Summerside Diver

I am a certified open water scuba diver.  I trained initially, in 2016, with Dolphin Scuba Center in Sacramento, California, with my open water dives taking place in Monterey, and Jenkinson Lake.  After a several year hiatus from diving, I attempted two open water dives in Hawaii - these were a success and learning lesson.  One, I say they were a success because I am here writing about it.  And two, they were a learning lesson because I am here writing about it - I could not get mentally comfortable in the water - physically I was fine, I was breathing fine, I had no physical issues, but I could not settle my mental state; my skills were rusty, my comfort with the gear was rusty, and I was not prepared to be actively engaged in scuba diving.  I scrubbed my dives - I missed out on seeing some phenomenal sites and animals, and I think I shocked my divemaster - she saw that I was doing fine and even commented such.  Mentally I was not there!  

So, success in that I'm still here and able to tell my story - goal one of every dive is that everyone gets out of the water safely!  and learning lesson (not failure), in that I learned that I needed a refresher on my skills, and I needed to polish my skills a lot.

Which brings us to the here and now - I have taken the reActivate class, and Equipment Specialist class with Northwest Scuba in Edmonton, Alberta.  I am also currently enrolled in Advanced Open Water - not so I can say I am an advanced diver, but so I can expand on my skills, and become more comfortable in the water, and polish the skills I have now. Eventually I will be adding dry suit, Nitrox, Rescue, and working my way towards Divemaster, and then entering the realm of pro and assisting with teaching. Needless to say, I have a passion for being in the water and want to learn everything I can, and teach others as well.

My experience in Hawaii also opened my eyes to one other thing - I love being in the water!  And as such, I decided that I need to learn to dive here in Alberta.  It's definitely not beautiful, warm, tropical water, but it's water - and I'll be underwater.  So, the Summerside Diver is born.  I live in Summerside - we have a man-made lake which hosts all kinds of summer, and winter activities - I'm going to expand my skills as a scuba diver in Summerside; it wont be glorious; visibility will likely suck, it'll be cold, and it wont offer a vast array of things to go see - but that's ok.  I'll be diving, I'll be gaining experience, and I'll be having fun.  Plus, I can go out and clean up the lake, from the bottom up.

Note - the picture above is not from Summerside.... not even close.  It is from Molokai, Hawaii - and it is of a little female boxfish. I will update the picture to one of Lake Summerside when it is no longer a skating rink (I'm not a dry suit or ice diver yet, and skates and I do not get along, so no lake pictures).

Resources I have found very helpful on my journey into scuba.

Northwest Scuba - a PADI Five Star dive shop in Edmonton - I strongly recommend going in and talking with Laura and Ken, they are down to earth people who truly care about their customers,  and the dive community.

The Human Diver   - a wonderful program for divers (and everyone else) to learn about how Human Factors, Just Culture, being psychologically safe, and more affect us as divers (and humans), and how we can strive to learn and become better.

Alberta Underwater Counsil - the representative non-profit body for underwater sporting activities in the Province of Alberta which endeavours to encourage underwater related sports/activities. 

Divers Ready - I found Divers Ready through their YouTube channel, where James goes through all things scuba with the intention to make his viewers better divers.

and more to come as I have more time to add and edit

Please visit my personal page at www.danieltroglin.com - I will be sharing my journey and  experiences and hobbies in the rest of my life.  Maybe we can learn something together there.

Feel free to contact me at skirblah@gmail.com

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