April 19, 2023 • 33 mins
Have you ever considered scuba diving but were afraid of what is down below? While this activity does have idiosyncrasies that distinguish it from other water sports; we sat down to dispel some myths about wildlife you may encounter, and provided a guide about the certification process for those who may be interested but have never taken the leap. No pun intended. The Layover series is our monthly show that features current travel news, lesser known destinations to consider for your next adventure, travel tips, and investigations into the latest trends.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:13):
You're listening to the Globetrotters podcast,the show dedicated to bringing you fresh and
diverse perspectives from traveling enthusiasts all overthe world. This is the layover our
monthly travel show in which we investigateall things travel, update you on the
latest travel news, and occasionally we'lllook into a questionable trend so you don't
have to I'm your co host JonathanO'tittle, I'm Maximo Gonzalez, and I'm
(00:36):
Saskia Have Funny And if you missedour last episode, we spoke with Laura
DeSisto, a middle aged badass whostarted diving at the age of forty nine
and since then has gone more thantwo hundred dives, mostly around sharks.
In fact, she wrote a bookabout how discovering scuba at a later age
changed her life for the better.The book is called Resurfacing Sisterhood, Sharks
(00:59):
and Storms, a Memoir. Soin that last episode, Laura talks all
about diving with sharks and dispels afew myths about these amazing animals. And
so today we'll get into some moreof these myths around scuba diving, and
we'll talk about pretty much everything youneed to know about the sport that,
in my opinion, gets a badrap. So if you've been thinking about
trying scuba diving, or even ifyou think you might never try it,
(01:23):
this episode is for you and toeveryone listening. This episode is going to
be a little bit different from anythingwe've ever produced for y'all, and we
chose to sell it differently for afew reasons. As Saskia already mentioned,
I fully acknowledge our last guests badassery. If you can say that, I
can also understand that there's a largepopulation out there that never wants to encounter
(01:45):
a shark, trust me, Iget it. The second reason is that
this is one of the few thingsthat Saskio, Max, and myself can
say that we have in common.We were all scuba certified abroad, and
I believe I'm the last of thethree, right I guess maybe? Yeah,
All right, that's how much youguys keep up on my Instagram,
But I will take it personally.Anyways. Recently, I was talking to
(02:07):
a friend of mine who got certifiedwithin a few weeks of myself, but
he chose to get certified in Austin, Texas, and I chose to go
abroad. And get certified in Belie, So big difference. Austin, Texas
is a landlocked city. Yes,and that was my first reaction, But
I have to tell you our experiencescould not be any more different. And
(02:30):
I'm not talking about the price,whether visibility and overall experience, not just
that. And I'll touch on thisa little bit later in the show because
I don't want to poke fund atmy friend, but it was kind of
hilarious when we compared in contrast atour experience. But most importantly, the
third reason is that there's a lotof misconceptions about what the scuba certification process
(02:52):
is like. And while our conversationin the last episode with Laura DeSisto was
inspiring and incredible, I don't thinkit gave our list there's who are thinking
about getting scuba certified in accurate orhelpful rendition of what to expect. Before
we get into it, let's talka little bit about what a diving certification
even is. Yeah. In short, a scuba certification is a document that
(03:15):
recognizes a person as trained and knowledgeablein scuba diving. There are different levels
of certification, and a number ofsources will say there's anywhere from five to
eleven levels, but we're going tostick with PATTY, which stands for Professional
Association of Diving Instructors. It's oneof the most common certification associations in the
(03:36):
world that's known internationally, and theygo buy five different levels, beginning with
the open water Scuba Diving certification,which allows everyone to go eighteen meters or
sixty feet down, which I believeall of us are certified in. I
think Saskia, you're advanced, correct, Yeah, I am show off.
That's good and that would be thenext level down. After open water,
(04:00):
we have Advanced open Water, whichallows divers to go thirty meters or one
hundred feet down. After that,we have Rescue Divers certification, which just
emphasizes the on emergency response and diverrescue. After that we have Master Diver,
which is forty meters or one hundredand thirty feet down. I get
shills just even thinking about going thatdeep. Now a fewer than two percent
(04:24):
of divers achieve that rating, andthen after Master divers dive Master. So
those are the different certifications and levelswhich we all have gotten open water and
Saskia's leading it in Advanced open watercertification. Correct. Me if I'm wrong,
Saskia. But the reason you wouldwant to do advanced open water versus
just a regular open water sometimes youcan do specific dives like going after a
(04:46):
shipwreck. We're seeing sharks at certainlevels if you do that advanced open water,
right, Is that why you didit? Yeah? I just did
it because I wanted to continue diving, and it just makes sense rather than
just paying for individual rule dives.I think with an advanced dive sort you
get like at least five dives Ibelieve, and so it's a few hundred
bucks, well at least where Idid it in Thailand. So that allowed
(05:10):
me to get dives at a reasonableprice while also like ranking up in the
certifications and being able to do thingslike wreck diving, and you know,
because in order to dive on awreck you need to be advanced. So
let's talk a little bit more aboutthat. You know, in Laura's first
dive ever, she saw a sharkwithin the first few seconds of her jumping
in the water. But I don'tthink that's an accurate rendition of what most
(05:34):
people experienced. So what was yourfirst experience? Like, Oh, yeah,
okay, so this is a funnystory. Because I was in Thailand
with my ex boyfriend. I waslike twenty at the time, and he
really wanted to do it, andI was kind of like, yeah,
I don't know. I had,you know, grown up by the sea.
(05:54):
I loved the water. You'd beensnorkeling my entire childhood. I was
a great swimmer. I swam.It's very humble and I mean though,
like I mean, I'm just tellingyou, like, I was comfortable in
the water, but I did notwant to go diving. I was terrified
of it, to be honest.I thought just the thought of being so
(06:16):
deep underwater was just scary. Andso he sort of convinced me into doing
it. And I think I'm prettyeasily convinced to do most things, so
so he, you know, convincedme, and I was like, all
right, let's do this, andyeah, and I totally loved it.
And maybe part of the reason Iloved it so much because it was like
(06:36):
overcoming something that I just never thoughtI would do. That's crazy, I'm
just kidding. I'm just kidding.No, No, I think it's really
it's really important to start with yourstory because when you first told us,
there was this reluctance, and sometimesI think, at least I'm the type
(06:57):
of person that tries not to pushtoo much when you get to that threshold
because you don't you don't know howsomeone's going to react if you start freaking
out or having a panic attack underwater. I don't want to be responsible
for that. So thanks for sharing, and I'm glad that you're one of
those people that were motivated to doit and loved it. Max, without
bragging too much about your collegiate swimcareer and how comfortable you are in the
(07:21):
water, tell me about why youchose to get scuba certified. I chose
to get Scooba certified based off abuddy I was traveling with. He was
working towards his master's diving certification andhad to reset everything, and so we
were in Colombia. We were inthe northern coast. There's a really cool
dive school in to Ganga and it'scalled Ocean Lovers to Ganga and they take
(07:42):
you into the National Park of Tayronaand you know, there's just beautiful quarrel
and it was a lot of fun. It's just he wanted to do it.
