Dove Dutch Springs this weekend. The notoriously cold and often cloudy water are the main reasons it took me five years to finally give up the ghost of only diving warm water (not to mention the crowds).
The whole trip was Internet-enabled in that I met (through www.meetup.com) a diving group in New York, Ocean Blue Divers and after a couple NYC-based events, took the plunge with a short trip.
Really good experience. Great group of people and smart. Smart enough to engage Lifeguard Systems to do our Rescue Diver training for the weekend. Rescue Diver is generally the third stage in the big dive organizations development: Open Water Diver; Advanced Open Water, Rescue Diver, and them perhaps on to Dive Master or Instructor.
Lifeguard Systems has a few maverick ideas about safety that may not always be shared by the dive organizations where the primary goal seems at times just to get as many people under the water as possible. Very valuable, would definitely recommend looking at them if you’re exploring diving. They seem a bit more objective than your average dive shop which seems intent on selling you your next piece of gear.