How old were you when…

[Linda]

… you learned to swim? 😛

Just wondering if those interested in diving were like fish from the very start. As most of you know, I just snorkel from time to time, but never in the ocean! Despite my presence here, I’m not much of a water bug. I didn’t learn to swim until I was about 10 years old because I was afraid to put my head under water. 😂 Once I got up enough courage to do that, I was swimming within minutes. What about you?

[SeaRat]

Boy, I don't remember when I was not swimming. I believe my parents enrolled me in the Salem YMCA's swimming program when I was very young. By ten years old, I was on the YMCA Swim Team. A little after that, I was snorkeling in the YMCA Camp Silver Creek, and I remember my Mom getting mad at me for clearing my snorkel when Mrs. Lengyl, our swim coach, had bent over the pool to see me. Apparently, I got her pretty good with the water spray from the snorkel. I told my Mom, "I didn't know she was bending over me, as I was looking underwater."

I started scuba diving in 1959, with a small 38 cubic foot cylinder I bought used, and also a Healthways Scuba (orginial) regulator. I was then 14 years old, and paid for the Scuba by picking strawberries and beans during the summer.

John

[cnotthoff]

I grew up spending lots of time around Monterey California. We played in the ocean all the time without any wetsuits (no brain no pain). When I was 10, my Grandmother bought me my first mask from the sporting goods department of Holman's Department Store in Pacific Grove. It was a blue Voit mask with double ping-pong-ball snorkels. That summer, I swam all over Stillwater Cove, exploring and gathering golf balls.
I had to be inventive to take my first breaths at depth. My sister had an inflatable vinyl float that came in a clear vinyl bag with loop handles. I would put the bag over my head with my arms through the loops and jump into the pool off the diving board. I could take a few breaths before the air trapped in the bag brought me right back to the surface. To her credit, my mother drew the line at a weight belt so I could stay down longer.
Any trip to the beach with Charlie meant lots of toys had to come along. When I load up my truck for a dive trip, I realize that hasn't changed.

Good Dives,
Charlie

[vance]

I was swimming young, 4,5 years old. I loved swimming.

When I was looking for a dive buddy in Arcata, I met a guy who learned to dive before he learned to swim. After diving for a short while, he could, no problem.

[DavidRitchieWilson]

I was a persistent non-swimmer, probably eleven or twelve when I first learned to swim. My school had a swimming pool, but there was only one standard teaching method back then for beginners, a small float in the hand and a kick off the bottom. In my case, this merely resulted in me pressing down on the polystyrene float and heading for the bottom. I was prepared to try anything and I asked my parents to buy me a pair of fins. With them on my feet, I managed to generate enough thrust to get my whole body off the bottom and swimming on the surface. Having discovered what it felt like to be swimming, I soon repeated the performance without the fins.

I am grateful to my fins, which proved to be an active aid in getting me drown-proofed. Some swimming instructors reserve the use of fins for experienced swimmers and I have had arguments with competitive swimmers about beginners using fins. As a special needs teacher, I quickly learned that using the same methods over and over again to get lower achievers to improve doesn't always work. You have to devise imaginative ways of problem-solving sometimes to get them over life's hurdles and to get away from the notion that only official teaching methods can be used.

Not long after I had mastered the use of my fins, I asked for a diving mask and a snorkel as birthday presents and I used them every Saturday morning when my school opened its swimming pool for recreational swimming. Public pools were already beginning to ban snorkelling equipment, so I was very fortunate my school did not follow suit. When I went up to university, I joined its branch of the British Sub Aqua Club and attended its weekly theory and practice sessions. I was only able to try out SCUBA apparatus once or twice and wasn't that keen on the experience. Snorkelling was so much easier to do when travelling on summer vacations, swimming off beaches and in lakes, while scuba diving required buddies, air fills etc. I was and remain a vintage snorkeller, never a free or scuba diver.

In the noughties, I resumed snorkelling after a bit of a gap as part of my recovery from cancer surgery. I used my vintage snorkelling gear because I disliked the plastic fins and silicone masks that had come into vogue. Snorkelling in the North Sea not far from where I live, I purchased a vintage-style Hydroglove drysuit to keep myself warm and dry, as I couldn't see the point of modern wetsuits and drysuits either. So I only have gratitude for the old-school snorkelling equipment that boosted my convalescence and set me on the road to recovery.

DRW

[Aquala1]

I think my parents first put me in swimming lessons when I was 4 or 5. I’ve always loved the water and certified for Jr. Open-water scuba when I was 12.

[antique diver]

I must have been 5 when taking swim lessons, and I clearly remember that at first I found it much easier to swim underwater rather than stay afloat. Preview of things to come I suppose.

In 1957, at age 11 (and before Sea Hunt), I had my first encounter with breathing underwater. I had already developed a keen interest in diving from seeing movies like Wake of the Red Witch (with John Wayne), and was just foaming at the mouth to get underwater.

