Editor's note: This site will occasionally post short items from guest bloggers. Here's one from Torrance resident Patrick Friedman, 15, who recently was bitten by the scuba-diving bug and became PADI-certified:
From the time I was very young the ocean has been a part of my life. I used to sit on top of my dad's shoulders on the half-day boat Southern Cal at the age of 2. I love to fish, swim at the beach, and have driven two times to the beautiful and breathtaking Sea of Cortez.
I guess it was just the next step in my love of the ocean that I wanted to become scuba certified. Thanks to my dad and grandparents, I got my Christmas wish. They signed me up for a thorough four-day course at Pacific Wilderness in San Pedro.
Instructor Eduardo Lopez covered everything with us. We started out in a pool learning how to clear our masks and breathe through a regulator. The instruction was so complete that safety was never a question.
I have been snorkeling before but until you scuba dive, you do not know what you are missing. On Day 4, we made a beach dive near the Topaz rock jetty in Redondo Beach. We swam to the edge of the Redondo Canyon and looked with awe into the abyss.
There were at least 50 lobster heads and shells. It was amazing to be underwater. I saw a small halibut following a crab; maybe just learning to feed. Now I can’t wait to go to Catalina or Baja. This has opened up a whole new world.
Scuba allows many different underwater activities. You can go spear-fishing or grab lobsters, take pictures or film, or you can simply relax and take in what this new world has to offer. We know more about the surface of the moon then the bottom of the ocean, so why not learn more by diving and seeing firsthand the wonders of the sea, which covers three-quarters of the planet?
Getting certified might have been the best thing that has ever happened to me; something I have already fallen in love with.
-- Patrick Friedman
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