Local diving: Everybody’s Doing It. (Seriously).

I’ll open with a disclaimer: local diving is not for everybody. I would never criticize those who only dive in warmer climates. But for those willing to get sturdy regulators and a 7mm thick wetsuit or a dry suit, local diving can certainly yield unexpected benefits and rewards.

He just woke up two hours ago.

One of the best things about diving in your local area is the ready accessibility of places to dive. In the south suburbs of Chicago alone, we have access to several dive sites within two hours. That means that you can wake up one morning and decide to go diving, and within two hours you can be underwater for the cost of an entry fee and rental, if you need it (which is way cheaper than an all-inclusive vacation… unless you drive a Hummer limo that gets five miles to the gallon).

You might think that there’s nothing to see once you get under the water, but that is simply not the case. Most scuba diving quarries intentionally sink attractions, such as Mermet Springs’ Boeing 727. They usually have a list of diveable objects on their websites. You can also dive natural formations, abandoned quarry equipment, shipwrecks in larger lakes like Lake Michigan, and swim among a good variety of fish, including giant catfish (when you don’t fish them, they get really big… and really greedy for Cheese Whiz) and paddlefish, which filter-feed but are built with an elongated body and skin like a shark.

Finally, I come to one of the best parts of diving locally. When you dive local, you find dive buddies for life. Because there aren’t just a couple of crazies who love to dive local; there are a LOT of crazies who like to dive local, and they want nothing more than to see you dive local, too. At Scuba Emporium, we have a dive club called the Southside Scubaholics that meets the third Tuesday of every month at 6:45, and their goal is to get people energized about the diving that is available to them. Scuba Emporium also dives every other weekend during the summer, and we cook out at the quarry on those weekends. We book dive charters out on LAke Michigan as well. There are opportunities aplenty, and people to join you whenever you want to take those opportunities.

So, please… Before you find yourself wasting a lovely summer morning staring wistfully at the closet your dive equipment is in, do yourself a favor: try diving locally. It will surprise you.