My Scuba Diving

I’m an avid scuba diver and this is my div­ing page where I demon­strate my favorite dive pic­tures, dive sites, my dive gear, my dive pro­file (e.g. total dives, etc.), etc.

A lit­tle bit about my diving

My first dive was in Loreto, Mex­ico in 2002 and I instantly felt in love with the sport.  I still remem­ber when my buddy kicked my mask and reg­u­la­tor off at 50ft (15 meters) and the calm feel­ing I had even though I didn’t have an air source or mask.  I calmly found my reg­u­la­tor, purged it, then put on my mask, which I man­aged to catch right after being kicked off.   How­ever, even though I loved the sport, I have only dived about 12 times between 2002 and 2006 due to eco­nomic rea­sons and lack of dive bud­dies.  It was not until I dived again in the sum­mer of 2008 that re-ignited my love for the sport which con­se­quently I started to invested heav­ily in the sport and logged 60 dives (aprox 30 hours bot­tom time) in 12 months (mainly on weekends).

Now in 2009, I dive pretty much every week­end or every other week­end.  I start to get really itchy to get back in the water if I haven’t dived in 2 weeks or longer.   Now with my new dry suit and still reli­able Apeks reg­u­la­tors, cold water won’t stop me from div­ing dur­ing the win­ter since I can’t afford the lux­ury of going some­where warm every time I want to dive.

Some Favorite Dive Pictures

I don’t have a pro­fes­sional under­wa­ter cam­era so the qual­ity of the pic­tures are not National Geo­graphic qual­ity, but they help to cap­ture the moment.

I just got the cam­era in 2009 so the pic­tures are rel­a­tively new, I just wished I had the cam­era a long time ago to cap­ture some pic­tures from the Reefs of Mex­ico and Sar­dinia because they were just beautiful.

I do wish I could take bet­ter under­wa­ter pic­tures, but I would need to invest more money for acces­sories and bet­ter equip­ment so high qual­ity pic­tures will have to wait. For now I will need to use what I have.

My Dive Sites

Zoom in, Zoom out, and click on the flags to see details about the dive site.

My Div­ing Gear

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    • Dive Rite steel back plate with a cus­tom built single-piece Hog­a­rthian harness
    • Dive Rite Ven­ture wing (mod­i­fied cor­ru­gated hose and pull dump)
    • Apeks ATX 200 (7 ft/2 meters MiFlex hose) and ATX 40 (22 inch / 56 cm MiFlex hose) regulators
    • Two Wor­thing­ton Steel 119 cu.ft. tanks
    • Suunto Cobra air inte­grated computer
    • Dive Rite Nitek Trio Com­puter on a cus­tom DSS Bungee mount
    • OMS Slipfin (XXL) fins with Hal­cyon spring straps (For dry suit rock boots)
    • ScubaPro Jetfins (Large) with OMS spring straps (For booties)
    • Dive Rite spring heel fins (backup fins)
    • A Canon SD880IS with an Ike­line under­wa­ter casing
    • Whites Fusion Dry suit with Tech skin and pockets
    • Dive Rite Black Mask and 2 other spare masks
    • Dive Rite Sidewinder Reel and Fin­ger Spool
    • Dive Rite 500 Lumen LED Dive Light with Good­man Hand Mount
    • Two backup Dive Rite Sport LED lights
    • A bag full of tools and spare parts and knifes

My Pro­file

Cer­ti­fi­ca­tions

  • PADI Dry Suit Diver (Northen Vir­ginia, USA 2009)
  • PADI Res­cue Diver Northen Vir­ginia, USA (2008)
  • SDI Nitrox Diver (Northen Vir­ginia, USA 2008)
  • NAUI Advanced Open Water Diver (Northen Vir­ginia, USA 2005)
  • PADI Open Water Diver (Huat­ulco, Mex­ico 2004)

Sta­tis­tics

  • Deep­est Dive: 115ft / 35meters (2009)
  • Total Dives: 72 (Sep. 7, 2009)
  • Total Down Time: 40 hours and 34 min­utes (Sep. 7, 2009)
  • Longest Con­tin­u­ous Dive: 90 min­utes (2009)
    • Note: Using the same tank I used for a pre­vi­ous 25 minute dive  and still sur­faced with 900 psi (62 bar)

Dive Envi­ron­ments

  • Recre­ational deep (115ft)
  • Atlantic and Gulf Wrecks
  • Low vis­i­bil­ity
  • Night dives
  • Tulum Cave pen­e­tra­tion and Caverns
  • Fresh Water
  • Cold Water (37 F / 3 C)