The first time Cindy Ross got the inkling to try scuba diving, she was told by someone of the male persuasion that she couldn\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was on a commercial dock at Redondo, and I was invited by the instructor for a tour of the dock,\u201d said Auburn native Ross, who was in her late teens at the time. \u201cI was there with a friend, and I said I wanted to learn to scuba dive and the guy said, \u2018No, no, you no scuba dive. You date divers. Girls like you, you no dive.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t tell me I can\u2019t do something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suffice to say that Ross has proved the guy wrong a few thousand times over. This year alone, she figures to prove him wrong at least 400 times \u2013 because by the end of December, that\u2019s how many dives she expects she\u2019ll have done.<\/p>\n
And in an aquatic pursuit that\u2019s equal parts challenging, stimulating and fun \u2013 but still unequally dominated by men \u2013 Ross is putting her unique and much-needed female stamp on it.<\/p>\n
Meet GirlDiver. A 40-year-old mother of two grown kids. A 1985 graduate of Auburn High School who took part in drama instead of sports.<\/p>\n
And now, she says, the only one on the world who promotes scuba diving for women.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of women are kicked out of other programs because they can\u2019t keep up with the boys,\u201d said Ross, who also trains a few men. \u201cWomen approach scuba differently. If a guy and a girl want to plan a dive, he\u2019s going to want to go out to the end of the reef and back. She wants to see the fish.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people see my classes, I\u2019ve had people tell me, \u2018Your classes seem like so much fun.\u2019 The only way I survive is to create fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heather Rogers, a public defender by trade, certainly is sold on Ross\u2019 concept.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to me to have a really great instructor who focused on individualized teaching. That she\u2019s a female gave me a lot more confidence,\u201d said Rogers, who became certified in June in time to go on her honeymoon to Aruba. \u201cA couple of my guy friends said when I was in Aruba that there\u2019s this thing called snuba (a cross between snorkeling and scuba diving).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was kind of fun to say, \u2018Why would I do that when I\u2019m a certified open-water diver?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Most people get into scuba to see what\u2019s really beneath the surface of the world\u2019s waters. Ross, befitting her march-to-her-own-beat style, got in with the idea of teaching people how to do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m living in Colorado, and my then-husband said, \u2018What do you want to do when you grow up?\u2019\u201d said Ross, a 5-foot-1 dynamo who, on an average day, carts 12 tanks weighing 40 pounds apiece back and forth between her car and the dock. \u201cAt first, I thought whitewater rafting. Then I heard Jacques Costeau dove until he was 86.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I go home and announce that I was going to be a scuba instructor. My husband said, \u2018This is Colorado.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
But of all the states that don\u2019t border an ocean, Colorado has the most certifications in the country.<\/p>\n
Ross\u2019 mind was made up.<\/p>\n
After returning to this area, she walked into a scuba shop one day in Des Moines, and made the same announcement. Two years and, by her estimation, $14,000 later, she was a scuba instructor.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re putting a lot of money into something that doesn\u2019t pay very much,\u201d Ross said.<\/p>\n
Intangible rewards<\/b><\/p>\n
So the money isn\u2019t of upper-tax bracket proportions. But Ross \u2013 who purchased the girldiver.com domain four years ago and since then has made it her well-known moniker \u2014 says there\u2019s much more to it than just diving for dollars.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know there\u2019s a great Pacific octopus under the boat,\u201d she said with a grin. \u201cAnd this year, I had one student, and we had a 2,000-pound stellar sea lion come and do a dance for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never know what you\u2019re going to see underwater.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her students not only come in both genders (although a majority of them are women), they also come in all shapes, sizes, ages and backgrounds.<\/p>\n
The one thing they don\u2019t come in is large numbers \u2013 by design.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn larger classes, 20 percent of the students fail. I want 100 percent success,\u201d she said of her reason for keeping class sizes small. \u201cFor one woman, it was baby steps.\u201d<\/p>\n
Julie Nelson, who lives in Graham and works as an inspector for Boeing in Auburn, has seen the benefits of the personalized approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy husband was pushing and pushing me to get certified. I said I\u2019d go through my classes in Washington, but I wanted to go through my open-water (certification) in Hawaii,\u201d said Nelson, 43. \u201cI said I\u2019m not going into Puget Sound. Then he found Cindy. She told me, \u2018I\u2019ll bet once we\u2019re through the classroom and pool portion, I\u2019ll get you out into Puget Sound.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Ross made her point.<\/p>\n
