The Dive Evangelist

The world was crumbling. Banks were folding, mortgages were being foreclosed on, people were out of work, and so many organizations around the country were tightening purse-strings around their employees' necks.

My company was no different. The desk where I'd squandered many a happy afternoon of the company's time, blogging away about diving was becoming perpetually dreary. My coworkers and I were sold and outsourced and many other corporate-speak things that I barely had the attention to understand. Little seemed to change for the better, including the numbers on the paychecks and our internet access. I could no longer blog. I could no longer see any of the good, diving websites. The firewalls blocked everything and, to risk melodrama, tapped me of the will to live... there anymore, anyway.

So, it was time.

I quit.

I moved to Hawaii.

I became a professional dive instructor.

It certainly sounds easier than it was or is in those clipped sentences, but anything worth doing is going to be hard, right?

In those last few months of working for a company whose corporate goals I barely knew, and with which I probably disagree, a mighty yet simple truth revealed itself to me: One must care about what they do and do what they care about.

In two years of working with the New York Aquarium both as a volunteer diver and a volunteer keeper's assistant I got to spend a bunch of time around people who make their living at the betterment of the ocean. I admired and continue to admire the dedication both to the animals in their charge and the education they have the opportunity to bring to the public. I got to hear them gripe about having to come in on Christmas and on New Year's in the dead of icy, New York winter to feed the animals, but I also got to see the pride and the affection they have for the creatures and for the place.

I also got to pet a walrus one day. That was really, really cool.

Having seen so many people caring about what they do and doing what they care about, I confess, I got jealous. Seeing people that dedicated and passionate about their work is compelling and I wanted to be one of them.

Without having to think too terribly long, I heard my calling clear as day. I care about the sea. Lacking a degree in marine biology or oceanography I had to resort to something other than aquarium keeper. I can dive, I can teach people to dive, and (occasionally) I can string together words into a (somewhat) cohesive order: there was my entire list of abilities. Dive instructor it was; and due to a strange series of coincidences, a move to Hawaii assembled itself.

So I told my boss to get stuffed and hopped on a plane.

I like to think of the move as bringing the Dive Evangelist gig on the road; bringing the good news to the middle of the Pacific.

You see, the people of Hawaii have depended on the sea since before even the beginning of the native, oral history, yet there are still horror stories such as sea turtle poaching in the islands. Vacationers travel across thousands of miles on thousands of dollars to come see the unique and rugged beauty of this place, yet Waikiki Beach looks mostly like a glorified ashtray/litter-box.

Divers tend to love the ocean and tend to care about the challenges that our beloved sea faces and I like to think of well-educated divers as ambassadors to their own race from the sea, ready to offer suggestions on how the people around them might practically help their world.

Most people really do care about the environment and would like to make a difference, but tend to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems. What if we can make the problems manageable and day-to-day, if we can show people how big a difference they, personally, can make in only small decisions and actions... At that desk in New Jersey I decided it was time to take a leap.

From here on in, each diver I certify or guide will know EXACTLY why their buoyancy control is important so as to stay off the reef. My divers will always owe me a beer for every piece of garbage that they leave in the water or on the boat (conversely, I'd like to buy them one for every piece of junk they bring back with them to be properly disposed of from the bottom).

Woe be unto dive boats I see following poor environmental guidelines. I reckon everyone deserves a warning, but I can't be held responsible for anyone's fouled anchors after that.

I care about the ocean very, very deeply. And it was with the realization that I wasn't doing nearly as much as I am personally capable of doing to help that led me here.

The world is crumbling, not the world of imaginary finance or that stupid intra-network I was responsible for the maintenance of, the real world. The world of life and death and renewal. This blue world of seas upon which every living thing is dependent is crumbling. And I can't sit idly by anymore.

I know that teaching people environmental responsibility as they learn to dive is not blocking the explosive harpoons on whaling ships, nor is it inventing a sure-fire way to prevent petroleum spills; but it is what I can do, and it is what I will do.

Maybe organize a beach clean-up from time to time, just to mix things up.

Perhaps you don't want to tell your boss to sod off then move to Hawaii. Or perhaps (more likely) you do. But why? To do more, or to do less?

The only advice I can give you if you are going to join me on Oahu as an eco-pirate is this: be careful about hiring movers to come way out here, there's some shady operations out there.