3:30
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
3:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thanks.
3:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to tie it into my interest in working with people with disabilities as it ends up
3:39
[SPEAKER_00]: When I got into scuba diving, I was also a voluntary and high school with a handicap swimming program.
3:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And got into the scuba and I immediately thought, how much fun this would be for people with disabilities.
3:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So fast forward a few years after I get, when I was at the military, I did some volunteer work with some handicap swim programs.
4:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Went to college, as you said, became a physical therapist, and it wasn't long after I graduated.
4:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I talked to my father and I said, you know, I'd like to take some of my patients in the pool on scuba.
4:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I think this would be kind of cool.
4:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Get them out of their wheelchair and crutches, braces, or prosthetic devices.
4:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And let's give it a try.
4:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was an overnight hit.
4:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I
4:23
[SPEAKER_00]: You and I kind of talked about it before the show started.
4:26
[SPEAKER_00]: What I quickly discovered is that diving, scuba diving in particular, is it's the great equalizer.
4:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It puts people in a medium that all but eliminates gravity.
4:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now you can discard all of those items I talked about earlier.
4:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Gravity, which was restrictive out of the water, is absent in the water.
4:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And now you can start moving
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[SPEAKER_00]: body parts that you might not have moved very well or at all, out of the water and you can propel from point A to point B without the restrictions of a device.
5:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And that for me was just this huge epiphany.
5:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And so once I started doing that, Kurt, I thought this is what I got to do.
5:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I was born to be a bubblehead.
5:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So, eighty-four, I hung up sorta.
5:15
[SPEAKER_00]: My physical therapy hat and put on my scuba fins and I've been doing it full-time ever since.
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[SPEAKER_02]: That's cool.
5:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So you work with Craig Hospital hearing Colorado to continue getting people with physical challenges and opportunity to try scuba and find out what it's all about.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I do.
5:35
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where I last worked as a PT and happily left in good terms and get a pink slip and started
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[SPEAKER_00]: bringing patients from Craig to our dive store.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We're kind of lucky we have an indoor pool.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, started bringing them to our store.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's evolved now.
5:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Many years later to a monthly program where patients whether
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: in patients or maybe they're here for a reevaluation or first time evaluation from out of state are given an opportunity to try a variety of activities and Craig has this incredible therapeutic break department where they introduce you can pick an activity you probably have talked about on the show in the past.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Select these activities, give people the opportunity ours, happens to be scuba.
6:25
[SPEAKER_00]: They have the transportation made available, bring patients over to our store.
6:31
[SPEAKER_00]: We're quite lucky, we have a large building, and we have a two level building.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So we installed an elevator, people wheel in, and immediately during an environment where our staff is friendly and greets them, and they've experienced some of these things through various inservices themselves.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a warm and friendly environment.
6:50
[SPEAKER_00]: They come with
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[SPEAKER_00]: pears, other people with disabilities, some of the staff members from Craig, can the elevator go downstairs and then they head to our pool, so we're able to take them into a water environment in a really fun way.
7:06
[SPEAKER_00]: We have mentioned to you earlier, we have a lift over our pool, the Craig donated, it had installed and donated, so we can get people out of their wheelchairs or into the water quite easy.
7:19
[SPEAKER_00]: and then from there we do a discover scuba just like we would anywhere around the country people do discover scuba diving experiences we have a staff who volunteers their time is a phenomenal people who have had some training their scuba divers themselves and we get these folks in the water and we the only intent we have is to give people an experience and
7:42
[SPEAKER_00]: hopefully through this experience, it gives them an attitude of enablement where started out saying, I can't, suddenly you did what?
7:51
[SPEAKER_00]: You went, you went scuba diving, are you kidding me?
7:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And they had fun.
7:57
[SPEAKER_00]: all as I mentioned earlier that we've eliminated gravity they do an activity get out of the water and I tell you the smiles are are just priceless and think a lot of people have stretch marks from smiling so much after their experience and whether or not somebody goes on to become a certified diver at that point or not is is really not our intent it's our intent to
8:20
[SPEAKER_00]: As I said, change in attitude.
8:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I can now, as opposed to I can't.
8:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And I could ramble on forever about the testimonials and stories of people who have just had nothing but positive accolades about their experience.
8:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's kind of a new mindset, new attitude change.
8:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, I have to give Craig so much credit.
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[SPEAKER_00]: for providing that opportunity, whether it's scuba or other experiences and we're just feel very fortunate to be a part of that whole process.
8:54
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I love about while you were just telling us their Scott is how people go from an attitude of I can't to I just did that.
9:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
9:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And when someone is suffered some sort of a traumatic injury, it's real easy to get stuck and that I can't world.
9:09
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we mentioned Matt Feeney to each other earlier and adaptive adventures and how they take people and say, look, you can.
9:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
9:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And when people with any sort of a physical challenge find out that there are devices, there are mobilities, there are ways to do everything now.
9:29
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to do it, you can do it.
9:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And I love it because you're waking people up to that.
9:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's so many great groups of people in our country and beyond who really want to get people motivated and encouraged them.
9:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a friend in Mexico, Leo Morales, and Leo lost his leg to cancer about six or seven years ago now.
9:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And Leo was extremely depressed, was ready to sort of end things.
10:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And through a friend, through his brother actually, he got into scuba diving.
10:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll tell you what, Kurt, it changes life.
10:07
[SPEAKER_00]: He is now the record holder for deep diving in the country of Mexico, somebody with the disability.
10:16
[SPEAKER_00]: He and I, and so a few other people, Missy Franklin and a couple other folks.
10:20
[SPEAKER_00]: We were involved with a documentary about diving and the enabling part of diving.
10:26
[SPEAKER_00]: It's called the current Curtin Miller.
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[SPEAKER_00]: is the director of the Warren Miller film family.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll tell you what, Leo, just to hear him talk about diving and what it's done for him.
