Well, last weekend my wife and I both became PADI Open Water Scuba Diving Certified.  This was something that we both wanted to do since we snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. We then did a discovery dive in St. Martin at Simpson Bay.  The moment I saw the photos of my wife feeding a sea turtle and the two of us through an old ship wreck, I was amazed and hooked!  I recently invested a good bit of money in a DSLR underwater housing for a 5D and Ikelite strobes.
 

We began our certification through York Divers in York, PA (which I highly recommend).  We both did very well in class and in the pool.  My wife has an issue with equalizing her ears during dives, but is working it out the best she can.  We, just last weekend, had our certification dives done at Bainbridge  near Marietta, PA.  It was both stressful and exciting at the same time.  We essentially had to perform all tasks and skills learned in the pool and in class, while in 55 degree water in 7mm wetsuits and 25 feet underwater.  The skill of clearing your mask of water and completely removing your mask underwater ad replacing were particularly fun!  But we both survived and we both had a great time!  We even had some time to have fun underwater, like checking out fish, sunken trucks and boats, going through large concrete tubes, and even my wife got to sit on a sunken toilet.  With that, we are now certified divers and will be going to Mexico to enjoy the beautiful waters there.  We have a lot to learn and practice, but the basics are there and we know how to manage emergency situations.
 

Our graduating class:
 

During one of our last pool sessions, I had a chance to play with my camera and took a not so great photo of my wife with murky water and no strobes:
 

If anyone has any desire to pursue diving, do it!  It is a lot of fun, a neat adventure, and a way to meet some cool people.  Before we went to Australia, I was terrified of deep water and the unknown that live in it.  Now, I am ready to jump in and take pictures of everything I can see down there!