It was one of the things I'vealways wanted to do, and it
was just something I kind of wentalong with and ended up absolutely loving it.
Yeah, and in my case,I think it just made more financial
sense because I'd done a few exploratorydives which we didn't really talk about.
(08:03):
Essentially, you don't have to bea certified diver to go out and experience
the dive. You just go ata much shallower depth than you would if
you have one of the CERTs.And after doing that about four or five
times, I decided that it justmade sense to get certified. In beliefs,
Oh yeah, yeah, there's sucha thing as discovery dives, and
this is one reason you might wantto get certified, right, I mean,
(08:24):
discovery dives are meant for people tojust discover and see if they even
like it, and I think that'sa good way to go about it.
Although the problem with those is theytend to be more expensive. So whereas
if you get certified, you nolonger have to pay that much money.
You're basically just renting the equipment anda spot in a group that's already going
(08:46):
out, so they tend to beway cheaper. And so I just wanted
to specify that because John was mentioningwhy he got certified and yeah, it
can actually be financially interesting, andSaskia, I wanted to ask you,
do you think the reason that youultimately agreed to, you know, get
certified with your ex boyfriend was becauseof the enthusiasm that he seemed to have,
(09:09):
like versus like going with someone whois maybe like afraid to do this.
Yeah, for sure. I meanit helps to have people around you
who are like motivated to do stuff. I think I find I'm often that
person for other people. And maybeit's because I did a lot of stuff
like this when I was really young, and so I learned that actually,
you know, I mean I don'tknow that I've ever regretted trying anything like
(09:31):
that, you know, And soyeah, I mean it totally helps.
But that doesn't mean that you can'tdo it alone. I mean, you
will not be alone whenever you goget certified. It's highly likely that you'll
be part of a larger group ofpeople who are learning just like you.
That's exactly what I wanted to talkabout, because I agree and vehemently believe
that the people you go with ormeet at these things will make or break
(09:54):
your experience, and this rings notruer than the people who are hoping you
get certified. So dive shops theschools. So how did you choose your
dive shop because I think that playsa big role in what your experience is
like. Well, I mean tobe honest, I think one of the
main things when looking for your diveschool is looking at the standard that it
(10:16):
holds itself to. So remember wetalked about Patty earlier on. That is
an international organization and it's essentially astandard. So if a dive shop is
a certified Patty dive shop, youknow it's being held to a certain standard
of this international organization. And thereare multiple standards. Like Max said,
(10:37):
Patty is just the most common.Yeah. Max, and you brought up
a crazy story I think right beforeI was going to go diving, interestingly
enough, but you could share thatwith our audience, that be. Yeah.
So a buddy of mine who Iwas actually traveling with in South America,
she was having surgery on her lungsbecause she had contracted a bacteria or
(10:58):
a fungus that she had in herlungs. And while the source might not
be one hundred percent determined, allfingers are pointing towards a dive school that
she went to in Thailand. Butshe was telling me she really does think
it was the dive school because oftheir the cleansliness of the equipment wasn't kept
at the highest standard that it couldhave been, and she noticed that there
(11:22):
with what he said, let's takethat with a grain of salt. Like,
I mean, definitely do your duediligence. That's not to say that
every patty shop out there is outto get you or put you in the
hospital. No. Like to yourquestions on how did I pick my dive
shop, Let's be honest, Ishould pick the cheapest one, and you
know, but that doesn't necessarily meanit was the worst one, because it
(11:43):
was actually a five star patty ratedshop. It just happened to be in
a place where it was pretty affordable. In Thailand on an island Kotao,
which is known for its diving,and so there's a many dive shops,
high competition, and so the ratestend to be lower. But so what
Max said, I mean, Ihad never heard of that. It's interesting,
(12:05):
it's worth noting, but it's alsoI would imagine quite rare to get
a long infection from a scuba equipment. Let's get into some of the myths
versus reality when it comes to scubadiving. I think in a lot of
people's minds, you are going toencounter sharks when you go diving, You're
going to have some sort of issuewith the respirator, and so there's all
(12:26):
these anks before you go on adive. Let's dispel some of those myths.
All right, Well, first ofall, let's talk about sharks,
because that's something that you just mentionedand that we've already talked about a bunch
in the last episode. But itis one of the big deterrence for diving
apparently. But just so you know, seeing sharks is incredibly rare, actually
(12:48):
depending on where you're diving. Ifor one, have never really seen a
shark while diving. I've seen themwhile snorkeling, small reef sharks, but
I never was able to see onewhile diving, and I tried. But
that being said, there are somany more things that are more dangerous than
a shark, including deer, cows, dogs, and mosquitoes, all of
(13:11):
which kill more people than sharks killevery year. Actual shark deaths, I
believe it's less than ten a year. Not to mention, the common flu
is far more dangerous than a shark. I mean, you have a one
in three point seven million chants ofdying by shark attack versus a one in
sixty three chances of being killed bythe common flu. These statistics are actually
(13:33):
from the Patty website, which Ifound interesting. They have a whole section
on dispelling the myths around scuba diving, and this was one of their facts.
Who knew cows were so dangerous?And so? Were those the top
four that they listed or were thosethe ones that you found the most interesting?
I mean, you know, youcould go on and on forever like
this, Like you know, onehundred and fifty people are killed by coconuts
(13:56):
each year. That's something that Ipulled up because I knew I knew that
it's a pretty common death. Butwhile researching this, I just thought,
well, let me look up theactual number, one hundred and fifty people
by falling coconut. So you know, don't lie under a palm tree with
coconuts, like, just don't.Saska. You mentioned that you started training
(14:18):
in the pool, which and Ijust thought that was something that was only
practiced in the United States. Sowhen you said that you did it in
Thailand this way, I guess itis more internationally used. Yeah, I
think it depends. I mean I'veseen people also like do their intro level.
They just walk onto the beach andthey walk into the water, right,
(14:39):
So you're not hopping off a boator anything, and you're just testing
the respirator in the shallows and gettingused to the equipment. So that's basically
what we did. It was justthere were plenty of resorts around, and
the dive school had a like adeal with the resort nearby, and we
used their pool just to get familiarwith the equipment, like breathe for the
first time, I'm on the respiratorunderwater sync down to the bottom of the
(15:03):
pool. It's just only a couplemeters and that was a really confidence boosting
experience. I would say, Butyeah, how was your experience in the
ocean. No, that's a reallygood point, you see, because I
was going to say I was kindof glad that they threw us out there,
and like, I'm someone that likesto just go for it. But
I think that's more of a personalitytrait versus how other people operate. So
(15:26):
when you're saying that the pool bringsthis familiarity with anyone that's trying something new
for the first time, and thatit's a confidence booster, I like that
and now I can see the importanceof that. But speaking about, you
know, the inks that you canfeel before your first day or the big
day, I almost had a planicattack, And I think that's totally normal.
