AQUATIC PASSION
Diver loved to teach
David Cluett was a scuba diving enthusiast and instructor, plunging into deep waters and swimming alongside sharks and eels off the coasts of Vancouver Island, Cancun and Cozumel, Mexico.
Cluett completed 601 dives as an instructor and part owner at Northwest Scuba in Edmonton, starting in 1983. His passion for diving and underwater photography was contagious.
As an instructor, he was primarily concerned with safety and protocol, but found a way to connect with his students with his humour.
He left Northwest Scuba in the late 1980s to pursue a career with Strathcona County.
“He was a great guy,” said Ed Lip, a scuba instructor at Ocean Sports and one-time apprentice of Cluett’s at Northwest Scuba. “He had little jokes that he would tell along the way while we were teaching. And that is kind of the way I teach now.
“He’d tell the students that you have to be alert and then he’d say, ‘Because the world is short of lerts.’”
Cluett, a member of the Canadian military from 1966 to 1978, began diving while on a winter vacation to Maui with his wife, Bonnie, in 1983. A diving course was being held in a nearby pool. He was intrigued and joined the group the next day, instantly falling in love and returning home to become certified for open-water dives.
Bonnie also took up the sport. “We both absolutely loved it.”
Scuba diving became an annual activity that husband and wife could enjoy together, since the couple had different interests in other areas of sport.
“He used to do downhill skiing and I did cross-country,” Bonnie said. “Scuba is what started us going away every year on underwater type vacations.”
The Cluetts travelled the world, diving more than 20 times in the course of a two-week vacation.
“We used the term ‘dive our faces off,’” Bonnie said. “Once you take up scuba diving and you love it, you just want to be in the water. We would do, sometimes, four dives a day.”
“He taught me underwater photography. That was one of his specialties that he was certified to teach.
“When he was taking out students one-on-one and he saw the brilliance in their eyes when they saw fish and they realized that they were actually scuba diving, that kind of reality on their face, he found to be the best feeling,”
“Divers are a different breed,” said Ken Holliday, Cluett’s student in 1987 and the owner of Northwest Scuba the past 10 years. “Once you start diving and you really enjoy it, you do a 20-minute dive and you talk about it forever. It’s some of the things that you’ll see under there that most people never see or never dream of seeing.”
Ed Lip said he learned the essentials of being a scuba diving instructor from Cluett. One of his favourite destinations was Hornby Island, B.C., and Lip accompanied him on a trip to the island where they got the rare opportunity to snap photos of sixgill sharks.
Cluett continued to dive for more than a decade after his wife stopped and a year after he was diagnosed with cancer. He died in December after a two-year battle with the disease. He was 68.
Once you take up scuba diving and you love it, you just want to be in the water. We would do, sometimes, four dives a day.