Bella Macleod
Features Editor
Costa Psychology and World History teacher Ian Uhalt takes his teaching skills underwater.
Uhalt is a Master Scuba Diver Trainer (MSDT) for Pacific Wilderness in San Pedro. Uhalt initially became a scuba instructor in 2012 after being an advanced scuba student for approximately four years, and he became scuba certified in 2008.
“[After becoming certified], I think I did 60 to 70 dives that first year,” Uhalt said. “I then got involved with Pacific Wilderness by doing advanced classes then moving on up through, and eventually challenging myself more.”
On his way to becoming a MSDT, Uhalt had to master at least five specialities of scuba diving skills including open water, advanced open water, rescue, and dive master. After completing those skills, Uhalt became an instructor and was able to train beginner scuba divers.
“In the beginning, everything is different you feel out of place and even breathing is uncomfortable and sometimes that’s overwhelming for people,” Uhalt said. “Once you get past that and dive a lot, you get to these moments where you’re completely suspended, weightless and you get to observe the natural wonder which is our local oceans.”
Currently, Uhalt can do approximately eight or nine specialities such as underwater navigation, deep diving, recreation diving, night dives and underwater photography. In addition to his scuba diving training, Uhalt does underwater photography. It gives him the opportunity to communicate with others who aren’t scuba divers about the experiences he goes through underwater, Uhalt said.
“The challenge of manipulating your photos to capture that experience can be hard but interesting since you are going in with the objective of illuminating an aspect of that dive location to inspire people to want to go there,” Uhalt said.
Uhalt teaches open water classes on weekends in which he goes over safety and emergency procedures and how to avoid hazards.
“Ultimately I wouldn’t say the pay is amazing, I think the really cool part about it is getting other people the opportunity to have the really cool experiences that I’ve had,” Uhalt said. “It’s an amazing opportunity that not everybody has.”
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