(15:48):
Yeah, I think that's totally normal. I'm not someone that suffers from
panic attacks. But Max, whatwere you nervous about before your first diving
experience. So I'm gonna be honest, I wanted to this super comfortable very
like I honestly had. Yeah,I really did. If it was I
was living on a cloud during thattime too, So it was just it
(16:10):
was it was easy going for me. The dive instructor, which I think
was brought up, you know,the dive instructors making you feel comfortable and
confident. That's a huge plus.And I think our dive instructor, his
name was Damien. He was justamazing. I mean we literally we hung
out and partied with him, likeyou know, after going Scooba diving and
stuff, and it was great likehe made us all really comfortable. He
(16:32):
was a great instructor, so weall felt very confident. And so when
we got time to, like,you know, actually go off the boats
and check our equipment, give theokay and go down like it was smooth
sailing. But what freaks me outis murky waters, not being able to
see five ten feet in front ofyou. That's terrifying to me. Like
the ocean. I'm a good swimmer, but the ocean, I have a
(16:52):
lot of respect for it, andI fear the unknown out there and that
definitely gets to me. And solet's talk about that a little bit more.
Because we started talking about myths.In reality, we started talking about
sharks, and that's like one ofthe misconceptions of danger. Another one is
just the fear of the depths ofthe ocean and just the fear of being
(17:15):
underwater in general. And I thinkwe can blame a lot of movies for
this. For example, I wasthinking about my own fears and I remembered
that one of the movies we hadas a DVD as a kid that I
watched over and over was this moviecalled The Abyss. Have you ever seen
this movie? So it's basically,like I guess it's a nineties or two
thousand movie, a bunch of scientistsin a research station at the bottom of
(17:38):
the ocean and they're just living thereat like super deep. And then of
course there comes a point in themovie where the spoiler alert, some crazy
person opens some door or you know, there's like a hole in the research
station and the whole thing just startsfilling with water and like hell of people
die, you know, and it'sjust I just remember that it seems terrifying
(18:00):
me as a kid, like anysubmarine flooding scene, that sort of stuff.
Right, Yeah, So I thinkwe can blame Hollywood for some of
these fears, because, let's bereal, diving is not getting in a
submarine and going hundreds of feet belowthe ocean floor. Most of the time
you're diving at a very shallow depth. And that brings me to another myth,
(18:23):
which is that you have to divedeep to see anything good. I
think this is like an idea thata lot of people have, Oh,
in order to see the good stuff, you got to go deep. Wrong.
In fact, after about thirty meters, the colors you start to see
less colors, red disappears first,am I right. I don't know if
(18:44):
it's the one that disappears red,but I know that red is one of
the colors that disappears because they createthose special filters for the GoPro camps based
on like your meters on theer wateror how deep you are in the water,
and the red purple filters are whatthey apply. I was saying,
given what you just said, coralreefs are you know, it's the ecosystem
for a ton of really cool tropicalfish and a bunch of marine animals and
(19:08):
marine life in general, and thoseare all located relatively shallow. You know,
if coral reefs don't exist deep downbecause the sunlight doesn't make it to
them. So to say all thegood stuff is really deep down, it's
simply not true. There's a differencebetween what you're going to see. But
you can be ten twenty feet underwaterand have plenty to look at and keep
(19:30):
you occupied and enjoy yourself while you'redown there. Yeah, totally. And
I was just looking it up,and so yeah, red, orange and
yellow are the first colors to sortof disappear quote unquote because the wavelengths don't
make it that far, and soyou know, if you're actually down at
I think thirty meters, you startto not really be able to see those
(19:52):
colors, and so everything starts lookinga lot duller, and you know,
it's it's beautiful and it's in itsown way. But at a shallower depth
like ten meters or so, you'remore likely to see more species and be
able to see them better. Basically, the colored chart, so red actually
disappears at less than fifteen feet.Following that is going to be orange at
(20:14):
around twenty five feet, yellow atthirty five, green at sixty five,
and finally blue is completely absorbed aroundtwo hundred feet. So just as little
as fifteen feet underwater, red startsto go. Well. I was going
to say, during your advanced openWater certification, you actually go down to
thirty meters, which is I can'tremember how many feet, but I believe
(20:37):
I went to actually I went toforty meters, even though I forget why,
but our dive instructure was like,we can just go to forty meters,
and they brought down like a bunchof objects like a tomato, a
flip flop. Can't remember the otherobjects, but it was a bunch of
different things, and the tomato itwasn't red at all. And then the
flip flop was is completely shrunken.It was like a styrofoam flip flop and
(21:03):
it was to demonstrate the pressure.And then he also brought down as Snickers.
Now he had showed us all theseitems before we dove. Yeah,
it was a Snickers like a largeSnickers bar, flip flop, a tomato,
and then when we got down there, he pulled out the Snickers bar
and it was like half the size, and later we realized later basically it
was a joke. He had broughtdown a mit now he brought down a
(21:26):
mini Snickers bar. He was pretendinglike this giant Snickers bar had shrunken like
the like the flip flop, buthe just brought down a mini Snakers Bar.
So whoever. Going back to Max'scolor chart, one thing that also
affects that is turbidity, which isthe measure of how clear liquid is.
Because I remember being at about thirtyfeet and I was using a red filter
(21:51):
on my GoPro, but because itwas so clear, even when you review
the footage half to your dive,it was still coming out as red because
the water wasn't murky. You couldstill get the light. The light was
still shining through, is what I'mtrying to sit right right, good point.
That's super interesting, But this isa myth that you have to dive
super deep. You do not.You can go to a very nice dive
(22:14):
at ten meters fifteen meters and we'llhave a great time. In fact,
that's where we spent most of ourtime, I think, seeing the coolest
stuff. And not only that,but you can stay the longest at that
depth because one of the things thathappens when you scuba dive is the deeper
you go, the faster your oxygenuses up, and the less time you
(22:36):
can spend there without having to dosafety stops. So diving at shallow depths
actually ensures that you get the mostout of your experience. Max's safety zone
underwater. And now that we're startingto talk about the fun aspects of diving,
I want to talk about wow moments. Do you guys use that phrase?
Is that? Is that something youthink about? Now? It sounds
(22:56):
like a corny well to me,we should call it Saskia is crazy.
Well, thanks for making fun ofme. But anyways, to me.
Wow moments are those memories that youplay back in your head when you recall
an event. For me, thatwow moment in Belize was swimming through an
underwater canyon that towered over us andwas completely filled to the brim with coral
(23:22):
reefs and wildlife. We even swamin between these two large fish that look
like they were speaking to each other, and I'll never forget it. It
was kind of a scene out ofNemo or Finding Nemo. And you know,
to top off this experience at theend, we were watching this sea
turtle just kind of float effortlessly whileit was like eating, and all of
a sudden, the instructor starts bangingon his oxygen tank with like this little
(23:45):
clip so we could hear him.We look over and he points up and
we see this massive shark just swimmingoverhead. That's a moment I'll never forget,
Like it just replaced so vividly inmy mind. And so for both
of you and all of your divingexperiences, what is that one wow moment
you've had. I was kind ofseeing this corny John wow moment coming on,
(24:07):
and I remember thinking about it awhile back, and like I was
like Oh, I don't really havea wow moment for scuba diving, but
I do remember one time we werecruising around maybe twenty feet underwater or so,
and I was in the back andwe were just hanging out, just
enjoying it, making sure we're allvisible and just kind of having our own
alone exploration time. And I rememberlooking at this one like underwater like cliff,
(24:30):
and I was checking it out andI saw a massive octopus. And
I've never seen octopus scuba diving before, and I just like I lost it.