10:40
[SPEAKER_00]: As a veteran, I'm quite fortunate I have worked with a number of veterans.
10:44
[SPEAKER_00]: As we both know,
10:46
[SPEAKER_00]: as we all know, PTSD, combat PTSD is terrible and there's been suggestions of, you know, multiple suicides done daily.
10:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Twenty-two, I'm hearing a day and that could be simply rumor but there's, there's a lot of need for therapies out there and there's a number of groups in our country
11:07
[SPEAKER_00]: who are taking veterans with PTSD and getting them into scuba.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a group called Waves, for example, out on the West Coast, in California, who are taking veterans now and changing their lives, changing their lives through scuba of all crazy things.
11:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, sorry, I'm rambling, but I think it's a great recreational activity.
11:32
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very therapeutic, exciting, adventure activity too.
11:35
[SPEAKER_02]: you know what's funny about that's got we used to almost always ask the question at the end of our show so what good is it what are you doing for the planet
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[SPEAKER_02]: You should know and you answered it first and really it's amazing to find out with almost any adventure sport the benefits that are available to people that get involved with it and the way that the sport can be used to challenge people to draw people out to give them a new perspective Let's talk about perspective.
12:04
[SPEAKER_02]: There's one for you School of Diving is a completely different perspective.
12:08
[SPEAKER_02]: What is it like to be under the water?
12:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that'll all occur.
12:17
[SPEAKER_00]: It's pretty cool.
12:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I've already sort of given you the whole freedom speel, but I think to see this stuff, I mean, when I've been with an inches of whale sharks, massive critters underwater, I've dove with many, many sharks.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Still have all my appendages, all my toes, et cetera.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I feel blessed to see these and little tiny critters too.
12:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I've traveled from many countries across the earth to just go scuba diving.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So the colors, the critters that you see
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's mind boggling again dating myself.
12:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm kind of the old Jacques Gusto era guy.
13:00
[SPEAKER_00]: He's who he's who really got me going the underwater world of Jacques Gusto.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure some of the listeners can can relate to that or Mike Nelson.
13:09
[SPEAKER_00]: and see hunt.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I was, I was one of those, I love those all the knife fights and the spirit and stuff.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We don't do that, but I thought it was kind of cool that the time and the James Bond movies always have those cool dive scenes.
13:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's just this underwater adventure where we're not talking, we're hearing, we're seeing, we're doing, we're experiencing something, you know, a seventy five percent of our planets water.
13:37
[SPEAKER_00]: to be able to go underwater and encounter that is what a privilege that is.
13:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, I couldn't agree more.
13:45
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we were joking about how much scuba has changed and Scott, I want to tell the story that I told you I was going to tell.
13:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I've told it on the show once before, but it's worth telling twice and then you can tell everybody how it's not like that.
13:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't wait.
14:00
[SPEAKER_02]: So I learned to dive from a buddy who was an avid diver years ago and he was old school.
14:08
[SPEAKER_02]: He learned Navy seal methods and that was pretty hardcore.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But I went through all the manuals.
14:15
[SPEAKER_02]: He early tested me on it.
14:17
[SPEAKER_02]: He put some scuba gear on me and said, let's go.
14:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And we went down to seventy feet and I had a hundred and twenty cubes cubic feet of air on my back, which is more than a sport I would normally carry.
14:28
[SPEAKER_02]: But we went down to seventy feet and I sucked a full hundred and twenty cubes down and ran out of air on my first dive at seventy feet and then had to do a free ascent.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And so and that was in kind of a dark murky lake.
14:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean it was it was an amazing experience and I had a ton of fun doing it, but that's not the way it's taught these days.
14:49
[SPEAKER_00]: no hallelujah, you know you're right back when I learned in the late sixties when I started it was all hairy chested guys and you know it was like Henry Ford it what color you can have any color piece of equipment you want as long as it's black
15:07
[SPEAKER_00]: It was all that black, heavy, bulky, dive gear.
15:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was a sport that evolved from the military.
15:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the Navy seals out there.
15:17
[SPEAKER_00]: It was all those, you know, wartime activities.
15:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And then all of a sudden, we started seeing this as a recreational activity.
15:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, when that happens,
15:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You got to change your procedure.
15:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I learned that it was ripping gear off and turning your air off and spinning your underwater, any sort of a, it wasn't a, let's see if we can get somebody to pass.
15:40
[SPEAKER_00]: It was failure.
15:41
[SPEAKER_00]: It's how can we weed them out once again?
15:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of that military.
15:45
[SPEAKER_00]: mentality and God, thank God, it changed because even though I loved it, I mean, I was seventeen.
15:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was all about that harassment stuff, but like to any standards, you know, you want your kids to die.
16:00
[SPEAKER_00]: We spoke about that.
16:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Kids don't want that.
16:03
[SPEAKER_00]: People don't want that kind of harassment.
16:05
[SPEAKER_00]: They want to
16:07
[SPEAKER_00]: a family or an individual activity they can enjoy.
16:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So it has really evolved to a very, I don't want it to sound sedentary either, because I think there's a lot of excitement to scuba, but now it's methodical.
16:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you learn about diving, I call it a three step process.
16:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So first step is you learn about the activity through some media, whether it's buying a book or through an online e-learning process,
16:36
[SPEAKER_00]: We're a patty PADI professional association of diving instructors facility and patty's the biggest in the world training organization, but it's a learn to dive you have to be it's like driving a car you have to be licensed so you go through this process of learning about it as I said step one the media and That takes you know as much time as you want you can put it take your iPad
17:00
[SPEAKER_00]: with you, you can take any device, your iPhone and download this program and read it and study and take some quizzes online.
17:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the next step is to come to a dive center, in our case, and we have a pool.
17:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have some time in the classroom reviewing concepts, not retaching everything.
17:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I always hate to use the word classroom.
17:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It's knowledge development.
17:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So we develop some knowledge or enhance it a little bit, try to make it fun.
17:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we get the pool.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then we do a bunch of skills in the pool.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And you and I talked about it really a lot of from assembling the equipment to some what if skills what what if I got water in my mask or what if I was smiling so big at that critter that my regulator dropped out of my mouth how do I put it back in and clear the water how do I adjust things under what what if your situation we actually talk about what if you didn't monitor
17:57
[SPEAKER_00]: your pressure gauge, like a gas gauge on a car.
18:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And your ran out of air or gas, what would you do?
18:04
[SPEAKER_00]: We go through some exercises on at least letting you feel what that experience is like underwater.
18:11
[SPEAKER_00]: We let you know, we don't surprise you.
18:14
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to turn your air off.
18:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at your pressure gauge.
18:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Watch the air diminish.
18:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Feel what it's like for a to run out.
18:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Signal to your buddy that you're now out of air using a hand signal.
18:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And a good hand.
18:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So you'll not a nasty one.
18:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you'll share, you'll share air using one of a couple of different techniques.
18:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So we a lot of the what if stuff is in the pool through two, three or four pool sessions.
18:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you apply all that stuff in the third
18:47
[SPEAKER_00]: step during the third step.
18:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And the third step is to go to an open water site.
18:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And that could be a lake in our case or a quarry.
18:56
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a wonderful downtown downtown.
19:00
[SPEAKER_00]: what we partnered with and I could talk more about that later and get started.
19:05
[SPEAKER_00]: We go the ocean and so now you do a four open water scuba dives where you repeat many of the skills learned in the pool over four separate dives and once done you are there then a certified diver so some paperwork is done and you celebrate jump up and down and and now unlike a driver's license where you have to have a renewed
19:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Now your diver's license is good for life.
19:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's sort of the process.
19:36
[SPEAKER_00]: If I may, that could take as long as you wanted to back when I learned it was weeks.
19:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my God.
19:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we all know that life passes us by if you do anything for too long anymore.
19:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just too many demands.
19:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have a weekend program.
19:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You can study at home as I already said.
19:56
[SPEAKER_00]: we can get you in the pool over the weekend a few times we can even start your open water dives at the downtown aquarium so that's very popular or traditionally there's week evenings where you go through your four nights during the week to learn so it isn't the weeks that some people might think it can be a matter of days quite honest
20:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's fun.
20:21
[SPEAKER_02]: It is cool.
20:22
[SPEAKER_02]: So you mentioned the aquarium.
20:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm glad you said it twice.
20:24
[SPEAKER_02]: The first time you said aquarium, the sound cut out for just a second.
20:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So I want to emphasize that A one scuba gets to dive in Denver's aquarium.
20:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Pretty cool.
20:39
[SPEAKER_00]: That is awesome.
20:40
[SPEAKER_00]: In that neat, in that neat, I have got to tell you.
20:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Downtown Aquarium is the Denver Downtown Aquarium's owned by Landriez Corporation, and I'm sure people have heard names like the chart house and various stake houses and the rainforest cafe, etc.
21:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's some three hundred restaurants owned by Landriez.
21:04
[SPEAKER_00]: They also own about five aquariums.
21:07
[SPEAKER_00]: One in Las Vegas and a few others.
21:09
[SPEAKER_00]: The Denver Aquarium, when they purchased it several years back, their goal was to rejuvenate this, because it was prior owned by some other folks, didn't do well.
21:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they came in, invested several million dollars into this incredible facility.
21:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the mandates out of their headquarters out of Texas was, let's start a public diver program.
21:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And so happily because of our
21:37
[SPEAKER_00]: previous affiliation with the founders of that downtown aquarium who I knew quite well.
21:44
[SPEAKER_00]: We were contacted and we sat down with the powers to be and I'm happy to say some twelve years later and thirty thousand people later we have now taken and exposed people to this immersion experience at the aquarium whether snorkeling
22:02
[SPEAKER_00]: in one of the cool exhibits with a lot of cool critters or scuba diving in one of four.
22:09
[SPEAKER_00]: different exhibits and we can actually take that step three and do two their first two open water training dives at the downtown aquarium so no driving no at least not much great visibility incredible critters I always jokingly go into classes and say hello and thank you and I always how many of you are doing your open waters at the aquarium and they'll raise her their hand I go well there is a downside you kind of get this
22:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Grimmis on their face I'll say you're never gonna see that make cool critters ever again a post
22:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So then they smile, of course, it is kind of true, you never will.
22:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So what a great way to begin an activity in sort of ideal circumstances.
22:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Like going skiing on an indoor play indoors ski hills that they have around the country now and get started on the right ski or the right fin correctly.
23:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what we get to do.
23:10
[SPEAKER_02]: It's nice to have a safe controlled environment where people can get a feel for it.
23:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Like any other skill, scuba diving requires some experience for it to start to feel normal and natural and kind of automatic.
23:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what you want.
23:23
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to know what to do.
23:24
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you don't want to be surprised and not know what to do when you're diving.
23:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And what a neat thing to be able to do it at the aquarium.
23:32
[SPEAKER_02]: That's so cool.
23:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
23:35
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a great activity.
24:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Here in Colorado, where I am, we have one of the largest number of divers per capita in the country.
24:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm always asked, why?
24:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is that?
24:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And well, it's because of a one, not just kidding.
24:32
[SPEAKER_00]: It might be.
24:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish it were.
24:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a lot of headers, and I have a lot of great competitors.
24:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So I can't, I've true in dissenting of them by any stretch.
24:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I think its color radiance are adventuring some outgoing,
24:45
[SPEAKER_00]: people.
24:45
[SPEAKER_00]: They love to do indoor and outdoor activities and and with so much available to us here.
