For me the animals are my first reason to dive. Growing up my family thought I was going to become a biologist of some sort because I was catching everything that came my way (snakes got me into trouble but I love them too), and you couldn't bribe me to get out of the water. My whole life I have obsessed about the ocean and aquariums, even spent money on aquariums when I shouldn't have - just so I could sit below it at night with the aquarium light on and stare up at the fish as if I were underwater. I jumped at the chance to actually scuba dive because it was obvious that it was what I was looking for. Water in general is comforting to me - even better to be floating weightless in it while staring up through hundreds of fish or kelp and having a relaxing swim. I still have many dives to do - night dives with mantas, diving with sharks, other big game fish as well as all the tiny creatures. Everything down there is fascinating and seems as if from another planet completely.

As far as where to dive and why is kinda difficult for me. I mean I spend time on airline ticket sights just to investigate what it will cost to fly to random places around the world to dive. Since I dove in Fiji last summer, southern california isn't exactly as exciting anymore, although I will still jump at the chance to go out this summer as much as possible.

I would say my interest is equally the animals and the nature of the underwater landscape now. I want to gear up for videography so I can load my movies into my mac's and start editing and scoring them with my own music.