Jewels Diver is a SCUBA/Snorkel/Swim/Water Fitness Instructor living in Cozumel, Mexico. She has been in the aquatics industry for 21 years, and an active member of the diving community for 14 years. Jewels is a former member of the US Freediving Team, and competed at the Freediving World Championships in 2008 where the US Women's team won the silver medal. Freediving is actually an advanced form of snorkeling, also known as "breath-hold" diving. In competition, athletes go well beyond 100 feet on a single breath of air, sometimes even without fins! In fact, among her accomplishments at various competitions around the world, Jewels also held the US Record for a freedive without fins to 145 feet (44m). She has recently announced the official launch of her Aquatic Business, TheGroovyMermaid, and aspires to introduce the ocean to as many people as she can thru snorkeling, freediving, and SCUBA diving. While overseeing operations for her business, she is also training and looking forward to a successful 2011 Freediving Season.
One drop in a very BIG ocean
"...Along with the rest of my brothers and sisters, when I was 2 I learned to swim in Mr. Boone's backyard pool. Since I grew up in Colorado, we always swam at the pool. We were those kids who waited out the thunderstorm, who were the first ones in after adult swim, and who stayed until the lifeguard said, "Pool's closed." Eventually, those became my words as I took my first job at age 16 lifeguarding and teaching swim lessons. It was no coincidence that it happened to be at the pool where one of my sisters was doing the same. Eventually she and I managed a small community pool close to where we grew up, and together we created a water safe place in the neighborhood thru swim lessons and lifeguarding.
It did not take long for me to figure out; TheGroovyMermaid within was on the swim; and the water was my way to go not only as recreation and sport, but for my profession as well. I wasn't introduced to the ocean until 1997 when I met the guys at a-1 Scuba (Englewood, CO) and learned to SCUBA dive. Since then, I have been on a quest to swim and dive in the most warm and clear oceans the planet has to offer. In Kona, Hawaii 2006, I learned how to freedive with the World Champions of Performance Freediving. I have gone on to have a successful competitive freediving career, and have had awesome experiences freediving for recreation.
I am so grateful for all the wonderful and rewarding encounters I have had 
working in the aquatics industry. From lifeguarding and teaching swim lessons to becoming a certified SCUBA/snorkel instructor, I have also worked as a Co-pilot in a passenger submarine exploring the Mexican Caribbean, and as an Aquatics Director at a swim school in the desert. I am thrilled to have been part of the original Education Department at the Denver Aquarium when it opened in 1999 (formerly known as Ocean Journey), and feel very fortunate to have always had what I do for a living so closely intertwined with what I love to do and am passionate about. Essentially, getting to the water has been my way of life. TheGroovyMermaid is who I Am..."
...Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away...