24:53
[SPEAKER_00]: are aquarium and other things that I've mentioned.
24:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And the DIA, let's face it, you can get DIA, hopefully some way you can get there by public transit.
25:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can get to wherever your destination is.
25:05
[SPEAKER_00]: You can head to the beach in matter of hours in some cases and be scuba diving.
25:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's why we're so fortunate.
25:15
[SPEAKER_00]: We have so many great opportunities here in Colorado.
25:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think you're right.
25:19
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and in the winter time, when the snow's not very good, which usually it is, but if the snow's not very good, then people like to have an alternate activity, especially when the winter starts to get long and then want to soak up some sun anyway, what better thing to do than to jump a plane for some beach somewhere and do some diving?
25:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'll tell you we all need a vitamin D hit every now and then don't we?
25:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Those short days in December just drive me bonkers.
25:46
[SPEAKER_02]: They get a little long.
25:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Those short days get long.
25:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, man, they do don't they?
25:50
[SPEAKER_00]: How pricey does that?
25:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So heck, you get a quick fix head down CoSML for four or five days.
25:57
[SPEAKER_00]: get feeling pretty good about life again, recharge, come home, and do whatever you do.
26:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And then go back again on another day.
26:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So as you hear, it's not done taking much time for a dive.
26:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's affordable.
26:11
[SPEAKER_00]: We should talk about that.
26:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you're often diving, whether it's by yourself, what a great family activity.
26:19
[SPEAKER_00]: My kids dive.
26:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got grandkids now.
26:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I'm old.
26:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a couple of grandkids that I
26:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Just started to introduce the diving.
26:28
[SPEAKER_00]: We took them to Kozamell here a few weeks ago.
26:31
[SPEAKER_00]: They had a blast.
26:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And wow, how cool is that?
26:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.
26:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's fun.
26:38
[SPEAKER_00]: We get a lot of friends.
26:40
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of funny.
26:41
[SPEAKER_00]: We do a lot of group travel.
26:42
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a travel agency here in our store.
26:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we do, we do a approximately a group trip a month that averages out that way.
26:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And we go from the Caribbean to the
26:53
[SPEAKER_00]: to the other side of the world's South Pacific and the friendships.
26:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's people that have a common interest of an activity, find out that they're very similar in so many ways and now they're sharing stories and fun and they're diving on the other side of the world together.
27:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that cool?
27:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I love it.
27:12
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that's something that we often find out about adventure sports as they build a community too, because people have a common interest.
27:19
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just a wonderful thing.
27:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're telling us about these great destinations, but you know, you got to take us a little bit farther than that.
27:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So tell us about an experience scuba diving that you just thought was amazing.
27:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Take us there so we can get a feel for what it's really like.
27:35
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, well, people are always asking my wife and I, what's your favorite place?
27:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Where is your favorite place?
27:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, we've been quite blessed over the years.
27:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And we, and there would be people to argue with be, we love the Philippines.
27:51
[SPEAKER_00]: We have doubted into the Philippines many times.
27:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a variety of reason.
27:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not all diving.
27:58
[SPEAKER_00]: One, it's the people.
28:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the people, you know, what's cool, I digress.
28:04
[SPEAKER_00]: But what we've discovered is whether you go to Kozamell or to the Bahamas or the Red Sea or Indonesia, wherever it might be, people are pretty darn cool.
28:17
[SPEAKER_00]: If you watch
28:19
[SPEAKER_00]: television, I won't pick on a station, but if you watch television, unfortunately I think we're led to believe differently.
28:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when we get to these places, the smiles, the hugs, the friendliness, they're, we're tourists.
28:34
[SPEAKER_00]: We are spending our money.
28:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they appreciate that, but the sincerity of it all, the simplicity.
28:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And so here we are in this country.
28:43
[SPEAKER_00]: and the people could not be more welcoming.
28:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Philippines for Lin and I, my wife and I, we have just been blown away by that.
28:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you go underwater, I'm holy macro.
28:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And you think the Caribbean's cool and it is, but all of the sudden, it almost night and day, the diversity from tiny little stuff, the weirdest stuff you've ever seen in your life, to big, big stuff like whale sharks.
29:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of like the big stuff.
29:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I like manta rays and whale sharks and sharks in general and I think that's for me what I love and there's one particular dive site in the Philippines that we go to.
29:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's the crazy part.
29:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a snorkel dive.
29:32
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not even a scuba dive, but the locals have discovered that the whale sharks like to come in, they eat krill, which is this tiny little teeny nothing critter, millions of them.
29:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And they hand feed the whale shark.
29:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're sitting on this little cutout boat on the surface.
29:52
[SPEAKER_00]: They have people on the boats visitors who have come to CDs and then we jump in off our dive boats getting in snorkel around and so now there's I'm not kidding.
30:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a video clip of nine whale sharks in this area in one complete panoramic shot that was just
30:12
[SPEAKER_00]: blown my mind.
30:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm as close to that as I am, my computer right now, it's funny.
30:18
[SPEAKER_00]: So a matter of a couple of feet, watching a vertically positioned whale shark, forty feet long, being fed.
30:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, it's like a siphon them.
30:31
[SPEAKER_00]: The water coming in their mouth is correct.
30:34
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you don't want to get too close.
30:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you get sucked into their mouth.
30:38
[SPEAKER_00]: It's too tiny.
30:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Like my wife's little.
30:42
[SPEAKER_00]: It's that cool.
30:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's magic.
30:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Here you are with one of God's greatest creatures.
30:49
[SPEAKER_00]: They're face to face.
30:52
[SPEAKER_00]: experiencing something that you read in a book or watch on a movie, but you're doing it.
30:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, you know, I could pontificate forever on those kinds of encounters, sea lion activity.
31:06
[SPEAKER_00]: We did some great white shark diving in South Africa out of the cage diving several years ago.
31:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And unfortunately, again, I think that the sharks get such crap, pardon my language, but they get
31:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So much harassment and bad press because of what we see on TV and yet they're coming in, they're curious, they're looking at us and yeah, you're in a cage and it's pretty sensational.
31:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, yes, they are feeding them to attract them.
31:33
[SPEAKER_00]: They are eating machines and yet to be there within arms reach of a twenty twenty five foot great white.
31:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Holy macro.
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean,
31:45
[SPEAKER_00]: How cool is that?
31:46
[SPEAKER_00]: That's amazing.
31:48
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, some people like to debate whether or not there's life on other planets, and if aliens could ever make it to the earth, and if they did, what would they look like?
31:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And I say, oh, they're here.
31:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I've seen them.
31:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Put on your scuba gear.
32:01
[SPEAKER_00]: watch Star Wars and some of the others if you were to sit there and and look at the critters that are the creatures that they've developed and then go underwater and say oh that's where they got that one I get it you know avatar look at avatar so much diving stuff in avatar the creatures and the critters and
32:24
[SPEAKER_00]: and so forth.
32:24
[SPEAKER_00]: They're taken from critters from underwater.
32:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
32:28
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's where they've gotten all these great ideas.
32:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I just want to my favorite things about scuba diving is here are all these animals that are made to adapt and survive in an environment that is so completely foreign to us mammals, you know?
32:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
32:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And you go down in there and it's kind of like, wow, that just it doesn't even look like anything you can relate to.
32:51
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it doesn't.
32:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And the sounds, I mean, you're, you're at peace under water.
32:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And I, again, I don't want this to sound so tranquil that people are going, oh, God, yon, it's not a yonner by any stretch and take you to the Galapagos.
33:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Galapagos Islands.
33:09
[SPEAKER_00]: unbelievable.
33:10
[SPEAKER_00]: My wife calls it electronic diving because it is fish on steroids.
33:17
[SPEAKER_00]: It is just baked critters, whole bunch of them, been there a few times, cooler water, but you've got the little sea lions who are so curious and
33:28
[SPEAKER_00]: In your face and the more you horse around and do some results, the more excited they get, the more they dart around, or you get the squadrons of hammerheads or Galapagos sharks, or the whale sharks that I mentioned earlier, that stuff that you only hear, and again, you hear about it.
33:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You read about it.
33:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You see that in a movie, to go there, you can go there as a diver, and be on a boat, fourteen hours from
33:56
[SPEAKER_00]: the mainland in the sea doing your thing.
34:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, how cool.
34:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that ability.
34:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You could see what Darwin saw back when, you know, back in the day, hundreds of years ago, and see where he came up with his theory of evolution, which happened there.
34:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, it's a privilege.
34:20
[SPEAKER_02]: sounds like neat stuff so you've traveled a lot you've seen a lot of stuff you've told us about amazing places to go and that's enough to make people want to dive whether they're divers you know they're interested in the water or not it's just a travel that would be fun it is it's uh... i don't know getting there is any fun you know we've we've had to struggle through airline changes over the years but uh... i i have decided that's just part of the deal sort of it
34:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You go to the airport to get on the plane and you sit down and watch a movie or read a book or two and then you get there.
34:55
[SPEAKER_00]: When they open the door and you feel that heat, the humidity and you see the greenery and the people, you're into a lot of land.
35:06
[SPEAKER_00]: change that occurs.
35:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody begins to smile.
35:09
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't help yourself, but to smile.
35:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you're frown, everybody starts frowning the day they've got to go home.
35:16
[SPEAKER_00]: They get on this darn cell phone and start checking messages and emails and everything else.
35:23
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is, it's a transformation for truly is.
35:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, Scott, I can tell by your enthusiasm that you love what you do and you're doing what you love.
35:33
[SPEAKER_02]: What's it like to tell our listeners out there?
35:36
[SPEAKER_02]: What's it like to be able to make a career out of an adventure sport doing something you really enjoy?
35:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, man.
35:43
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, uh, well, I'm lucky duck.
35:45
[SPEAKER_00]: There you go.
35:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, to be able to take professions that I've had the best military time.
35:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I did know nothing heroic served during the Vietnam era, though not in Vietnam happily.
35:59
[SPEAKER_00]: to be able to work with veterans through scuba.
36:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a physical therapist to be able to take my passion and working with people with disabilities, veterans put them underwater on scuba.
36:14
[SPEAKER_00]: The therapeutic opportunity says I've already talked about on the show.
36:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I am truly blessed and I think that and the recreational aspect of it in and of itself to be able to take people
36:29
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... normal folks from day to day who want to change in life or to put families together doing an activity that they can truly enjoy to travel to learn about geography and and uh... our world underwater learn about critters to be able to talk about ecology uh... we do a lot of work with kids we take a lot of we have some inner city kid programs that we do where we do a try scuba diving experience
36:57
[SPEAKER_00]: We've taken into the aquarium for that.
36:59
[SPEAKER_00]: We get other schools that will come in and do either a try, scuba, or a week of diving here at the store.
37:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I always tell these kids, I hope one of you saves the world someday.
37:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Because in order to be a marine biologist, or an inquarist, or an oceanographer, or an astronaut, you have to scuba die.
37:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to be a scuba die.
37:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the doors that diving can open from young
37:26
[SPEAKER_00]: to old, able-bodied and disabled.
37:30
[SPEAKER_00]: How great is that?
37:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I keep saying how cool is that, but it is cool.
37:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I am blessed.
37:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I do enjoy what I do.
37:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I always jokingly say people say, when are you going to retire?
37:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I say, well, I kind of do what people retired to do.
37:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm almost the brain and the body work.
37:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not any hurry to get out of Dodge.
37:50
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it sounds like you were.
37:52
[SPEAKER_02]: You may have retired in
37:56
[SPEAKER_00]: You're right.
37:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's fun.
38:00
[SPEAKER_02]: So I love this question.
38:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I haven't asked it for a few shows here, but you got to tell us about a time that things didn't go right when you were diving and how you got through it and advice that you might have for people that find themselves in a bizarre situation.
38:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, and it relates to air management.
38:17
[SPEAKER_00]: You sort of addressed it.
38:20
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're underwater, you become
38:24
[SPEAKER_00]: so engrossed in what's taking place that oftentimes and you become energized and excited and that relates to breathing rate and air consumption.
38:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And unfortunately, you can only stay down so long.
38:40
[SPEAKER_00]: There's only so much air in that scuba cylinder.
38:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So I've unfortunately for me found myself a couple of times and I'm sorry, this is
38:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to say this.
38:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't practice when I preached.
38:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So I ran out of gas in the car a couple of times too.
38:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wasn't monitoring my pressure gauge.
38:59
[SPEAKER_00]: One particular dye was in the Philippines.
39:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw it was a night dye and I saw I saw stuff that I'd never seen before.
39:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm filming with an underwater video camera thinking
39:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, this is national geographic stuff.
39:15
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the best of ever.
39:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I should be on TV.
39:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm seeing an octopus that are feeding and blue ring octopus and smoking coral and
39:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It just went on and on and on and all of the sudden I looked up and I didn't see anybody.
39:35
[SPEAKER_00]: My wife had finally, she had actually told me a few minutes before she was going to take off and head back toward the boat and go ahead.
39:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm filming.
39:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going for it.
39:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll set nobody around so I started swimming toward shallow water and I could see some dive lights and I thought okay cool and I got over close to the other divers and another thing appeared underwater and I'm just blown away by this magic that's happening
40:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And suddenly there's nobody, no divers around.
40:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And I took a breath and you don't abruptly run out of air.
40:10
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the good thing, right?
40:12
[SPEAKER_00]: As you probably discovered, there's a warning.
40:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like the engine starts to sputter.
40:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you start to breathe and you have to draw a little bit harder and a little bit harder.
40:23
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the warning that Rut Row, you're a little on air.
40:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I looked at my gauge and yep, I was down to nothing.
40:33
[SPEAKER_00]: didn't panic, I got anxious, and I began my assent.
40:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And we talk about ascending and not going to rapidly.
40:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I probably went a little faster than I should.
40:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So my good fortune, there she was, my wife of forty-five years, hovering underwater, and I came up behind her.
40:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I spun her around, and I caught heck for this one.
41:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Spone her around, grabbed her alternate air source, put it my mouth that I was able to breathe safely and do what we call a safety stop.
41:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was then then we ascend into the surface.
41:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I say that because it was a recent story from last year and my wife doesn't forget those things.
41:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have been reminded on multiple occasions in
41:25
[SPEAKER_00]: She bailed me out again.
41:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to run into trouble if you're prudent.
41:37
[SPEAKER_00]: If you follow the rules and watch the equipment and don't exceed your experience level.
41:43
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's easy to get mesmerized by all this stuff too.
41:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Eric consumption is probably the
41:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd say one of the more often occurring problems that people don't monitor their gate, their gas gauge.
41:58
[SPEAKER_00]: But the good news is you hopefully have a buddy close by.
42:02
[SPEAKER_00]: You've learned how to share air with that buddy and you can safely make that a cent of the surface.
42:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So here I am, safely having safely ascended.
42:13
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if you had to skip your safety stop and go onto the surface, odds are everything would have been fine.
42:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I didn't exceed my bottom time we call it.
42:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was within my limits of not exceeding the time I should have spent under water.
42:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just so engrossed in my breathing rate.
42:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I know was
42:36
[SPEAKER_00]: exceeded my normal breathing rate just by virtue this feeding octopus that you can't even imagine I shot every angle imaginable here to there and everywhere and I'm I was pretty excited by that so I I was within those limits so I I didn't have to suffer
42:56
[SPEAKER_00]: decompression illness.
42:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
42:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, for our listeners, I'm going to just do a real quick review of that stuff.
43:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Scuba diving within limits is is a very safe and enjoyable activity that the dangers are if you went too deep for too long, but Scott, you know this with an eighty cubic foot tank, unless you're a really aggressive diver, it's actually difficult to exceed those limits before you run out of air.
43:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it is.
43:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And you learn about those things during a class.
43:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So you read about it.
43:25
[SPEAKER_00]: You learn about time and death, bottom time.
43:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You learn about why you don't exceed those limits.
43:33
[SPEAKER_00]: You learn about things called the bends.
43:36
[SPEAKER_00]: We hate talking about scary things.
43:38
[SPEAKER_00]: But you have talked about those things because by knowing it, you can prevent it and avoid it.
43:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's no guarantee.
43:45
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no guarantee you won't get injured in a car unless you don't get in a car.
43:49
[SPEAKER_00]: We always jokingly say there's only two guarantees where you couldn't get the bends.
43:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't, don't dive.
43:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Can't get the bends if you don't dive or don't come up.
44:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
44:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet, if you stay within the safety parameters,
44:07
[SPEAKER_00]: it's it's minuscule it's not impossible it is possible but it's not quite very likely so that relates back to those what if drills that we go through in the learning process
44:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, and what it's really about is dissolved gases that are in the fluids of your body.
44:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you came up too fast and those dissolved gases could come out of solution, but that's why we have elements.
44:32
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why you do a safety stop, even.
44:35
[SPEAKER_02]: That's just in case any tiny little micro bubbles are starting to form.
44:38
[SPEAKER_02]: They have a chance to dissipate and it just dissipates through your lungs as you breathe.
44:42
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all very natural.
44:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Painless stuff, right?
44:46
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's the first one is you don't want to go too deep for too long, but it's hard to do that with support here.
