Since I moved to Florida and learned what Devil’s Den was, I wanted to get scuba certified. However, it was never on the top of my to do until my husband mentioned it on the drive home from our wedding. Within a few weeks we booked our class with a lovely shop near us. Seminole Scuba provided the materials necessary and rental equipment to start out, with additoinal guidance on the gear we would need to own . It was so much fun to study together and hold each other accountable for getting the work done before our first class at the shop.
If you are interested in joining this expansive community, there are a few things to know before getting started. Firstly, it can be an expensive hobby. From the dozens of courses to enroll in and expand your knowledge to planing dives and excursions to finally owning your own gear, you’ll want to have a basic understanding on what you are comfortable spending. We invested in our own equipment from the start to get comfortable in our gear while going through the skills and exercies.
The additional gear that we rented for part of our class and then bought before our final 2 dives: Wet suit, BCD, and regulator.
Required Personal Gear
- Mask
- Snorkel
- Fins
- Boots
- Mouth piece for the regulator
- DSMB & reel
- Weights & Weight bag
- SPG
- Whistle
- Dive watch or computer
We’re going to be continuing our training with a Nitrox course and Advanced Open Water Diver course. In the Advanced course we need a few more pieces of gear.
Over the course of 5 days we completed all classroom work, passed an exam, completed five confined dives at the YMCA swimming pool, and five open water dives between De Leon Springs and Phil Foster Park/Blue Heron Bridge. We got to learn from a variety of trainers through Seminole Scuba and made some new friends along the way. We are so excited to continue this hobby together and strengthen these new relationships.
Blue Heron Bridge is one of the best diving and snorkelling locations in The Palm Beaches of Florida. Situated just below the bridge and off the Phil Foster Park beach you can see a variety of exotic sea creatures and statues! We couldn’t believe how beautiful the area was and are looking forward to exploring it again with hopefully a little clearer water. The deepest we dove was 14 feet. I couldn’t believe how massive the starfish were just resting on the bottom sand. Unfortunately we weren’t able to video the whole trip so some images I will hold onto in my memory. We got to see porkfish, juvenile gray angelfish, sergeant major, sea cucmber, urchins, and so much more.
There’s so much more to explore now and I can’t wait to share it with you. As always thanks for reading and coming along for the journey!
GreenWorldGlimpse 
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