Dry suits in Texas – what are we crazy?
When we introduced drysuit diving to Houston (ok, on a retail basis) who would have thought that we would actually have sold some, much less have two regular demo events in the state and make the DUI Hot Sheet for the most dry suit sales in a month? Ann & I certainly planned for the eventuality and Faith Ortins, our friend at DUI had faith in us but to see it happen has been exciting. It is hard to really introduce someone to the concept of Dry Suit diving, especially in Houston which is the gateway to warm Caribbean and Pacific diving but it is fun to help people extend there diving horizons and their diving seasons.
This evening we had the opportunity to introduce some diving divers to the fun of being warm while underwater. The City of Houston Underwater Mariners invited us to talk about dry suit diving and tempt their club members into attending one of the upcoming DUI Demo events, the first of which is in two days and the other in the spring. DUI helped us by donating a DUI jacket to the event for us to give away and we of course threw in some t-shirts and other give away items.
This was a special meeting so according to Ryan, there were not as many people as in previous meetings. Still there were 30 brave souls (lots of rain just before the meeting screwed-up traffic in Houston) who came out to hear me espouse the virtues of drysuit diving. To entertain them, I obtained a number of slides from friends around the industry showing divers diving dry and some of the places they could dive. Faith sent me some fun photographs including a photo of divers having martinis on an ice flow in British Columbia (posed of course – you can’t drink and dive!)
While we were not successful in getting some members of the group interested in joining us that weekend, we did garner some support for the spring event. And, who knows, we may have sent a few of them group thinking there was diving in the winter…
Remember your glass of milk?
Life is like a child drinking cold milk, there is nothing like blowing bubbles. Of course with diving, your Mother is not there telling you to quit playing and drink your milk.
Of course, I find those bubbles a little annoying these days; diving without them has become my preferred way of diving! It is amazing how close you can get to the fish and how curious the marine creatures are when they notice you. Imagine being four feet away from a twelve foot hammer head or running head on into a spotted eagle ray coming around the corner.
Let’s hope I convince more of you to become rebreather divers in the near future. In the mean time, let’s have some fun and play in our milk!
