I'm planning on getting instruction and certification at my local club this fall (after daughters soccer season).  Anyone else SCUBA?

I'm certified but the last dozen dives have been warm water.  

Quoted: I'm certified but the last dozen dives have been warm water.

Won't dive locally?  Drysuit?

I have a drysuit its just easier to dive in warm water.  

Do it here in SoOre, but only in Oregon lakes and streams....  I learned SCUBA just so I could metal detect underwater.....

Once certified, I'll try to dive any time I can....

Hey Z3BD, this look anything like you??

Well now that you mention it I did just buy a gold mine....  I guess I'll need to look like that next summer....

I dive as well...

Diving off the Oregon coast is not bad.  It is always about 55 degrees, all year long.  So no worries about messing with your weight setup.

Depot Bay has some interesting stuff to see and it is easy to spear your limit of Sea Bass...  Even get a Lin Cod every once in a while.

I dive locally, used to do it A LOT, hope to start again. Great ocean charters out of Garabaldi and Brookings. Kill lots of ling, bass, rock scallops and clams. Barview jetty in Garabaldi is a good shore dive where you can harvest fish. Once you get certified, email me. I could probably help you get started, maybe make a couple of dives. Good luck, hope you enjoy it!! (PS-I use a wetsuit, always have. Less problems, less hassles)

Quoted: I dive locally, used to do it A LOT, hope to start again. Great ocean charters out of Garabaldi and Brookings. Kill lots of ling, bass, rock scallops and clams. Barview jetty in Garabaldi is a good shore dive where you can harvest fish. Once you get certified, email me. I could probably help you get started, maybe make a couple of dives. Good luck, hope you enjoy it!! (PS-I use a wetsuit, always have. Less problems, less hassles)

Roger that!!!  And thanks.

Sorry, thats all I got.

Quoted: Sorry, thats all I got.

I'd call that rapture of the deep

I am certified, but don't dive in the Pacific NW where you have to dress up in 2" of neoprene to avoid the cold. I prefer diving in a T-shirt, or a 1/6" shorty wet-suit.

If you can afford it, I would suggest considering getting your way I did it:

Trip to Kona - find one of the smaller dive shops (I can recommend one), and get them to do the certification over a week.

I would go out on two trips per day along with a normal dive. The instructor would wait for them to leave, then we would spend time, one on one, in the water covering the basic stuff. Depending on how I was doing, there would usually be a bit of air left after we had finished whatever education/practice the instructor wanted to cover that day, and he would accompany me for the remaining few minutes exploring the area under the boat.

There was no time spent in a pool, it was all in the sea, and even during those first few training sessions, I got to spend some time just diving.

Note that this can only work with an instructor who has the time/willingness to do one-on-one training -- there is no way you could move a class out of the swiming pool and into the sea where you have several students to each instructor.

I had my certification in a week (well, actually 2, because the instructor suggested that since I had the time, it would be good to have some time off, because 2 dives per day when you are learing can get a bit intense).