So without using too much oxygen,without trying to sprint up to catch
my friends, I like tapped.They didn't hear it. I was catching
up, and I grabbed one oftheir fins and like, no, try
to signal everyone to come over,and they came back over. One thing
(24:51):
if you don't know about octopus isthat they can camouflage really well. And
I didn't know the underwater sign foroctopus, and so I did like a
little hand j and Damien looked justpuzzled. He had no idea what I
was talking about. And so I, you know, I'm like one second
and I'm scanning this wall trying tofind an octopus and we're there for like,
you know, it seems like forever, but it's like three minutes,
(25:11):
five minutes, and then finally Iwas able to spot it pointed out and
everyone was just you know, stoked, and we were checking it out and
having this moment with octopus on thiscliff and just yeah, that was a
really cool moment. That's crazy nice. Yeah. John's making fun of me
because I always say that's crazy whenthere's something like amazing. It's more like
(25:34):
how it super deadpan. I guessI don't know, but you know,
I can't really think of a bigmoment like that. It's so different than
any other sport I've ever done.It does force you to be actually inside
yourself. It's kind of like thisweird all the sound is cut off,
(25:56):
gravity is no more. You're reallythere and you can only just be there
and there's no talking, and there'syou know, it's very quiet. All
you can do is hear your ownbreathing. In reality, that's what you
hear, like like you're an astronauton the moon or something, And that
is I think something that everyone shouldexperience, and I don't know how else
(26:19):
you could other than scuba diver andwould you say that was the biggest surprise
for you, after the fact thatyou didn't realize how meditative of an experience
it was going to be. AbsolutelyAnd it's also interesting because the calmer you
are, the longer your tank willlast. So it's even like you're encouraged
(26:41):
the entire time to be calm,take your time. It's all about slowing
down, you know, this isa sport that's all about taking your time,
slowing down and enjoying the moment.I was also very surprised by that
because I had done a ton ofsnorkeling, and what happens when you snorkel
is you dive down right you're atthe surface, and then you'll dive down
(27:03):
to go see the fish or youswim over and fish don't like that.
You know that they don't like agiant thing swimming on the surface over them
because if they feel like they're gonnaget eaten. Yeah, So what's interesting
is when you dive, you becomekind of one of them, and they
kind of treat you like you're anotherfish. And so I'd never been able
(27:23):
to just go up to any fish, even a really tiny fish compared to
me and just really look at itand it just sort of look at me
and be like, what's up,you know, like and that was amazing
and it removed a lot of thefear for me of the ocean in general,
because I felt I was actually ableto get to know what the bottom
(27:45):
of the ocean looked like on areally intimate level, and it made me
realize that actually, you know,ten meters versus thirty meters, I mean,
there's not a huge difference. Youknow, you'd kind of think,
oh, you're at whead to meetsuddenly you're going to see these giant like
sharks and scary animals like swimming around, and that's just not the case.
(28:06):
It's it's very much like, Idon't know, it's you're lucky if you
see stuff like that's how you feel. You feel, I'm so lucky I
saw something, because most of thetime I just feel like you're kind of
like, oh, I wish Icould see more fish. You know,
it changes the perspective, Yeah,well said I feel like the difference between
those depths is when you look upand you're like, oh, the surface
(28:26):
looks a little farther or a littlecloser, And that's really about it.
And so one of the things wehaven't really talked about that was brought up
at the beginning was, you know, this idea of getting certified abroad.
And one of the reasons people mightdo this is because of the price,
which we already touched on slightly.And the second reason is this topic that
(28:47):
we're on, this wow factor.When you have those experiences, the bar
is definitely set high. So Ithink this is now an appropriate time to
talk about my buddy Zach no Shapes. Zach about his diving experience here in
Austin, Texas. So he paidroughly two hundred dollars more than I did,
which was the cost of my flightto Belie from Austin to go diving
(29:10):
in the Colorado River over a fourday period. And when I say the
Colorado River, people might say thatthat sounds kind of tight, but what
it really is, It truly isthe Colorado River, but it's kind of
this like large pool that has createditself, and people here in Austin call
it, you know, Lake Travis. Essentially, these people are going diving
here and Max, you talked aboutbeing frightened of not being able to see
(29:34):
more than five ten feet in frontof you. And that was the first
distinction that Zac mentioned about his experiencethat was different from mine. He said,
you couldn't see more than two orthree feet in front of you,
and add the icy cold water tothis, and by the end of his
experience he was just kind of likeeveryone in his cohort was like, let's
(29:55):
get out of here where over this? This kind of sucks. And you
know, he did this in preparationfor, you know, his diving excursion
in Bali. But had we spokensooner, I would have just advised them
to have flown two or three daysearlier to Bali and getting certified over there,
you get a lot more for youknow, your dollar, so to
(30:17):
speak. And so speaking of visibility, I mean, visibility is huge.
I think we mentioned I talked aboutthis really quickly in our episode about underwater
cities. You know, visibility forme changes the entire experience. It doesn't
matter what's down there, you know, so you could be diving in an
awesome place, but the visibility isbad, and unfortunately that can happen.
(30:40):
I mean, even in Thailand therewere days where we had kind of bad
visibility, which made our navigation divelike that much more interesting. But generally
speaking, there are certain places thatare just known for better visibility than others,
and I would venture to say thatlakes and rivers are not known for
their visibility. And the last Iwant to dispel is that scuba diving is
(31:02):
expensive. And while yes, theinitial cost might seem like it, you
are spreading this cost over three tofour days. That depends if you're doing
the bookwork at the facility or onyour own. But that's besides the point.
I think Saska yet pulled up somelike great stats of what it is
equal to. I've read somewhere onthe Patty website that it's about, you
(31:23):
know, your open water, Soit is about the cost of you know,
a couple of skiing lessons or aweekend kayaking bad Bunny concert, a
private golfing lesson. So you know, as far as sports go, it's
really reasonable for what you're getting.And I would say it's an experience like
(31:45):
no other in the sense that,yeah, you are kind of in a
sensory deprivation tank in a way,I think, to be honest, I
think that's probably the most life changingpart of the experience. You know,
you are in your own world andin your own bubble yesterday with other people,
but you know you are with yourselfand that that is not an experience
(32:08):
we all get to have, youknow, in our day to day lives,
especially super stimulating, overwhelming lives wherewe're just blasted with information from the
moment we wake up till the momentwe go to sleep. I hope this
was informative, entertaining and just agood resource to use if you're thinking about
(32:29):
going scuba dotting yep. You canfind us and more information at www dot
gts podcast dot com. You canfind us on Instagram at Globetrotters Podcasts,
on Facebook at Globe Trotter's Podcast,on YouTube Globetrotters Podcasts, and on Twitter
at globetrot pod. Editing was doneby Saskia hat Bonnie. We'll see you
(32:50):
next time. Cheers who
You're listening to the Globetrotters podcast,the show dedicated to bringing you fresh and
diverse perspectives from traveling enthusiasts all overthe world. This is the layover our
monthly travel show in which we investigateall things travel, update you on the
latest travel news, and occasionally we'lllook into a questionable trend so you don't
have to I'm your co host JonathanO'tittle, I'm Maximo Gonzalez, and I'm
(00:36):
Saskia Have Funny And if you missedour last episode, we spoke with Laura
DeSisto, a middle aged badass whostarted diving at the age of forty nine
and since then has gone more thantwo hundred dives, mostly around sharks.
