I became a Scuba Diver at age 14 when I got my Junior Divers license in 1962 so I dived a lot Scuba diving especially from age 14 through my 20s. However, I started to realize just how dangerous Scuba diving actually was when I thought about how I could hold my breath from the Scuba tank at 6 feet deep and if I didn't breathe all the air out as I surfaced I could make my lungs bleed. I might not die but even from 6 feet deep if you don't breathe out your compressed Scuba air as you surface you can have a problem. If you held your breath from 20 to 30 feet to the surface with a lung full of compressed air at that depth you would likely die no questions asked. When I realized this I wasn't as anxious to keep Scuba diving because all you need is one variable to go wrong and you are dead.
Like say you see a Shark or Moray Eel and you panic and forget to breathe out? Like I said any variable that panics you and you forget to breathe out and you are dead no questions asked. Scuba like Flying a plane are both VERY VERY unforgiving as in you can die quite easily if you forget any one variable because you are distracted by literally ANYTHING that is happening there or somewhere else in your mind.
So after I realized this I went back to snorkeling with a mask where these problems don't exist. Within the last year a Young Scuba diver died within a mile or two of where I presently live which also says something about what happens when you are dealing with more variables than you can manage. And you don't always know when you have bitten off more than you can chew. I personally would never have dived where these four young divers did but that is just me. But, one of the 4 didn't make it back and his body washed up on shore a few weeks later. and Like I said this is withing a mile or two of where I presently live.
I could easily snorkel down to 30 to 50 feet without any problems like bleeding lungs or the bends too. I still snorkel even at age 76 in Hawaii on Kauai and Maui when I visit there almost every year now in the fall or the spring. However, now at 76 I prefer mostly to cruise along on the surface mostly with a snorkel.
For example, I snorkeled on Kauai last Fall of 2023 and in April 2024 on Maui while we were there.
But, while Scuba diving I went down in Catalina about 50 to 75 feet when I was 14 on my first beach dive. However, you have to remember I was a completely fearless 14 year old then and very full of myself and what I could do. I was blowing away people all the time regarding what I could survive in taking risks like rock climbing, Off Road Motorcycles and Scuba diving and Body surfing and Boogie Boarding. I never got that good at Board surfing then though because I didn't live right on the beach and couldn't go often enough. But, I was an excellent Scuba diver, Snorkler, Body Surfer and Boogie Boarder too and Snow Skier. However, I never had a lesson skiing on snow so I was sort of Kamikazi as a skier always because I taught myself completely to ski and to Ice Skate on Hockey Skates. I'm using that term to mean sort of wild in my Ski styling which is if you combined a metal edged mountaineering skier with a Down hill Skier.
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