Life Under the Sea
Once a vacation hobby, scuba diving is now 23-year-old Danica Shepherd’s life, and she works hard to teach others the sport that gave her purpose.
Danica Shepherd sits on the boat deck in the sweltering heat of Thailand. The boat rocks on crystal blue waters just off of Phuket Island, right above the Shark Point dive site. At age 15, this will be her first dive to become a certified diver. Carefully positioning her fingers to hold both her mask and breathing apparatus in place, she steps off the back of the boat and slides under the warm water into a whole new world. “I was so overwhelmed by the amount of life I could not even believe what I was seeing. It’s honest to God the closest thing to being in space,” she recollects. From anemones to clownfish to cuttlefish, even today, she remembers it as a uniquely different experience.
In the eight years that have passed since her certification, Shepherd has advanced her skills and is now a certified Divemaster. With this next level, she can both lead divers on their own explorations and teach others so they can get certified as well. While the dive community is predominantly male, Shepherd has built her life around the sport and passing it on to others. She has spent the past two years teaching scuba not only at the University of Oregon but throughout the Eugene community with Eugene Skin Divers Supply and the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI).
Her initial interest in scuba diving began at a young age. While on a family vacation, her father and brother became certified divers. She then became certified herself in 2011. Sheppard’s dive career began as a hobby. She used her diving skills a little in college for her thesis project on cave salamanders. The skill came in handy to conduct her necessary research assignments. According to her, it was a “highlight of college.” However, it was not until she moved to Mexico in 2017 that diving became a clear career path.
Shepherd lived in Mexico for six months doing a scuba diving internship. The main purpose was to get her dive numbers up and become a Divemaster. She hoped to be able to teach others to dive and that next level of certification could do just that. When she left for Mexico, she had about 20 dives under her belt, but by the end, she had over 200. For her, “becoming an instructor was definitely the biggest kick in the butt I’ve had.” Once back in Eugene, she took on teaching full-time.
At one point, she also hoped to use scuba to work in conservation and habitat restoration. Sheppard wanted to build on the work she had done during her thesis in other ways. Now, she says teaching has been the most rewarding result of her certification. Shepherd enjoys helping students at U of O learn to scuba to complete their underwater research, just as she did. She described learning to dive as “fighting a fight or flight response for a long time.” Watching her students push past that and enjoy diving is reward enough. Even those around her note her impact on the students. Troy Knabe, a scuba instructor at U of O, says he loves that “her enthusiasm for the sport is contagious to the students that she works with.”
Scuba diving has become her life. As an instructor throughout Eugene, she has noticed more women going through the U of O program than other programs. She hopes this trend will continue and spread. Imparting her knowledge and inspiring other women to dive is a big part of why she teaches. For her, “[scuba] pretty much taught me what I actually want out of my life and what I enjoy doing and lets me do that every day. It really shaped a lot of my life.” Shepherd wants to do the same for her students.
Information sourced from in-person interviews with Danica Shepherd.