In fact, she wrote a bookabout how discovering scuba at a later age
changed her life for the better.The book is called Resurfacing Sisterhood, Sharks
(00:59):
and Storms, a Memoir. Soin that last episode, Laura talks all
about diving with sharks and dispels afew myths about these amazing animals. And
so today we'll get into some moreof these myths around scuba diving, and
we'll talk about pretty much everything youneed to know about the sport that,
in my opinion, gets a badrap. So if you've been thinking about
trying scuba diving, or even ifyou think you might never try it,
(01:23):
this episode is for you and toeveryone listening. This episode is going to
be a little bit different from anythingwe've ever produced for y'all, and we
chose to sell it differently for afew reasons. As Saskia already mentioned,
I fully acknowledge our last guests badassery. If you can say that, I
can also understand that there's a largepopulation out there that never wants to encounter
(01:45):
a shark, trust me, Iget it. The second reason is that
this is one of the few thingsthat Saskio, Max, and myself can
say that we have in common.We were all scuba certified abroad, and
I believe I'm the last of thethree, right I guess maybe? Yeah,
All right, that's how much youguys keep up on my Instagram,
But I will take it personally.Anyways. Recently, I was talking to
(02:07):
a friend of mine who got certifiedwithin a few weeks of myself, but
he chose to get certified in Austin, Texas, and I chose to go
abroad. And get certified in Belie, So big difference. Austin, Texas
is a landlocked city. Yes,and that was my first reaction, But
I have to tell you our experiencescould not be any more different. And
(02:30):
I'm not talking about the price,whether visibility and overall experience, not just
that. And I'll touch on thisa little bit later in the show because
I don't want to poke fund atmy friend, but it was kind of
hilarious when we compared in contrast atour experience. But most importantly, the
third reason is that there's a lotof misconceptions about what the scuba certification process
(02:52):
is like. And while our conversationin the last episode with Laura DeSisto was
inspiring and incredible, I don't thinkit gave our list there's who are thinking
about getting scuba certified in accurate orhelpful rendition of what to expect. Before
we get into it, let's talka little bit about what a diving certification
even is. Yeah. In short, a scuba certification is a document that
(03:15):
recognizes a person as trained and knowledgeablein scuba diving. There are different levels
of certification, and a number ofsources will say there's anywhere from five to
eleven levels, but we're going tostick with PATTY, which stands for Professional
Association of Diving Instructors. It's oneof the most common certification associations in the
(03:36):
world that's known internationally, and theygo buy five different levels, beginning with
the open water Scuba Diving certification,which allows everyone to go eighteen meters or
sixty feet down, which I believeall of us are certified in. I
think Saskia, you're advanced, correct, Yeah, I am show off.
That's good and that would be thenext level down. After open water,
(04:00):
we have Advanced open Water, whichallows divers to go thirty meters or one
hundred feet down. After that,we have Rescue Divers certification, which just
emphasizes the on emergency response and diverrescue. After that we have Master Diver,
which is forty meters or one hundredand thirty feet down. I get
shills just even thinking about going thatdeep. Now a fewer than two percent
(04:24):
of divers achieve that rating, andthen after Master divers dive Master. So
those are the different certifications and levelswhich we all have gotten open water and
Saskia's leading it in Advanced open watercertification. Correct. Me if I'm wrong,
Saskia. But the reason you wouldwant to do advanced open water versus
just a regular open water sometimes youcan do specific dives like going after a
(04:46):
shipwreck. We're seeing sharks at certainlevels if you do that advanced open water,
right, Is that why you didit? Yeah? I just did
it because I wanted to continue diving, and it just makes sense rather than
just paying for individual rule dives.I think with an advanced dive sort you
get like at least five dives Ibelieve, and so it's a few hundred
bucks, well at least where Idid it in Thailand. So that allowed
(05:10):
me to get dives at a reasonableprice while also like ranking up in the
certifications and being able to do thingslike wreck diving, and you know,
because in order to dive on awreck you need to be advanced. So
let's talk a little bit more aboutthat. You know, in Laura's first
dive ever, she saw a sharkwithin the first few seconds of her jumping
in the water. But I don'tthink that's an accurate rendition of what most
(05:34):
people experienced. So what was yourfirst experience? Like, Oh, yeah,
okay, so this is a funnystory. Because I was in Thailand
with my ex boyfriend. I waslike twenty at the time, and he
really wanted to do it, andI was kind of like, yeah,
I don't know. I had,you know, grown up by the sea.
(05:54):
I loved the water. You'd beensnorkeling my entire childhood. I was
a great swimmer. I swam.It's very humble and I mean though,
like I mean, I'm just tellingyou, like, I was comfortable in
the water, but I did notwant to go diving. I was terrified
of it, to be honest.I thought just the thought of being so
(06:16):
deep underwater was just scary. Andso he sort of convinced me into doing
it. And I think I'm prettyeasily convinced to do most things, so
so he, you know, convincedme, and I was like, all
right, let's do this, andyeah, and I totally loved it.
And maybe part of the reason Iloved it so much because it was like
(06:36):
overcoming something that I just never thoughtI would do. That's crazy, I'm
just kidding. I'm just kidding.No, No, I think it's really
it's really important to start with yourstory because when you first told us,
there was this reluctance, and sometimesI think, at least I'm the type
(06:57):
of person that tries not to pushtoo much when you get to that threshold
because you don't you don't know howsomeone's going to react if you start freaking
out or having a panic attack underwater. I don't want to be responsible
for that. So thanks for sharing, and I'm glad that you're one of
those people that were motivated to doit and loved it. Max, without
bragging too much about your collegiate swimcareer and how comfortable you are in the
(07:21):
water, tell me about why youchose to get scuba certified. I chose
to get Scooba certified based off abuddy I was traveling with. He was
working towards his master's diving certification andhad to reset everything, and so we
were in Colombia. We were inthe northern coast. There's a really cool
dive school in to Ganga and it'scalled Ocean Lovers to Ganga and they take
(07:42):
you into the National Park of Tayronaand you know, there's just beautiful quarrel
and it was a lot of fun. It's just he wanted to do it.
It was one of the things I'vealways wanted to do, and it
was just something I kind of wentalong with and ended up absolutely loving it.
