About Andy and Black Dog Divers
Andy is a diver and loves to dive! The purpose of this site and Black Dog Divers is to help promote dive awareness, training, travel and to offer diving services in the local area.
Welcome to the site
A short history of my diving
Here is the reason that I am diving and why I love to dive - I had a great instructor (thanks, Dave) when I started who gave me a solid set of skills from which to advance and then worked with me to develop my confidence as both a diver and a trainer. It is the same in all sports, and diving is a sport and should be treated as such.
I learned to dive in Oregon, and that has left me with a love of the cold dark waters of the Hood Canal and Puget Sound, the 80 ft tall underwater walls, rock fish, crabs, octopus, shrimp....life everywhere you look. The challenge of the cold, the dark, the tides - I actually prefer the cold water to warm water excursions.
Here are a few stats for you...over 900 dives in a wide variety of environments from the Oregon Coast to the Galapagos via Hawaii, Florida, Canada, and the California Coast. I am both a trained PADI instructor and an experienced technical diver.
One of the keys to developing experience as a diver is to dive in a variety of environments and conditions from oceans to lakes to rivers, in still water and in swift flowing currents or tides. There are also precipitous rock walls, ancient wrecks, underwater sand 'deserts', and towering kelp beds to visit, and each require different skill sets that we can teach you. How about diving at night or deep diving? How will you find your way when you are underwater? These are all things that we can teach you through PADI training systems and the equipment and facilities at Sport Chalet.
Some of my qualifications:
Just in case you were wondering.......
- PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer #193126
- DAN O2 and Advanced O2 provider/instructor
- PADI Emergency First Response and AED provider/instructor
- TDI O2 Technician and Nitrox Gas Blender
- PADI Specialty instructor (Deep, Enriched Nitrox, Boat, Drysuit, Underwater Photography, Underwater Navigation, Search and Recovery, Altitude, Wreck and Night)
- ITAND Advanced Nitrox diver
- Fill Station Operator
Waiting to jump - Flower Gardens April 2011
Self portrait in the Valhalla Missile Silo in Abilene TX
Cruising along in the Coronado's
Blowing air rings at the bottom of the Hood Canal
Serious teaching face during a rescue class!
Riding back from a dive trip on the Coronado Islands in CA
This card was made by Margo Sercu under the banner of Sercu Creations. All of the logos, T shirt designs and cards were made by Margo - Thank you :-)
Margo's T shirt design
BLACK DOG DIVERS WAS NAMED AFTER A
VERY SPECIAL BLACK DOG
