The Collegian

Issue date: 10/8/09 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Courtesy of Maddie Merritt Junior Maddie Merritt shows off her scuba skills in a swimming pool. Merritt earned her certification in 2003 at the age of 14.

When she was 9 years old, Hillsdale College junior Maddie Merritt was an expert at identifying fish.

The girl dreamed of becoming a marine biologist and exploring ocean depths, and her mother, Cindy, indulged her aspirations.

After seeing an advertisement for a fish identification class, Cindy convinced a dive shop in Royal Oak, Mich., Rec Diving/Blue Chip Travel, to admit her child. The rest of the class contained adults enriching their scuba diving certification processes.

"She took a fish ID class and blew everyone away, out of a class of grown-ups," said Diane Richards, the co-owner of Rec Diving. "I had my eye on her from then on."

Richards and her husband Jim remembered Merritt a few years later when Scuba Schools International initiated a pilot program designed for teaching 8 to 12 year-olds the basics of scuba diving.

Cindy said ever since the class, she trusted Diane and Jim to help Maddie start her scuba training.

The program, Scuba Rangers, doesn't issue certifications. Instead, children learn technical skills such as how to breathe through a regulator underwater, how to properly descend and ascend through water and general water safety.

"She loved it," Cindy said. "She took to it very quickly and did really well."

In 2003, at the age of 14, Maddie became fully certified after successfully completing her first - and last - open water dive.

It took place in an old, private quarry filled in with water and sunken debris. Among the underwater wreckage bubbling at the bottom are an airplane, a school bus and a skeleton the owner frequently moves around for his guests' enjoyment.

Maddie said there is also an underwater forest in the shallow end of the submerged quarry, one which wasn't cut down before they flooded the lot.

"It's not natural - the water is comforting but it's hard to breathe in five feet of water at first," said Maddie, referring to her early days using a regulator.

Cindy said Maddie has always loved water.
She said proper respect for the water's dangers was a valuable lesson her daughter learned growing up taking scuba lessons.
Despite her keen interest in scuba diving, Maddie won't be frequenting the depths of Lake Baw Beese.

She doesn't like the cold water and drab wildlife filling many of Michigan's inland lakes.

"She prefers the colorful clown fish and lion fish in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean to the trout of the Great Lakes," Cindy said. "Maddie has always expressed a keen interest in the aquatic life and warm water of the ocean."

Money is a constraint in pursuing her scuba diving aspirations, Maddie says, but she hopes in the future she'll have the financial flexibility to dive in the warm waters she longs for.

"You're experiencing a totally different world that human beings don't usually get to experience," Maddie said. "It can be scary at first because it is so unnatural, but once you start seeing stuff that isn't on the National Geographic Channel, you forget about the danger and trouble, and it becomes one of the most wonderful experiences of your life."

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