Yeah, and in my case,I think it just made more financial
sense because I'd done a few exploratorydives which we didn't really talk about.
(08:03):
Essentially, you don't have to bea certified diver to go out and experience
the dive. You just go ata much shallower depth than you would if
you have one of the CERTs.And after doing that about four or five
times, I decided that it justmade sense to get certified. In beliefs,
Oh yeah, yeah, there's sucha thing as discovery dives, and
this is one reason you might wantto get certified, right, I mean,
(08:24):
discovery dives are meant for people tojust discover and see if they even
like it, and I think that'sa good way to go about it.
Although the problem with those is theytend to be more expensive. So whereas
if you get certified, you nolonger have to pay that much money.
You're basically just renting the equipment anda spot in a group that's already going
(08:46):
out, so they tend to beway cheaper. And so I just wanted
to specify that because John was mentioningwhy he got certified and yeah, it
can actually be financially interesting, andSaskia, I wanted to ask you,
do you think the reason that youultimately agreed to, you know, get
certified with your ex boyfriend was becauseof the enthusiasm that he seemed to have,
(09:09):
like versus like going with someone whois maybe like afraid to do this.
Yeah, for sure. I meanit helps to have people around you
who are like motivated to do stuff. I think I find I'm often that
person for other people. And maybeit's because I did a lot of stuff
like this when I was really young, and so I learned that actually,
you know, I mean I don'tknow that I've ever regretted trying anything like
(09:31):
that, you know, And soyeah, I mean it totally helps.
But that doesn't mean that you can'tdo it alone. I mean, you
will not be alone whenever you goget certified. It's highly likely that you'll
be part of a larger group ofpeople who are learning just like you.
That's exactly what I wanted to talkabout, because I agree and vehemently believe
that the people you go with ormeet at these things will make or break
(09:54):
your experience, and this rings notruer than the people who are hoping you
get certified. So dive shops theschools. So how did you choose your
dive shop because I think that playsa big role in what your experience is
like. Well, I mean tobe honest, I think one of the
main things when looking for your diveschool is looking at the standard that it
(10:16):
holds itself to. So remember wetalked about Patty earlier on. That is
an international organization and it's essentially astandard. So if a dive shop is
a certified Patty dive shop, youknow it's being held to a certain standard
of this international organization. And thereare multiple standards. Like Max said,
(10:37):
Patty is just the most common.Yeah. Max, and you brought up
a crazy story I think right beforeI was going to go diving, interestingly
enough, but you could share thatwith our audience, that be. Yeah.
So a buddy of mine who Iwas actually traveling with in South America,
she was having surgery on her lungsbecause she had contracted a bacteria or
(10:58):
a fungus that she had in herlungs. And while the source might not
be one hundred percent determined, allfingers are pointing towards a dive school that
she went to in Thailand. Butshe was telling me she really does think
it was the dive school because oftheir the cleansliness of the equipment wasn't kept
at the highest standard that it couldhave been, and she noticed that there
(11:22):
with what he said, let's takethat with a grain of salt. Like,
I mean, definitely do your duediligence. That's not to say that
every patty shop out there is outto get you or put you in the
hospital. No. Like to yourquestions on how did I pick my dive
shop, Let's be honest, Ishould pick the cheapest one, and you
know, but that doesn't necessarily meanit was the worst one, because it
(11:43):
was actually a five star patty ratedshop. It just happened to be in
a place where it was pretty affordable. In Thailand on an island Kotao,
which is known for its diving,and so there's a many dive shops,
high competition, and so the ratestend to be lower. But so what
Max said, I mean, Ihad never heard of that. It's interesting,
(12:05):
it's worth noting, but it's alsoI would imagine quite rare to get
a long infection from a scuba equipment. Let's get into some of the myths
versus reality when it comes to scubadiving. I think in a lot of
people's minds, you are going toencounter sharks when you go diving, You're
going to have some sort of issuewith the respirator, and so there's all
(12:26):
these anks before you go on adive. Let's dispel some of those myths.
All right, Well, first ofall, let's talk about sharks,
because that's something that you just mentionedand that we've already talked about a bunch
in the last episode. But itis one of the big deterrence for diving
apparently. But just so you know, seeing sharks is incredibly rare, actually
(12:48):
depending on where you're diving. Ifor one, have never really seen a
shark while diving. I've seen themwhile snorkeling, small reef sharks, but
I never was able to see onewhile diving, and I tried. But
that being said, there are somany more things that are more dangerous than
a shark, including deer, cows, dogs, and mosquitoes, all of
(13:11):
which kill more people than sharks killevery year. Actual shark deaths, I
believe it's less than ten a year. Not to mention, the common flu
is far more dangerous than a shark. I mean, you have a one
in three point seven million chants ofdying by shark attack versus a one in
sixty three chances of being killed bythe common flu. These statistics are actually
(13:33):
from the Patty website, which Ifound interesting. They have a whole section
on dispelling the myths around scuba diving, and this was one of their facts.
Who knew cows were so dangerous?And so? Were those the top
four that they listed or were thosethe ones that you found the most interesting?
I mean, you know, youcould go on and on forever like
this, Like you know, onehundred and fifty people are killed by coconuts
(13:56):
each year. That's something that Ipulled up because I knew I knew that
it's a pretty common death. Butwhile researching this, I just thought,
well, let me look up theactual number, one hundred and fifty people
by falling coconut. So you know, don't lie under a palm tree with
coconuts, like, just don't.Saska. You mentioned that you started training
(14:18):
in the pool, which and Ijust thought that was something that was only
practiced in the United States. Sowhen you said that you did it in
Thailand this way, I guess itis more internationally used. Yeah, I
think it depends. I mean I'veseen people also like do their intro level.
They just walk onto the beach andthey walk into the water, right,
(14:39):
So you're not hopping off a boator anything, and you're just testing
the respirator in the shallows and gettingused to the equipment. So that's basically
what we did. It was justthere were plenty of resorts around, and
the dive school had a like adeal with the resort nearby, and we
used their pool just to get familiarwith the equipment, like breathe for the
first time, I'm on the respiratorunderwater sync down to the bottom of the
(15:03):
pool. It's just only a couplemeters and that was a really confidence boosting
experience. I would say, Butyeah, how was your experience in the
ocean. No, that's a reallygood point, you see, because I
was going to say I was kindof glad that they threw us out there,
and like, I'm someone that likesto just go for it. But
I think that's more of a personalitytrait versus how other people operate. So
(15:26):
when you're saying that the pool bringsthis familiarity with anyone that's trying something new
for the first time, and thatit's a confidence booster, I like that
and now I can see the importanceof that. But speaking about, you
know, the inks that you canfeel before your first day or the big
day, I almost had a planicattack, And I think that's totally normal.
