Let's get it started

On this day in 1960, President John F. Kennedy first proposed the Peace Corps to 10,000 students at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, with the famous speech:

"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."

Do you have a passion for something? Do you want to change the world? Do you feel that nothing you do matters? I changed my life to become a SCUBA diving instructor. I wanted to change the world, one person at a time. Nothing is more satisfying to me than completing an open water class and watching as new divers discover Hawaii's under water world.

Today was the last day for Nick, Erik, Ryan, Chris and David. We were on the NoriZ again, same as Wednesday, except the Capt. Wade was driving this afternoon. The wind chop was up and the current was pretty stiff on the outside of the bay, so we chose some protected sites for our third and fourth open water dives. Our first stop was Hawaii Loa crater (Time IN: 13:35, Max Depth: 42 fsw, Bottom Time: 0:36 min, 79F). The surge and current made it pretty challenging to complete the skills, but everyone nailed it, and we even had time for a nice tour of the crater before surfacing.

Our second dive was on Angler's Reef (SI: 0:38 min, Time IN: 14:55, Max Depth: 48 fsw, Bottom Time: 0:38 min, 79F). Katie and her mom, Pat were also along, nominally to help with my class, but mostly to dive! My students had to do the surface navigation skill through a pretty stiff chop, then a free descent through clear water to the bottom. After knocking out the last of the skills we started our dive tour. Meanwhile Katie was on a roll. She found 5 leaf scorpion fish on the dive! Way to go Katie! David also saw a ray off in the distance, but we never got a really good look. We all came back to the boat happy, tired but with a feeling of accomplishment.