That’s right! Cold Water Diver is back! Back what happened? Why’d it happen? What’s the plan now? Let’s dive in!

The Past

To be honest, Cold Water Diver was the result of passion and lack of knowledge. Not about diving, but about how to run a blog, how to interact with social media, and how to develop a side hustle. The fact that I was posting regularly for almost five years is nothing short of amazing given how off the cuff everything was. The truth is that I was a 30 something veteran with lots of army experiences and not a lot of real world experiences. I was good at sounding confident, even to myself, and didn’t make a lot of good calls. You know when someone knows all the parts that something is supposed to have, and an idea of what the finished product looks like, but doesn’t have the instructions or assembly skills? That was me.

I knew that you needed a website/blog, that merch was a thing, and that social media was exploding. I got some advice from people who were experts at the time on social media and blogging, and didn’t realize their expertise for staffed organizations wouldn’t translate well to a one person operation. And I proceeded to dig a mental health and fiscal hole. I moves the site host because I was convinced it was a good call (it wasn’t), I advertised to the wrong places because it was cheaper (hamstringing my audience growth), and never came to grips with merch. By the time the posts here were coming to an end, I’d burned myself out. I was combing scuba news sites for post material like it was a full time job, and while I still loved diving, I was tired to trying to talk about it.

To be honest, the only good decision I made about this site and the Cold Water Diver brand was the dive logbook I designed. It sold in modest numbers and was a nice handout at dive events. I still have some around too! But yeah, the burnout was real. The pressures of writing Anthropology papers and doing Geography labs was a welcome distraction when they came.

The Present

Things have changed. In the space of time since the original Cold Water Diver wound down, I’ve launched a new career as a freelance writer for tabletop games, including some work for the very diving and conservation oriented Blue Planet: Recontact. I’ve met an amazing lady, we have an equally amazing kid, and I’ve moved from the Okanagan to the Metro Vancouver area. That last bit is part of why Cold Water Diver is back. There were a lot of scuba divers in the interior, but the dive culture there is very trip oriented, and I was never in a financial place for that. Down here though? There’s a lot of great day trip diving where I can dive and be home for dinner with no worries. Except for one challenge. I got heavy and out of shape. Turns out spending the better part of five years riding a desk doing GIS stuff and not making exercise a priority has some consequences.

The Plan

So, my plan is pretty straight forward. I’m getting back in shape. Why? Because it’s good for my health and gets me back in the water. I know there’s a stereotype of older, overweight men as divers (especially at resorts), but there’s some real potential risks with diving when you’re overweight. Specifically, there’s a possibility that it can make you more prone to DCI. And I have little interest in becoming a decompression casualty. Plus fitness is good for all the things you need to do before, on, and after a dive.

So the plan is that Cold Water Diver is going to be a bit of a fitness journey blog for a while. There’ll be some diving safety and other types of articles too, but the main goal now is to get back into shape to fit my wetsuit. I’ve also learned about pacing, and there’s going to be a more gentle pace of posts here and on social media. Getting back into things isn’t an instant process, so I’m easing into the waters so to speak.

So… Yeah! Cold Water Diver is back and I’m excited!