(15:48):
Yeah, I think that's totally normal. I'm not someone that suffers from
panic attacks. But Max, whatwere you nervous about before your first diving
experience. So I'm gonna be honest, I wanted to this super comfortable very
like I honestly had. Yeah,I really did. If it was I
was living on a cloud during thattime too, So it was just it
(16:10):
was it was easy going for me. The dive instructor, which I think
was brought up, you know,the dive instructors making you feel comfortable and
confident. That's a huge plus.And I think our dive instructor, his
name was Damien. He was justamazing. I mean we literally we hung
out and partied with him, likeyou know, after going Scooba diving and
stuff, and it was great likehe made us all really comfortable. He
(16:32):
was a great instructor, so weall felt very confident. And so when
we got time to, like,you know, actually go off the boats
and check our equipment, give theokay and go down like it was smooth
sailing. But what freaks me outis murky waters, not being able to
see five ten feet in front ofyou. That's terrifying to me. Like
the ocean. I'm a good swimmer, but the ocean, I have a
(16:52):
lot of respect for it, andI fear the unknown out there and that
definitely gets to me. And solet's talk about that a little bit more.
Because we started talking about myths.In reality, we started talking about
sharks, and that's like one ofthe misconceptions of danger. Another one is
just the fear of the depths ofthe ocean and just the fear of being
(17:15):
underwater in general. And I thinkwe can blame a lot of movies for
this. For example, I wasthinking about my own fears and I remembered
that one of the movies we hadas a DVD as a kid that I
watched over and over was this moviecalled The Abyss. Have you ever seen
this movie? So it's basically,like I guess it's a nineties or two
thousand movie, a bunch of scientistsin a research station at the bottom of
(17:38):
the ocean and they're just living thereat like super deep. And then of
course there comes a point in themovie where the spoiler alert, some crazy
person opens some door or you know, there's like a hole in the research
station and the whole thing just startsfilling with water and like hell of people
die, you know, and it'sjust I just remember that it seems terrifying
(18:00):
me as a kid, like anysubmarine flooding scene, that sort of stuff.
Right, Yeah, So I thinkwe can blame Hollywood for some of
these fears, because, let's bereal, diving is not getting in a
submarine and going hundreds of feet belowthe ocean floor. Most of the time
you're diving at a very shallow depth. And that brings me to another myth,
(18:23):
which is that you have to divedeep to see anything good. I
think this is like an idea thata lot of people have, Oh,
in order to see the good stuff, you got to go deep. Wrong.
In fact, after about thirty meters, the colors you start to see
less colors, red disappears first,am I right. I don't know if
(18:44):
it's the one that disappears red,but I know that red is one of
the colors that disappears because they createthose special filters for the GoPro camps based
on like your meters on theer wateror how deep you are in the water,
and the red purple filters are whatthey apply. I was saying,
given what you just said, coralreefs are you know, it's the ecosystem
for a ton of really cool tropicalfish and a bunch of marine animals and
(19:08):
marine life in general, and thoseare all located relatively shallow. You know,
if coral reefs don't exist deep downbecause the sunlight doesn't make it to
them. So to say all thegood stuff is really deep down, it's
simply not true. There's a differencebetween what you're going to see. But
you can be ten twenty feet underwaterand have plenty to look at and keep
(19:30):
you occupied and enjoy yourself while you'redown there. Yeah, totally. And
I was just looking it up,and so yeah, red, orange and
yellow are the first colors to sortof disappear quote unquote because the wavelengths don't
make it that far, and soyou know, if you're actually down at
I think thirty meters, you startto not really be able to see those
(19:52):
colors, and so everything starts lookinga lot duller, and you know,
it's it's beautiful and it's in itsown way. But at a shallower depth
like ten meters or so, you'remore likely to see more species and be
able to see them better. Basically, the colored chart, so red actually
disappears at less than fifteen feet.Following that is going to be orange at
(20:14):
around twenty five feet, yellow atthirty five, green at sixty five,
and finally blue is completely absorbed aroundtwo hundred feet. So just as little
as fifteen feet underwater, red startsto go. Well. I was going
to say, during your advanced openWater certification, you actually go down to
thirty meters, which is I can'tremember how many feet, but I believe
(20:37):
I went to actually I went toforty meters, even though I forget why,
but our dive instructure was like,we can just go to forty meters,
and they brought down like a bunchof objects like a tomato, a
flip flop. Can't remember the otherobjects, but it was a bunch of
different things, and the tomato itwasn't red at all. And then the
flip flop was is completely shrunken.It was like a styrofoam flip flop and
(21:03):
it was to demonstrate the pressure.And then he also brought down as Snickers.
Now he had showed us all theseitems before we dove. Yeah,
it was a Snickers like a largeSnickers bar, flip flop, a tomato,
and then when we got down there, he pulled out the Snickers bar
and it was like half the size, and later we realized later basically it
was a joke. He had broughtdown a mit now he brought down a
(21:26):
mini Snickers bar. He was pretendinglike this giant Snickers bar had shrunken like
the like the flip flop, buthe just brought down a mini Snakers Bar.
So whoever. Going back to Max'scolor chart, one thing that also
affects that is turbidity, which isthe measure of how clear liquid is.
Because I remember being at about thirtyfeet and I was using a red filter
(21:51):
on my GoPro, but because itwas so clear, even when you review
the footage half to your dive,it was still coming out as red because
the water wasn't murky. You couldstill get the light. The light was
still shining through, is what I'mtrying to sit right right, good point.
That's super interesting, But this isa myth that you have to dive
super deep. You do not.You can go to a very nice dive
(22:14):
at ten meters fifteen meters and we'llhave a great time. In fact,
that's where we spent most of ourtime, I think, seeing the coolest
stuff. And not only that,but you can stay the longest at that
depth because one of the things thathappens when you scuba dive is the deeper
you go, the faster your oxygenuses up, and the less time you
(22:36):
can spend there without having to dosafety stops. So diving at shallow depths
actually ensures that you get the mostout of your experience. Max's safety zone
underwater. And now that we're startingto talk about the fun aspects of diving,
I want to talk about wow moments. Do you guys use that phrase?
Is that? Is that something youthink about? Now? It sounds
(22:56):
like a corny well to me,we should call it Saskia is crazy.
Well, thanks for making fun ofme. But anyways, to me.
Wow moments are those memories that youplay back in your head when you recall
an event. For me, thatwow moment in Belize was swimming through an
underwater canyon that towered over us andwas completely filled to the brim with coral
(23:22):
reefs and wildlife. We even swamin between these two large fish that look
like they were speaking to each other, and I'll never forget it. It
was kind of a scene out ofNemo or Finding Nemo. And you know,
to top off this experience at theend, we were watching this sea
turtle just kind of float effortlessly whileit was like eating, and all of
a sudden, the instructor starts bangingon his oxygen tank with like this little
(23:45):
clip so we could hear him.We look over and he points up and
we see this massive shark just swimmingoverhead. That's a moment I'll never forget,
Like it just replaced so vividly inmy mind. And so for both
of you and all of your divingexperiences, what is that one wow moment
you've had. I was kind ofseeing this corny John wow moment coming on,
(24:07):
and I remember thinking about it awhile back, and like I was
like Oh, I don't really havea wow moment for scuba diving, but
I do remember one time we werecruising around maybe twenty feet underwater or so,
and I was in the back andwe were just hanging out, just
enjoying it, making sure we're allvisible and just kind of having our own
alone exploration time. And I rememberlooking at this one like underwater like cliff,
(24:30):
and I was checking it out andI saw a massive octopus. And
I've never seen octopus scuba diving before, and I just like I lost it.
