Follow the Water

Throughout my life I have had many forks in the road, and I often have a difficult time making the decision on which one to take. I overthink the options to the point of paralysis by over analysis, and have trouble moving in one direction or another.

As cheesy as it sounds...and my last name is after all Cheezem so it's in my nature and I'm not sorry...the one thing that comes through every time, the one signpost I know I can follow, is the ocean.

I know, I know....but come on.  It's pretty damn magical.

I took it for granted when I grew up in Florida, but the last two years of high school that I spent in St. Louis...I missed the damn thing.  And when I didn't know what the hell I wanted to do with my life, except for the fact that I didn't want to be in an office, and my wrestling partners Mitch and Andy Stock were going to West Point...I thought hey, that sounds like a great idea!  What an adventure!  But instead of living in upstate New York and getting stationed in the middle of nowhere, how about I go to Annapolis and get stationed in San Diego or Hawaii?  

So that's what I did

At first I wasn't too stoked on the whole thing...

While I was in college I couldn't decide which major to pick.  I started with Political Science (I wanted to make a difference in the world and all that), but then shifted to History because if I ever got deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan I wanted to know the history and culture of the people I was around.  That lasted one semester, when I had to take a class after lunch called Historiography, which was the history of history and we talked about historians...and I just couldn't do it.

That winter break I went back home to St. Pete, and I remember so vividly being out on the boat.....and it hit me so powerfully....that this is what I want to do with my life.  I want to be on the water.  I don't know how or where, but that's what I want.

So I did. I studied Oceanography, drove ships for 4 years in the Navy and then got into hard hat diving for 3 years after that (more about that later!), and got back out to the west coast as quickly as I could. I'm not sure exactly what the next chapter is going to look like, or even this summer really and that scares the hell out of me, but so far I haven't gone wrong with this philosophy and I believe it will continue to pan out! Anybody else in the same boat!?

How it all started

DiveViz started back in 2012 when I was stationed out here in San Diego.  I lived in Ocean Beach and wanted to do some spearfishing, so after a lot of research, getting a new wetsuit, and figuring out a general idea of where to go, I decided to head up to La Jolla.  After all the excitement and effort of loading up my gear, driving up there, getting dressed out, and getting into the water...I got in and could barely see my hand in front of my face.  I kicked around for a while hoping that eventually it would clear up, but it didn't, so I got out.  This happened a couple times, both in La Jolla and Point Loma, and it didn't take long for me to hang up the fins in exchange for a surfboard.  Or rather....surfboards

As I got into surfing I saw how surf forecasting apps had become completely essential for surfers.  I'm still addicted to it today!  And then I thought...what if there was a forecasting service for divers?  What if we could predict the visibility?

I had a couple months off of work so I decided to experiment.  Every day I would record the buoy data and the weather data, make my prediction of what the visibility would be as a result of that, and then walk down the OB pier and drop a secchi disk in the water to get my actual measurement.  Once I started to get a general idea of the conditions, I built my first website and started posting reports.   

When you can no longer see the secchi disk, you have the measure of visibility.

Eventually I deployed and the ships internet didn't work with the site, and then I got stationed in Virginia, so I dropped the idea.  But I couldn't completely let it go.  It nagged me that I had gotten an idea and only gone so far with it.  I also had found a surprising discovery in the process of building DiveViz, and that was my fascination with entrepreneurship.  I felt completely lit up and alive when I was trying to create a product and partner with other people in the area, and that led me to pursue my MBA once I got out of the Navy.

DiveViz has come a long way from scribbling down wave heights in a composition notebook, but we also have a long way to go.  This project has challenged me on so many levels but I honestly could not be more proud of where it has gotten to, or more excited about where it's going!  If you have ideas or comments about how DiveViz can help people in San Diego get in the water more often, please let us know.  That's what we're here to do!