Scuba diving gives us many pleasures both in cold fresh water, and warm salt waters. No matter how you dive every submersion means memories to live over for the rest of your life.

But the best of those memories print themselves in your mind when you’re hovering above one place searching a crevice, or on the reef – watching the antics of the sea life, or absorbing all the brilliant colors your dive light illuminates for you.

Back when I first started diving I remember wanting to see everything beneath the surface. I flitted here, I raced there, trying to take it all in before time to return to the boat, or to shore.

I wasted a lot of tank fills that way.

I don’t remember which dive it was. I’m sure I didn’t record the instance in my logbook. But I do have a memory of that moment when a fish suddenly caught my eye.

And I stopped to watch it playing around.

Everything else just disappeared from my awareness as I floated dead in the water enjoying the show.

I didn’t think about it until after the day’s diving. Back on shore, thinking over what I seen underwater, I realized I got more from those moments of stillness than any dive before ever gave me. I still have that memory.

I knew then that the best dive events for me are explorations of tiny areas. No more speeding all over the place. I see more when I make my initial descent, and stay right there in that first spot I reach at the bottom. Much more than when I spend my dive finning all around catching fleeting glimpses here and there. When you’re doing that you miss most of the activity of the underwater world.

Scuba diving in stone quarries around the Midwest provides some great treasure hunts. Owners develop many of those ponds for divers. You find sunken boats, cars, and airplanes…even computer stations when you dive. And many divers fin from one of those attractions to another. They don’t see anything else on their dive visits.

But I like poking my head into the rock piles. I find some pretty large gaps between those big rocks. And in those gaps I find all kinds of treasures.

On occasion you see a large bass lurking behind those rocks. They stay out of sight, and hide from the divers. Most divers swim by and completely miss them.

Sometimes I find dropped masks. You know those things don’t sink straight down. They skew sideways as they head toward the bottom. That makes them hard to find, and they often end up sliding into a crevice.

Other times I come across dive knives, and snorkels.

There’s just no telling what I’ll see when I slow down, and look around.

One of my most pleasing adventures on the reef is watching the clown fish antics. If I could carry enough tanks along I believe I’d spend hours just watching one play. They are amusing as they flit in and out of the anemone.

Scuba diving is a fun sport no matter what your style. But I find my dive memories firmly planted in my head when I fully explore one small area rather than try to see it all.