Jim Larson
My first dive experience was as Boy Scout in the local high school pool with a two hose regulator and a steel tank with a homemade backpack. The whole experience was less than 5 minutes but left a desire to do more.
I was taking flying lessons from a friend in Fairbanks Alaska when he announced that there would be no more lessons until he had a dive buddy. I explained to Bill that I could not go to the bottom of a pool without my ears hurting me – he asked if I knew how to clear – I then pointed out we were 400 miles away from the ocean and that it was cold – He said no more flying until I was certified. So I went to the local dive store and signed up for scuba. 8 weeks later we headed to a local lake and did our first dives. The only things of interest in the lake were thousands of mussels – after the first 100 or so they were no longer interesting. The second day we went another lake with a mud bottom and nothing to look at. I was ready to continue my flying lessons but no – Bill said we were going to Whittier on Prince William Sound to dive the following weekend. I complained that it would require taking 2 days off of work and diving 400 miles each way just to dive. He promised that we would return to flying once we did the dives in Whittier. After the weekend of diving in the ocean I lost any interest in learning to fly. Bill had a new dive buddy and I had found my avocation.
My dive Instructor was Jack Brownson – NAUI #1301 who owned Dolphin Too scuba in Fairbanks. Jack had moved to Fairbanks from Reno where he had been one of the owners of Sierra Diving. Jack asked if I would be willing to help out with the next class and in predicable fashion I was now the dedicated dive slave and protégé.
Jack died in a commercial dive accident – a victim of a “delta p” event that cost him and another diver their lives. Jacks girlfriend and I decided that we wanted to continue teaching scuba and running a dive store. She and I made an offer to purchase the store from Jacks estate and we were now in the scuba business. Now to become an Instructor. I found NAUI College in Laguna Niguel in CA and headed south to do a 14 day rescue, assistant instructor and Instructor course. Jim Hicks was the course director. Lavern headed to Halls in Marathon FL to do the same. LaVern and I – along with several friends ran Dolphin Too in Fairbanks until 1988.
In 1988 we relocated and moved the store to Vancouver WA. I became a NAUI Course Director in 1991 and ran my first ITC in Portland through Lewis and Clark College.
Dolphin Too was the focus of my diving. We taught scuba at all levels, ran trips to both cold and warm water. Lots of weekends were spent on the STARFIRE or the SEAWOLF out of Anacortes or on the SEA VENTURE in British Columbia. Warm water trips included Belize, Cozumel, Cayman, St. Croix, Bonaire, Thailand, Palau, Yap, Truk, Turks and Caicos Islands.
In 1996 I did my first of 7 summers as an Instructor for the Returning Student program for Aramco in Saudi Arabia. We taught scuba and ran dive excursions for the high school age children of American, Canadian, and British employees of Aramco. The highlight of each summer was a trip to the Red Sea and diving either out of Yanbu or Jeddah.
In 1999 I sold the retail portion of Dolphin Too and concentrated on just teaching.
In January 2011, I became the NW Territory Representative for NAUI. My duties include supporting retail operations in Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, British Columbia, Alberta, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Northern Nevada.
The most fun I have diving is teaching – at all levels. I enjoy teaching the basic students as well as working with new instructor candidates. The diving is still great and I enjoy both cold and warm water dives, but my greatest joy is teaching.