In the Spotlight | Southmont divemaster has made more than 500 dives, cleans PPG Aquarium | News

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – Marla Walther is at household in the drinking water.

The Southmont resident is a certified divemaster with a lot more than 500 dives to her credit score from destinations all over the planet.

“I’ve been diving for more than 40 years, and the journey of it, checking out underwater and currently being in an ecosystem that you’re not meant to be in is remarkable,” Walther reported. “The underwater atmosphere is pretty intriguing.”

Her proclivity for diving commenced in the ’80s when she took a school program while stationed in Wyoming with the U.S. Air Force.

“I necessary a PE credit and they ended up offering scuba diving, and I imagined it sounded intriguing,” Walther claimed. “I went and took the course and liked it, and I have been diving at any time considering that.”

Acquiring certification starts in the classroom with mastering the dynamics of scuba diving and its hazards.

“You originally get in the h2o in a pool and do a number of pool sessions to learns capabilities, what to count on underwater and how to respond below the h2o with the equipment,” Walther explained. “Once you have long gone by way of the collection of lessons and lessons you then do open up water dives.”

She explained at the time you are accredited there’s no necessity to recertify.

“There are a great deal of types of certifications, but standard open up water certification is all you have to have, until you want to go do one thing more adventurous,” Walther stated. “I’m a divemaster, so which is a certification just down below an instructor. It’s a expert certification that I obtained around some time.”

Her diving resume incorporates many excursions all-around the world from the Fantastic Barrier Reef in Australia to the Purple Sea, the Caribbean, Aruba, Honduras, Spain, Africa and Cuba.

“I just came back from Fiji a few months back and that was specially to go diving,” Walther mentioned. “I want to do more diving at destinations in the Indo-Pacific because there is some definitely great diving there. The upcoming vacation is almost certainly going to be to the Galapagos Islands.”

She claimed marine wildlife differs from location to area and just about every place has its have distinctive properties.

“I seriously relished diving in the Red Sea and section of that was I bought to dive with my youngsters,” Walther explained. “The Good Barrier Reef was interesting, and we had been on a stay-aboard and I loved that experience. Fiji was truly awesome since there were being so a lot of fish and the reefs had been seriously great. And when we have been in Cuba, we were the only persons diving there.”

She stated she’s experienced some unforgettable encounters although diving, but viewing cephalopods, specially an octopus, is a spotlight.

“They are wicked good and the most clever species of invertebrates in the ocean,” Walther explained. “On the unusual situations when I’ve fulfilled an octopus in the wild, that has been the most enjoyable expertise of all.”

She stated, as a diver, you are in a position of duty as an advocate for the ocean and preserving the natural environment for the generations to occur and the long run of the planet.

“The well being of the oceans performs an integral section in the wellness of the entire world, from sources of sustainable food to the air that we breath,” Walther reported. “As a diver, you have a front-row seat in witnessing the human impact on that ecosystem and operating together to come across ways to educate and protect it from further hurt.”

She extra that it’s vital to be a section of the option.

“No diver should really be a passive underwater bystander,” Walther claimed.

Together with currently being a member of PADI (Specialist Association of Diving Instructors) and DAN (Divers Inform Community), she belongs to REEF (Reef Environmental Education and learning Foundation) whose major aim is preservation and accountability, alongside with conducting fish surveys that doc the population of fish species all-around the earth.

“Aside from the real researchers, the majority of customers are citizen experts, folks with a acceptable working knowledge of fish species identification who acquire voluntary fish surveys when they are diving recreationally and post them to the databases,” Walther mentioned. “I feel it’s human intuition to attempt to defend what you love.”

In addition, Walther volunteers weekly by cleaning tanks at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium.

“I figured out about the method 12 a long time ago and have been carrying out that ever considering that,” she stated.

Walther receives into the 100,000-gallon Big Ocean saltwater tank as nicely as the aquarium’s smaller sized clean and saltwater tanks to complete maintenance get the job done.

“We get in there and clean up home windows, scrub corals and rocks and vacuum gravel,” she said. “It’s entertaining and you get to know the animals in the tanks. It’s something successful that I’m executing, and it retains me recent with my diving.”

Walther just lately did do the job to repair service tile to the pool at YWCA Increased Johnstown.

She claimed individuals interested in diving must go for it and commence exploring.

“There’s scuba instructors all more than the location and dive retailers in the location, and they all give dive lessons and agenda journeys for teams to go to distinct elements of the entire world,” Walther stated. “You don’t will need any actual distinctive qualifications to start out diving, just an fascination in experience.”