BEMIDJI BONDS: Sport brings people together -- under water

A father, his daughter and two strangers came together on this Saturday morning at Bad Medicine Lake with a common goal - achieve certified scuba diver status.
And although the four shared that common goal  - certified through Bemidji’s Dive Depot - they plan to use their certificates in different ways.
Emily Gisi said she and her father, Phil, decided to go through scuba school so they could dive with Emily’s uncle, who lives in Florida.
Emily also plans to study abroad next year in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean Sea.
“We’ve had a fun time, we really have,” Phil Gisi said. “She’s doing better than me.”
Coming from Grand Forks, N.D., Emily said she found the Dive Depot online.
Although Joe Weems and Eric Olson didn’t know each other prior to their open water dive, they partnered together, each helping the other get into and out of their scuba gear and check equipment before and after the dives.
Weems, a sheriff’s deputy for Clearwater County, said the sheriff’s department has been talking about adding a dive team to their department.
“(Diving is) something I’ve always thought about doing, I just never had the time to do it,” Weems said. Once certified, he will be ahead of the game in joining the sheriff department’s dive team.
Olson, a 2008 International Falls high school graduate, said he had a job in Alaska where preferential status was given to scuba certified applicants, so he decided it was something he is interested in.
With a degree from the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point in fisheries and water resources, Olson said scuba certification would be a fitting thing for him to have. However, he plans to scuba dive mainly in a vacation setting, not so much a work setting.
The four scuba students went through dives one and two Saturday, with three and four planned for Sunday.
Instructor Corry Hill said the fourth dive is the students’ dive, where they plan and execute a dive on their own, without direction.