Welcome to Just Go Diving

Have a question for Just Go Diving?  Need to know what equipment to use for snorkeling or scuba diving? 

Summary
In this engaging conversation, Chastity Stern shares her journey into the world of scuba diving and her motivations for starting a podcast. She discusses her experiences with different types of diving, including cold water and public safety diving, and emphasizes the importance of community and continuous learning in the diving world. The podcast aims to provide valuable insights, tips, and encouragement for divers of all levels.

Takeaways

• Chastity's journey into diving began later in life.
• Cold water diving presents unique challenges and rewards.
• Diving experiences vary greatly between environments.
• The podcast will cover gear setup for different diving conditions.
• Community support is crucial for successful diving.
• Continuous learning is essential in the diving community.
• Chastity aims to share her hard-earned lessons with new divers.
• Improvement in diving can be measured in small increments.
• The podcast will explore various diving topics and experiences.
• Diving is not just about the act, but about the knowledge and community behind it.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Just Go Diving Podcast
00:36 Chastity Decides to Do a Podcast
04:22 Types of Diving: Cold, Warm, and Public Safety
04:48 What is your favorite type of diving?
06:40 Podcast Topics and Goals
09:02 Final Thoughts and Future Directions

Keywords

scuba diving, instructor journey, personal growth, teaching philosophy, confidence, scuba community, learning, passion, safety, diving experiences

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Transcript

Joel Chernick (00:00)
I was diving the other day and this little fish came up whispered in my ear and he told me you were going to do a podcast.

Chastity Stern (00:08)
Really? That sounds like you might need to get your head examined.

Chastity Stern (00:13)
You're now talking to fish underwater.

Joel Chernick (00:36)
Hi, Chas, how are you doing?

Chastity Stern (00:38)
I'm good, Joel. How are you?

Joel Chernick (00:40)
I'm excellent. I heard that you were going to do a podcast.

Chastity Stern (00:44)
I am going to do a podcast.

Joel Chernick (00:47)
What made you decide to do that?

Chastity Stern (00:50)
Well, it wasn't just my idea. Several people asked me if I'd ever thought about doing a podcast but I didn't feel confident that I could actually pull it off. So it's kind of been in the making for quite some time. And then one day I was doing some training and some people said to me, this would be the best podcast topic.

And they're like, you really should do a podcast. So then I, I decided to do a podcast.

Joel Chernick (01:20)
Well, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Chastity Stern (01:24)
Well, my name is Chastity Stern. I am obviously a scuba diver. I got certified in 2019, which doesn't seem like that long ago, even though it's been six years now. I live in the Pacific Northwest. I do cold water diving.

Joel Chernick (01:43)
Why did you start diving.

Chastity Stern (01:48)
I've actually thought about that a lot lately. You asked me that not that long ago and

I really don't have an answer to that.

I think that I was always a diver. I just didn't know that I was a diver. I think I just came out of the womb as a diver maybe. I don't really know. I always enjoyed the water. I grew up in the South and we always were swimming and going to the lake or going to the beach or whatever. So I was always in the water.

I just, I don't know that I ever consciously thought about going under it in the scuba kind of way. I only had one friend growing up whose parent was a diver and we didn't even really talk about it. We just like briefly said maybe two sentences when I was a teenager about it and I didn't watch scuba shows.

I don't know. That's a great question and I don't have an answer for it other than...

In 2016 I went to Hawaii for the first time and that was really cathartic, I guess is the best word. To be in a place that was just as beautiful on the surface as it is underwater and I don't think I'd ever had that experience before in that kind of way where I was like, this is warm and I can see for a really long way. And there's all this cool stuff to see. I think my mind just started turning this stuff around you know just this constant like I can see and it's warm and I can go underwater. I've always snorkeled and now I'm completely bored with snorkeling because it's just not as fun as being under the water. Then I went to Hawaii in 2019 and I swam with the whale shark for the very first time and I came home and I just decided I'm gonna be a diver

But I also thought about this earlier, I had to wait for my children to grow up somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that I would not have enough time to dedicate to Scuba and to learning the things that there was to learn about it because I was so focused on my sons growing up and being involved in what they were doing and providing them with the support. For the things that they were doing. So I think that's why I didn't do it when I was younger, I think it took me until I was in my 40's to do it. And then I just did it. That's why I did it.

Joel Chernick (04:22)
Tell me a little bit about the different types of diving that you've done since you started diving.