Nelson got her open-water certification here. And about three weeks ago, they went into Puget Sound off of Redondo.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had almost zero visibility,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cShe held my hand down to 57 feet \u2013 I was a little bit scared. She just stuck right by me. Once I\u2019m down there with her, I\u2019m not afraid. Once I\u2019m under, it all goes away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ross says there are 20 basic skills to surviving underwater. Students learn them through books and course materials in a classroom setting, then practice and get comfortable with their equipment in a swimming pool.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the time you\u2019re in the Sound, this is equipment your familiar with,\u201d Ross said. \u201cYou\u2019re familiar with fins on your feet and breathing through a regulator.\u201d<\/p>\n
Who \u2013 and why?<\/b><\/p>\n
Baby boomers, says Ross, \u201care still the driving force of scuba.\u201d But there is another group coming along \u2013 people ranging from 18 to 30 \u2013 who are going to be the next wave donning tanks, masks and fins.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey grew up with skateboards and X Games, and they don\u2019t see it as extreme and dangerous,\u201d Ross said. \u201cThey want to try out adventure sports.\u201d<\/p>\n
While her pursuit of scuba is geared toward women, Ross said that the breakdown of participants on a worldwide percentage scale is 70-30 men. It\u2019s even more pronounced in the scuba industry itself \u2013 90-10 men.<\/p>\n
But, \u201cmore instructors are coming on board who are women,\u201d Ross said.<\/p>\n
And more women are coming to them, in part because there are some things that are best discussed among themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of what I do is image,\u201d Ross said. \u201cI\u2019ve had women ask me, \u2018What about your hair? I better figure out how to take care of my hair and my skin and my nails.\u2019 They won\u2019t ask a male instructor that.\u201d<\/p>\n
All the differences aside about who gets into scuba diving, their reasons for doing so are, for the most part, similar.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of them, that\u2019s what they\u2019ve always wanted to do, but never have,\u201d Ross said. \u201cScuba is on a lot of people\u2019s list of 10 things they want to do before they die. There are a lot of people who want to scuba dive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ross has no doubt she\u2019ll always be a part of it. In addition to her Puyallup-based business, she also is a staff editor of the Copenhagen-based, internationally read scuba magazine XRay.<\/p>\n
And she is becoming more widely known \u2013 though not always as Cindy Ross.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to an industry convention, and a woman from Florida came up to me and said, \u2018You\u2019re GirlDiver? I\u2019ve always wanted to meet you!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Building her business from the ground up, Ross said it has taken about a year to get it to the point where it\u2019s now full time.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything I\u2019ve done has led to this point in my life,\u201d she said in a reflective moment. Then, breaking into the smile that she wears most every minute, she said, \u201cI was always chosen last for every team in grade school. If you had told me back then that I would make a living teaching a sport, I would have laughed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nobody\u2019s laughing now.<\/p>\n
And certainly, nobody\u2019s telling Cindy Ross what she can\u2019t do.<\/p>\n
The skinny on scuba diving<\/p>\n
Who can do it \u2013 Just about anyone. While a person should be in generally good health, Cindy Ross of GirlDiver.com says, \u201cIf you can walk a mile, you can scuba.\u201d While it\u2019s still predominantly men who take it up (the worldwide breakdown is about 70 percent men, according to Ross), more and more women are getting into it.<\/p>\n
How to learn \u2013 All divers must be certified. The typical instruction program takes place first in the classroom to learn the basics, then in the swimming pool to get familiar with the gear, and finally in the open water.<\/p>\n
How long it takes \u2013 Ross says going from Scuba 101 to getting certified takes about two weeks. A certification is good for life. Reputable scuba operators will always ask to see one\u2019s certification before allowing them to dive. Other underwater experiences require additional training.<\/p>\n
What it costs \u2013 At the entry level, according to Ross, about $300 or less. Thereafter, a personal set of scuba gear ranges from $1,800 \u201cto whatever you want to spend,\u201d says Ross.<\/p>\n
About GirlDiver.com \u2013 The Puyallup-based company is operated by Auburn native and 1985 Auburn High School graduate Cindy Ross. Her niche is training the growing numbers of women who are interested, but she also offers coed classes. Her class sizes are small \u2013 no more than six students in coed classes, no more than four in women-only classes.<\/p>\n
More information: www.girldiver.com, or (253) 217-8204.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first time Cindy Ross got the inkling to try scuba diving, she was told by someone of the male persuasion that she couldn\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":2176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2175"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}