Welcome to Third Coast Scubiens

Welcome to Third Coast Scubiens.

If you're wondering what exactly a Scubien is, or why a group of divers from Michigan would call themselves part of the Third Coast, there's a story behind both.

Why the Third Coast?

When most people think about diving in the United States, their minds go first to Florida, California, the Caribbean, or somewhere else with palm trees and water considerably warmer than ours.

We understand.

But those of us who live and dive in Michigan know there's another coast.

Surrounded by the Great Lakes, Michigan has thousands of miles of shoreline and access to some extraordinary diving. Beneath those lakes are remarkably preserved shipwrecks, dramatic underwater structures, a lot of history, and some genuinely challenging diving environments.

The Great Lakes are our Third Coast.

They're where many of us learned to dive, where we continue to train, and where some of our favorite adventures begin.

So What's a Scubien?

That part started with a joke.

We made a T-shirt based on the classic illustration of human evolution, except our evolutionary sequence didn't end with modern Homo sapiens.

Ours kept going.

Eventually the human picked up scuba gear, put on fins, and disappeared underwater.

The final evolutionary stage?

Homo scubiens.

It made us laugh, but there was also something strangely accurate about it. Anyone who has spent enough time around divers knows the transformation.

• At some point you stop looking at a lake and simply seeing water. You start wondering what's underneath it.

• Vacations start getting evaluated by their diving opportunities.

• Your garage slowly fills with equipment.

• You discover that, apparently, you do need another regulator.

• And a surprisingly large share of your conversations begin with, "So, I was thinking about this dive..."

Congratulations. Evolution has occurred.

You're becoming a Scubien.

What We're Building

Third Coast Scubiens grew out of our love of diving, but we want it to become more than a collection of dive photos and stories. We want to build a community and a resource for divers.

That includes people preparing for their first open water dives, recreational divers looking for their next adventure, Great Lakes wreck divers, technical divers, rebreather divers, and those of us who simply enjoy spending an unreasonable amount of time talking about scuba equipment.

Here's what you'll find here:

• Dives and adventures, especially around Michigan and the Great Lakes, but also wherever diving takes us.

• Equipment: what we use, what we've learned, how different configurations work, and gear that may help solve a particular problem. Because we have relationships with several diving equipment manufacturers, we can also help divers get gear when it makes sense.

• Education and dive planning. Not as a replacement for formal instruction, but as an extension of it. There are countless things we wish we'd understood better when we first learned to dive, and there are still things we're learning today.

And we'll talk about why.

Why does buoyancy get more difficult at certain points in a dive? Why does breathing get harder as we descend? Why does equipment configuration matter? Why do experienced divers sometimes make very different choices about gas, exposure protection, weighting, redundancy, or dive planning?

Knowing the rule is useful. Understanding the reason behind it makes us better divers.

We Don't Pretend to Know Everything

That's important.

Diving has taught us that the more you learn, the more you realize how much there still is to learn.

Some of what you'll find here comes from formal training. Some comes from scientific research and established diving physiology. Some comes from instructors and other experienced divers. And some comes from doing dives ourselves, discovering what worked (and occasionally what definitely did not), and talking about it afterward.

We'll try to make clear which is which. And we'll change our minds when better information comes along. That's part of becoming a better diver.

You Don't Have to Be a Technical Diver

Despite some of the equipment you may see around here, Third Coast Scubiens isn't just for technical divers. Far from it.

If you just earned your Open Water certification and are trying to figure out why everyone else's buoyancy seems easier than yours, you're welcome here.

If you've logged hundreds of dives but still learn something almost every time you get in the water, you're welcome here.

If you're fascinated by Great Lakes shipwrecks but haven't visited one yet, you're welcome here.

If you're curious about technical diving, mixed gases, or rebreathers and simply want to understand what those divers are doing, and why, we'll talk about that too.

And if you look at practically any body of water and immediately wonder what's underneath it... well, you're probably already one of us.

Join the Crew

Diving is better when it's shared.

Some of our best memories aren't just the wrecks we've explored or the things we've seen underwater. They're the conversations while loading gear, the planning before a dive, the stories afterward, the lessons learned when something didn't go according to plan, and the friendships built along the way.

That's what we hope Third Coast Scubiens becomes.

Gear. Knowledge. Adventure. Camaraderie.

A community of people who love being underwater and want to keep learning how to do it better. Whether your next dive is your tenth or your thousandth, there's always something else to discover.

Welcome to Third Coast Scubiens.

Apparently, evolution isn't finished yet.

Dive smart. Get back. Look good.