Chastity Stern (04:28)
Well, I got certified in the Pacific Northwest, which is super cold. It never gets out of the fifties. So I became a diver as a cold water diver. I do enjoy warm water diving. I'm also a public safety diver, as well as a public safety diving instructor. I am the squad leader for a dive team.

Joel Chernick (04:48)
What's your favorite type of diving?

Chastity Stern (04:52)
Any kind.

Joel Chernick (04:53)
The next kind.

Chastity Stern (04:54)
The next kind.

I think that I enjoy each one of the types of diving for different reasons. I think I enjoy them all equally. Cold water diving, it's very challenging. If you are a cold water diver, especially in the Pacific Northwest, you can dive anywhere in the world. These are some of the hardest conditions to learn to dive in, to go... fun diving in and to maintain a level needed to remain a cold water diver. They are just tough, but I appreciate cold water diving environments because they're super challenging. just, there's not even a word for it for the amount of weight and gear and every diver is, probably 70 to 80 pounds worth of gear depending on what they have going on. The cool stuff that you can see in the Pacific Northwest that you can't see anyplace else, wolf eels and giant Pacific octopus and just Plumose of Anemones and those things that they don't have in warm water locations, I super appreciate them and that's my favorite about cold water diving. Then warm water diving, there are cool eels everywhere and sharks and octopus, and all these super colorful fish and the reefs are beautiful. In the Pacific Northwest, we don't have reefs, just have rocks. sandy bottom and eel grass. Blue water is just like in the movies, you know, and I appreciate it for that. And then public safety diving. I appreciate it and I like it because it's very challenging. We are tasked with recovering something and you have to have your head screwed on right for that. So I like that aspect of it that you are being tasked to go do something that not a lot of people can do just because it's uncomfortable. So I like them all.

Joel Chernick (06:55)
So now that you've told us a little bit about yourself and how you got into diving and why you started diving and the types of diving you do. What's this podcast going to be about? What can people expect to hear?

Chastity Stern (07:08)
I hope that each topic can be specific to things like what gear to buy, how to set up your gear so that it will serve you, for whatever environment that you're diving in, because every environment is different and your gear setup has to be different for

that particular environment. I want to talk about travel. We just went on a live aboard. How do you prepare for a live aboard and what do you pack for a live aboard? And what kind of gear do you take for a live aboard and what to expect? I want to cover topics that I know about. I'm not going to cover topics that I don't know anything about for sure,

I don't feel that's where this will be best served by me trying to talk about stuff that I don't know about. I can definitely do the research, which I will, but the topics I want to cover are things that I like about Scuba. But most importantly, the reason I named this podcast Just Go Diving is because there's a lot to be learned in Scuba and you just can't do it by just going diving.

You have to have people who are invested in you and who want to see you succeed and that's what I want for all divers. I think that that's something that I'm always going to touch on in my podcast episodes is how can you take this knowledge and be a successful diver? Because you just can't just go diving. You have to have people to first and foremost go diving with who you trust to go diving with, so that's what I think that my topics are always gonna focus on like, yep, you can just go diving, but are you going to be better after you do it? We're gonna cover a lot of topics, but not ones that I don't know anything about,because I don't think that would be very helpful to anyone.

Joel Chernick (08:54)
You want to share some tips and tricks and some of your hard earned lessons with some other new divers. Hopefully, hopefully save them some of the trouble.

Chastity Stern (09:00)
Yes.

painful realization that there is no perfect diver. We're always growing and learning and doing, to be better. I have a saying, as long as you're 1 % better on every dive, that's improvement. I know a lot of really smart scuba people, but I know that I can't possibly ever learn all there is to know about scuba.
I will run out of time. as long as I'm 1 % better on every dive, that's what I'm going to pass on.

Joel Chernick (09:34)
I know you're going to have a lot of fascinating topics to cover and I can't wait to hear.

Chastity Stern (09:39)
Thanks Joel.

Joel Chernick (09:40)
Thank you.

Chastity Stern (09:43)
And now for the legal stuff. The Just Go Diving podcast is intended for entertainment purposes only. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are not a substitute for professional scuba instruction. All scuba diving training and activities should be performed exclusively by certified scuba divers and strictly within the scope of their training and certification. Neither the host nor the guests assume any liability for injuries, damages, or other consequences arising from the use of any information provided in this podcast.