44:51
[SPEAKER_00]: E-E-E-E
45:21
[SPEAKER_02]: The second one is, don't hold your breath.
45:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
45:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
45:26
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a baby.
45:27
[SPEAKER_00]: That's actually the number one rule in scuba diving breathe continuously and not hold your breath.
45:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course the result is if you were to fill your flexible lungs with air at depth, hold your breath and begin to ascend because of reduced pressure, the air in the lungs now expands and
45:51
[SPEAKER_00]: If you weren't to, if you were not to exhale that expanding air could overexpand and, you know, you fill in the blank, not done happen hardly ever could happen and that's why we drill people on
46:07
[SPEAKER_00]: always breathing.
46:08
[SPEAKER_00]: We even, one of the exercises learned in the pool and repeated in the open waters to remove and replace clearing your regulator while under water.
46:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things that we emphasize as a motor movement is take a big breath, take your regulator, second mouthpiece out of your mouth.
46:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And whenever it's out of your mouth you blow little bubbles.
46:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And the instructors know that if the student is not doing that, you tap them on the mouth.
46:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean you want to kiss underwater.
46:39
[SPEAKER_00]: This case doesn't.
46:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you tap them on the mouth and remind people to blow bubbles.
46:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are doing enough of those repeated skills in the pool and again in the open water that I think it becomes second nature.
46:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and that's what's important.
46:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you remember those two things, boy, there are other things that you learn in the class that are very valuable, but those are the really the two big dangers right there.
47:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I think so, again, I mentioned ecology and the environment.
47:09
[SPEAKER_00]: We spend a great deal of times encouraging people to not touch things, don't grab things, don't harass the critters
47:19
[SPEAKER_00]: stay off the bottom, don't bump into the, to the coral, because coral is a live animal.
47:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And every time you accidentally or intentionally bump into these things, you damage the reef.
47:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're trying to emphasize through diving and through teaching diving, how to properly encounter the critters.
47:39
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's like you go up to the mountains and you see the bear.
47:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you don't jump out of the car and run over the bear and harass the bear because
47:47
[SPEAKER_00]: the bears may do something defensive and that happens underwater if you harass something underwater the chances are you could get bit or stung or scraped but it's a defensive mechanism the animals underwater don't they just don't attack that's not what happens you know i was in pinning camp florida
48:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was trying to take a picture, and I was slightly buoyant, and I did this stupid thing.
48:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I put one finger under a little piece of coral to stabilize myself.
48:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I should not have done that.
48:22
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a bad wrong.
48:24
[SPEAKER_02]: But a week later, the skin fell off my finger.
48:27
[SPEAKER_02]: It was fire coral.
48:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Later, later.
48:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I said, all right, now I know.
48:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't touch, right?
48:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry to say I've done the same thing.
48:38
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, years ago, we used to wear gloves, diving gloves, or some sort of glove.
48:46
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the big thing.
48:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And oh boy, I wore them too.
48:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And then what happened is you felt bulletproof.
48:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
48:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've got a glove on.
48:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to go touch and grab and feel for this, feel this item under water.
49:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, guess what?
49:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It just damaged or maybe killed
49:06
[SPEAKER_00]: that's something so as you already point out now we're barefinger and we try to be very conscientious and cautious then we don't care why tell you why did
49:17
[SPEAKER_02]: floating around or through the chasms of coral reef with every color of the rainbow, you know, in the coral, all the different shapes, they're just so alien and new to us, the different types of fish, every shape, size, color, imaginable, and then all the creatures that you can't even identify.
49:38
[SPEAKER_02]: What is that?
49:39
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's just what a great, what a great encounter.
49:44
[SPEAKER_02]: How cool is that?
49:45
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very cool and little and big all at the same time.
49:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
49:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
49:51
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's the reef's changed.
49:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, global warming, I'm not a scientist, so I'm not here to state it as a fact.
49:58
[SPEAKER_00]: But through pollution and other overfishing, we can't deny that.
50:05
[SPEAKER_00]: There's been a decrease.
50:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry to say that I don't see the quantities of fish
50:13
[SPEAKER_00]: in the Caribbean, the Bahamas that I did back in the day, it doesn't seem like.
50:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, there has been a tremendous amount of fishing and that's too bad because now some of the cool critters I once saw in volumes, tons of them, we don't see to this day.
50:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's where the South Pacific comes and we
50:36
[SPEAKER_00]: when we go to Indonesia and, and, and Micronesia even, and the Philippines, it's different.
50:44
[SPEAKER_00]: The South Pacific happily still has a plethora of, of critters out there, but you know, some of it is our own doing, unfortunately, you know, you talk, talk about ecology, the shark fitting, the, the disgusting
51:00
[SPEAKER_00]: pathetic habit of cutting off shark fins for shark fins soup and then throwing carcasses underwater.
51:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it's gross.
51:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry folks.
51:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you know, those are the things we're trying to educate people.
51:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't do that and and shame on them.
51:16
[SPEAKER_00]: We're doing it.
51:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe a shark today from a tourism standpoint is worth thousands of dollars for people to see the live shark as opposed to the fins in a bowl of soup in the soup.
51:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I am told I've never tasted it.
51:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Never will.
51:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, has no taste.
51:35
[SPEAKER_00]: They have to add stuff to make it to give it flavor.
51:41
[SPEAKER_02]: That crazy is going to taste like tomatoes and onions and paprika maybe.
51:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
51:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just pathetic though when you think about it.
51:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think the divers we are sort of the ambassadors to the underwater world so we can go out and through our activity through what we witnessed and experienced
52:00
[SPEAKER_00]: We can go tell people, go do it.
52:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It's fun.
52:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's enjoyable for all the reasons we talked about, and let's be careful out there.
52:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's take care of those reefs and those critters so that our grandchildren and great grandchildren can also see them.
52:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not trying to sound heroic here.
52:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just trying to sound huge or common sense, and we can do that.
52:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we have that ability to do just that.
52:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah.
52:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I don't think I could have said it better.
52:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I've said this often before, but I think the best way to get people aware of taking care of this wonderful planet we live on is by getting them out into nature so that they become familiar with it and appreciate it and understand how fragile it is and how the ecosystems interrelate
52:51
[SPEAKER_02]: and, you know, the symbiotic relationships and how all of these things have to come together for this beautiful, beautiful, blue marble that we all, you know, call home.
53:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It's getting people involved on that level that makes people understand and want to take care of it.
53:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Agreed, but if you could see me now, I've got two thumbs up.
53:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Right on.
53:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So everyone ought to scuba dive and the reason is absolutely that water is a lifeblood of this planet and when you understand that and and you're a part of it, what a difference that links.
53:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, man, and what we before the show you and I were talking and I I've sort of coined my own phrase, I I've called water the great equalizer and
53:38
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't matter how tall or short your gender, your ability or your disability, water is magical.
53:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And from a diver's perspective, it truly is the great equalizer.
53:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that aspect of what it provides.
53:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I'd like to throw out there too.
53:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Some people are uncomfortable in water because they never learn to swim very well and they've had to fight to keep their head up and they don't like the idea of holding their breath and all of those things go away when you have scuba equipment.
54:10
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's true.
54:11
[SPEAKER_00]: We've had a number of people well again are people with disabilities who they weren't great swimmers before they became disabled and
54:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Now they're going to go in the water on scuba as someone with limited mobility and then this epiphany of Holy Moly.
54:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I look what I just did.
54:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I was free.
54:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually moved underwater and I think it relates to good equipment and good instruction and both exist today and
54:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It's across the world.
54:48
[SPEAKER_00]: The training organizations and all of them.
54:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to give tip my hat to all of them.
54:53
[SPEAKER_00]: They do a really good job.
54:54
[SPEAKER_00]: It's methodical.
54:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It's logical.
54:59
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not rocket science by any stretch.
55:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it lets people experience this activity in a pretty succinct manner.
55:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's great.
55:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, Scott, we could go on for another two hours and we could together sometime and do that.
55:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I talked about this.
55:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I can tell.
55:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I give greatest experience?
55:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, please.
55:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I gotta give you just one last.
55:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
55:27
[SPEAKER_00]: If I could, I just wrote it down.
55:30
[SPEAKER_00]: This year in October and
55:34
[SPEAKER_00]: The Arizona, the USS Arizona, it relates to that.
55:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Pearl Harbor, the USS Arizona will have been commissioned one hundred years ago this October.
55:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, I want to speak to Seventy, but I'm sorry folks that might be wrong.
55:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And then on December seventh, Pearl Harbor Day, this year will be the seventy-fifth anniversary.
55:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So a hundred years from the commission,
55:58
[SPEAKER_00]: seventy-fifth year since the attack on Pearl Harbor.
56:02
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a very close relationship with the National Park Service and in particular there's a dive team for the NPS.
56:09
[SPEAKER_00]: This is our one hundred year anniversary.
56:11
[SPEAKER_00]: This is celebrating their birthday this year.
56:14
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the primary people involved with the dive team invited last year my wife and I to join them on a dive expedition of the USS Arizona.
56:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, it's still, I still have to pinch myself to think that we actually got a chance to do this.
56:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we had been to the memorial before and it folks, if you haven't, you gotta go.
56:40
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the most emotional thing I think anybody could ever do.
56:46
[SPEAKER_00]: We got to go out to the Arizona four different days in a row and help
56:51
[SPEAKER_00]: set up for an underwater filming project that they were doing.
56:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have to tell you, to go underwater, it's not a beautiful wreck and it's not meant to, I don't want to suggest it would be a beautiful wreck.
57:02
[SPEAKER_00]: But knowing what it symbolizes and knowing what took place underwater, it's just an amazing feeling.
57:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And to know that there are so many souls and left underwater from these people who sacrificed their lives on our behalf is pretty
57:20
[SPEAKER_00]: emotional and to see some of the artifacts that are still left on that wreck was, I don't know, amazing experience for me.
57:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So when anybody asked me, what's your best one?
57:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Give me your best one.
57:33
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the best one that ever happened?
57:34
[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
57:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Did it last year?
57:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel blessed and privileged to have done it.
57:40
[SPEAKER_02]: you know what we should have you back on you know why because we haven't talked about advanced certifications we haven't talked about rectiving we haven't talked about cave diving we haven't talked about a lot of things that scuba can lead to so we'll have to have another show sometimes got where we can get into some of those details
57:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I would appreciate it.
58:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And I really thank you for giving me an opportunity to talk about Skuba.
58:04
[SPEAKER_00]: For those of you that are divers, you've been nodding your head through a whole bunch of this, at least I hope you have been.
58:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you haven't been shaken your head.
58:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you haven't, wherever you are, check it out.
58:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Go do a Discover Skuba diving experience at your local dive center.
58:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Try it out.
58:21
[SPEAKER_00]: See what it feels like.
58:23
[SPEAKER_00]: hopefully you'll you'll start an eye in your head and you'll agree with everything that I've just said it's a wonderful activity it's a great experience whether as I'm family or not do it and give it a whirl and I think you can you'll discover just how much fun this really is
58:39
[SPEAKER_02]: oh yeah no doubt about it and you can always get a hold of Scott at a one scuba dot com that's a one scuba dot com and they have a travel agency there they have certification programs they have a store that's full of all kinds of wonderful things so a one scuba dot com is is where you can find Scott and learn more about all this
59:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, thank you, Kurt.
59:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Then a blast.
59:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Been a blast.
59:04
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, it's a lot of fun and thanks for your time today and for all of our listeners out there.
59:08
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I say it every show, but I mean it, get out there and have some fun because it might just change your life.