On that fateful day at the Seahorse Motel in Galveston I was fascinated watching a diver using a hookah rig with FFM to clean the pool. I begged my dad to ask if I could try it. He wasn't so keen on the idea, but wisely advised me that if I wanted to do it that bad I should ask the stranger myself. By then the diver was out of the water and coiling up his hose to put the rig away. My opportunity was slipping away, but I mustered up all the courage I had at that tender age and quickly went over to him fully expecting to hear something like "get lost kid". Instead he sorta sized me up, for a few seconds (forever it seemed), then in a friendly tone said "sure" and gave me my first diving instruction... "just don't get under the diving board".

The large triangular full face mask seemed huge, and water was continuously leaking in, but was mostly displaced with my exhalations. I think I would have rather drowned than give up and surface. Had the time of my life, and it was like something went ding in my brain as I knew this was a very important moment in my life. Friendly stranger let me stay in for a long time, and finally had to gently pull me in with the hose. He seemed pleased to see I had done well and had enjoyed it so much. I was grinning so hard it's a wonder my teeth didn't fall out.

Back home the next week I got into my lawn mowing money and began building my own hookah rig with 50' green garden hose. I found a used paint spray compressor (luckily it was a diaphragm type so no oil to breath) and bought an old Briggs lawn mower engine. Spent many happy hours exploring in Grapevine Lake, perfectly happy with the 3'-5' visibility. All this finally led to long stint in the dive businesses, 1968-2001. Now still in the air business and diving dangerous old regulators for fun.

[artc]

Wow, I can’t remember not being able to swim. Growing up in Hawaii, surrounded by water, I must have been 3 or 4years old swimming in the ocean. I didn’t get into scuba diving until I was an adult, but I’d been surfing, canoe paddling and free diving my whole life as a kid. Living with the ocean is just second nature and is a way of life for me.

[vance]

I am in Doolin Ireland at the moment, slavering over the crystal clear water at the foot of the Cliffs of Moher. It looks cold. Not a diving trip, so I’ll just have to imagine what it’d be like. There are some great looking spots for snorkeling amidst the rock inlets and holes. DRW probably has spots like these that he frequents!

[snark3]

I learned to swim when I was about 6 or 7. The town I grew up in would offer swimming lessons at the town beach. We would have to walk down there because we only had 1 car and dad needed it for work.

[SeaRat]

Jun 11, 2022 0:08:04 GMT -8 vance said:

I am in Doolin Ireland at the moment, slavering over the crystal clear water at the foot of the Cliffs of Moher. It looks cold. Not a diving trip, so I’ll just have to imagine what it’d be like. There are some great looking spots for snorkeling amidst the rock inlets and holes. DRW probably has spots like these that he frequents!

I've had that happen on my trips to Hong Kong. Those are family trips, but to see salt water with fairly good clarity, warm, and not be able to get wet was a type of mental torture. We don't even know if we can go to Hong Kong this year due to COVID-19 restrictions, but I'd really like to dive there.

John

[scubalawyer]

RE: Learning to swim: One of my father's many hats was as a swim instructor for the YMCA. He used to tell me he had me in the water before I learned to walk.

RE: Good dive conditions on non-diving trips: When I got married my wife wanted to go to France so we flew to Paris with a return flight out of Nice a few weeks later. Just a rental car and a Michelin Guide for hotels and restaurants. No advance hotel bookings. NO DIVE GEAR. We just drove where we thought would be interesting and looked for local lodging. Anyway, we ended up in this little ocean-front hotel in Monte Carlo, Monaco for our last week that was cheap and had a great pizza place within walking distance. Looking over our balcony the waters of the Mediterranean Sea were crystal clear and my wife could tell I really wanted to go for a dive. (My moaning out loud to the effect "I really really would like to go diving" I'm sure had something to do with it.) Anyway, there was a dive shop next door and I wandered over. No one spoke English and I spoke nothing but English so it was a comedy of errors. Finally showed them my NAUI Instructor Card and pointed to their boat. Long story short I was signed up for a boat dive that afternoon and they supplied all my gear. Great dive I will never forget. I think my new bride was happy to be rid of me for a while anyway.

[broxton coalition]

10/11 years old at the scout summer camps. great program for wayward yutes!
Linda, snorkeling/freediving is a great sport! i always spend time snorkeling on our dive trips. it is a form of Zen practice....

[Alan]

I was late in the water... 11. I remember it was at the YMCA pool in Albuquerque, NM.

[james1979]

Jun 18, 2022 12:16:43 GMT -8 Alan said:

I was late in the water... 11. I remember it was at the YMCA pool in Albuquerque, NM.

I have you beat... I was in my mid 20's and only then so I could pass dunker school.  Don't ask how shady the PADI OW course I took in my early 20s was, lol.