So without using too much oxygen,without trying to sprint up to catch
my friends, I like tapped.They didn't hear it. I was catching
up, and I grabbed one oftheir fins and like, no, try
to signal everyone to come over,and they came back over. One thing
(24:51):
if you don't know about octopus isthat they can camouflage really well. And
I didn't know the underwater sign foroctopus, and so I did like a
little hand j and Damien looked justpuzzled. He had no idea what I
was talking about. And so I, you know, I'm like one second
and I'm scanning this wall trying tofind an octopus and we're there for like,
you know, it seems like forever, but it's like three minutes,
(25:11):
five minutes, and then finally Iwas able to spot it pointed out and
everyone was just you know, stoked, and we were checking it out and
having this moment with octopus on thiscliff and just yeah, that was a
really cool moment. That's crazy nice. Yeah. John's making fun of me
because I always say that's crazy whenthere's something like amazing. It's more like
(25:34):
how it super deadpan. I guessI don't know, but you know,
I can't really think of a bigmoment like that. It's so different than
any other sport I've ever done.It does force you to be actually inside
yourself. It's kind of like thisweird all the sound is cut off,
(25:56):
gravity is no more. You're reallythere and you can only just be there
and there's no talking, and there'syou know, it's very quiet. All
you can do is hear your ownbreathing. In reality, that's what you
hear, like like you're an astronauton the moon or something, And that
is I think something that everyone shouldexperience, and I don't know how else
(26:19):
you could other than scuba diver andwould you say that was the biggest surprise
for you, after the fact thatyou didn't realize how meditative of an experience
it was going to be. AbsolutelyAnd it's also interesting because the calmer you
are, the longer your tank willlast. So it's even like you're encouraged
(26:41):
the entire time to be calm,take your time. It's all about slowing
down, you know, this isa sport that's all about taking your time,
slowing down and enjoying the moment.I was also very surprised by that
because I had done a ton ofsnorkeling, and what happens when you snorkel
is you dive down right you're atthe surface, and then you'll dive down
(27:03):
to go see the fish or youswim over and fish don't like that.
You know that they don't like agiant thing swimming on the surface over them
because if they feel like they're gonnaget eaten. Yeah, So what's interesting
is when you dive, you becomekind of one of them, and they
kind of treat you like you're anotherfish. And so I'd never been able
(27:23):
to just go up to any fish, even a really tiny fish compared to
me and just really look at itand it just sort of look at me
and be like, what's up,you know, like and that was amazing
and it removed a lot of thefear for me of the ocean in general,
because I felt I was actually ableto get to know what the bottom
(27:45):
of the ocean looked like on areally intimate level, and it made me
realize that actually, you know,ten meters versus thirty meters, I mean,
there's not a huge difference. Youknow, you'd kind of think,
oh, you're at whead to meetsuddenly you're going to see these giant like
sharks and scary animals like swimming around, and that's just not the case.
(28:06):
It's it's very much like, Idon't know, it's you're lucky if you
see stuff like that's how you feel. You feel, I'm so lucky I
saw something, because most of thetime I just feel like you're kind of
like, oh, I wish Icould see more fish. You know,
it changes the perspective, Yeah,well said I feel like the difference between
those depths is when you look upand you're like, oh, the surface
(28:26):
looks a little farther or a littlecloser, And that's really about it.
And so one of the things wehaven't really talked about that was brought up
at the beginning was, you know, this idea of getting certified abroad.
And one of the reasons people mightdo this is because of the price,
which we already touched on slightly.And the second reason is this topic that
(28:47):
we're on, this wow factor.When you have those experiences, the bar
is definitely set high. So Ithink this is now an appropriate time to
talk about my buddy Zach no Shapes. Zach about his diving experience here in
Austin, Texas. So he paidroughly two hundred dollars more than I did,
which was the cost of my flightto Belie from Austin to go diving
(29:10):
in the Colorado River over a fourday period. And when I say the
Colorado River, people might say thatthat sounds kind of tight, but what
it really is, It truly isthe Colorado River, but it's kind of
this like large pool that has createditself, and people here in Austin call
it, you know, Lake Travis. Essentially, these people are going diving
here and Max, you talked aboutbeing frightened of not being able to see
(29:34):
more than five ten feet in frontof you. And that was the first
distinction that Zac mentioned about his experiencethat was different from mine. He said,
you couldn't see more than two orthree feet in front of you,
and add the icy cold water tothis, and by the end of his
experience he was just kind of likeeveryone in his cohort was like, let's
(29:55):
get out of here where over this? This kind of sucks. And you
know, he did this in preparationfor, you know, his diving excursion
in Bali. But had we spokensooner, I would have just advised them
to have flown two or three daysearlier to Bali and getting certified over there,
you get a lot more for youknow, your dollar, so to
(30:17):
speak. And so speaking of visibility, I mean, visibility is huge.
I think we mentioned I talked aboutthis really quickly in our episode about underwater
cities. You know, visibility forme changes the entire experience. It doesn't
matter what's down there, you know, so you could be diving in an
awesome place, but the visibility isbad, and unfortunately that can happen.
(30:40):
I mean, even in Thailand therewere days where we had kind of bad
visibility, which made our navigation divelike that much more interesting. But generally
speaking, there are certain places thatare just known for better visibility than others,
and I would venture to say thatlakes and rivers are not known for
their visibility. And the last Iwant to dispel is that scuba diving is
(31:02):
expensive. And while yes, theinitial cost might seem like it, you
are spreading this cost over three tofour days. That depends if you're doing
the bookwork at the facility or onyour own. But that's besides the point.
I think Saska yet pulled up somelike great stats of what it is
equal to. I've read somewhere onthe Patty website that it's about, you
(31:23):
know, your open water, Soit is about the cost of you know,
a couple of skiing lessons or aweekend kayaking bad Bunny concert, a
private golfing lesson. So you know, as far as sports go, it's
really reasonable for what you're getting.And I would say it's an experience like
(31:45):
no other in the sense that,yeah, you are kind of in a
sensory deprivation tank in a way,I think, to be honest, I
think that's probably the most life changingpart of the experience. You know,
you are in your own world andin your own bubble yesterday with other people,
but you know you are with yourselfand that that is not an experience
(32:08):
we all get to have, youknow, in our day to day lives,
especially super stimulating, overwhelming lives wherewe're just blasted with information from the
moment we wake up till the momentwe go to sleep. I hope this
was informative, entertaining and just agood resource to use if you're thinking about
(32:29):
going scuba dotting yep. You canfind us and more information at www dot
gts podcast dot com. You canfind us on Instagram at Globetrotters Podcasts,
on Facebook at Globe Trotter's Podcast,on YouTube Globetrotters Podcasts, and on Twitter
at globetrot pod. Editing was doneby Saskia hat Bonnie. We'll see you
(32:50):
next time. Cheers who
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