 Hey, welcome to the Living Pittsburgh show where we look to uncover unique people places businesses in and around Pittsburgh and tonight We have our friends Jenny and Josh Dilliman from Scott scuba and they're a scuba store here in Pittsburgh I think that qualifies as unique and special since we're kind of landlocked Josh and Jenny All right before we get started what I want to do is have a little bit of fun and give back our community a bit Then let me have something up for us all right What we're gonna do is Do a little bit of living Pittsburgh giving back and Josh and Jenny you're on the hook for what we're gonna do So be ready. Let's go over. Let's go over the rules first First I did a little bit of digging and I saw that You guys already Partner with Wounded Warrior Project. So I thought this would be a really good one for us to all to Consider giving a gift to you this this evening. So let's talk about the rules We're gonna show you five pictures. These are areas in and around Pittsburgh Your job is to correctly guess a location for every location that you guess correctly We will donate on your behalf $20 to the Wounded Warrior Project Are you guys ready? Yes Good job, Josh. Okay I'll donate $20 Say that again for every picture. We guess wrong will donate $20. Oh All right, here we go I'm gonna I don't know botanical garden of some sort Yeah, we'll take that Botanical garden. We'll take that All right, now yeah now unfortunately that was the easy one I thought you guys would have no All right, you're two for two we've got 40 bucks for the Wounded Warrior Project Where is this in Pittsburgh the point I Will take point state park Didn't know how specific you needed. Well, yeah, I would like the GPS coordinates. I'll get those That's that place Location to take your family it is well worth a trip I have no idea. Yeah, we don't know that's cool though. Do you want to dial a friend? Is there anyone online that that wants to leave a comment? Oh, look at this. We've got we've got just been saying Go Josh and Jenny come on You're out there. Do you know where this is we'll donate we'll donate on your behalf if you know where it's at I'll give you five seconds She may not be right next to it. Okay, so this Jenny and Josh you guys are committed into $20 since I got it wrong I See here it is Randy land. I've heard okay. No idea. I was gonna phone Michelle Yeah, I love it. Okay last one and this is by far the hardest one That is cool. I don't know. I know some bike shops in Pittsburgh before all my mom. I don't know No idea This is this is called bicycle heaven. It's on the North Shore Okay, and it is a really really great shop. It's worthwhile going to it's actually a free museum It's one of the largest in the world for bicycles. They have really really Just a great selection that you can go through and look at there's two floors Again, it's free and take your family. It's it's worth it. It's on the North Shore right behind the casinos All right, that's pretty cool. Yeah, so let me Go back here. So Why don't we tell the people that are watching a little bit about who you guys are and how you came to own? You know a scuba shop in Pittsburgh Well, we we're both grew up in the Pittsburgh area a little bit further north Like a summery slippery rock area, but came to Pittsburgh all time We always wanted to dive. I always wanted to be underwater. I wanted to be exploring and doing something different and He didn't but I drank him along to our first dive class and He fell in love with it super quick and we started exploring all the local Dive sites and we started traveling and it just grew into this passion that we knew we wanted to make another rest of our lives so we The old owner of the shop we am now was trying to retire and I worked for him for a while and it just one thing led to another we just Wanted to do it for I would just what we want to do It was good local place The cool thing is it was actually the shop we got certified at so it's kind of like full circle now It's where we started and then wound up buying the place so Yeah, I love that story Josh I I think I understand you also Have been a farrier for many years. So how did you fare you're into scuba diving? Did Jenny drag you or did you you come willingly? well, I Unlike going to the first dive class. I willingly kind of started to taper off out of the the farrier business into the full time being at the dive shop and doing my part there equipment maintenance and teaching classes and things like that, but yeah, I've been a farrier for 11 years But scuba diving is a lot easier on my back. So yeah, I can imagine All right, one of the things that I really I Find interesting right you are scuba shop in Pittsburgh and the question I always come up with is Why why are people scuba diving here in Pittsburgh? Are they diving in the river? What's going on so that's the first question everybody who walks in my shop where do you dive the river? We know you don't want to dive in the river unless you're looking for something. It's murky It's kind of squishy bottom. Nobody wants to be there But there are amazing lakes and quarries around I mean we're two hours from Lake Erie Which has some of the world's best shipwrecks in it and then locally there's like I said, there's old stone quarries That a lot of we put attractions in and on top of that the fish life And it's just so much fun to explore and see part of nature Even locally that that you didn't know existed, you know I grew up swimming in a pond and I always swim around looking at the surface and now You know, we can see it around here and you dive locally I mean, there's not going to be the sea turtles and the dolphins and the whales, but Diving is just It's a feeling and it's a place to be not necessarily things to see so you can get that experience around here Just as much as you could in the Caribbean. I Agree, Michelle. Why don't you tell folks how we got involved with Jenny and Josh how we discovered even that there was a shop there Well our young daughter who is nine con Jenny and Josh into using some of their equipment after one of their classes And she didn't suck me into getting my certification Which was one of the funnest things that I've ever done with my kids is is take that class Which she just ran the show the whole time floating around with you It's usually the youngest. I think that ever that had ever been certified at that place, but we were hooked Remember coming up every day after swim class and asking us about what it was like and how she could do it We little girl coming to ask questions We made her say love for it too, so she had it I remember that One of the things that we wanted to pay half for now is one of these trips that you guys offer I think they're pretty amazing first off you offer something that's really affordable You're basically becoming people's travel agents planning the entire thing top to bottom You're you're picking out hotels airlines Food the boats that you're going on where you're gonna dive It's it is truly an all-inclusive experience and what I want to do is I want to play a video It's not one of your videos if folks online haven't looked up Scott scuba on YouTube it's well worth it They have a couple of really great videos of dives that they made locally here in some of the lakes and you can see some They're planes but the one I want to show is a trip that you're taking to Africa It's actually one that Michelle really really wants to go on we haven't made that commitment yet, but While we're watching this video. Can you just show us tell us a little bit about? You know about this dive in Africa So it's it's actually happening next year now due to COVID restrictions with South Africa It's a happening in a year And it's it's called the sardine run So it's actually a global phenomenon for four weeks the bait balls form and everything that eats fish like pods of Hundreds of dolphins and whales and sharks they come and they eat the bait balls and so we go out and these little dingy's fully dressed And all day we just we search for these bait balls and when we find them We throw ourselves into the water and just are part of the action. It's you're better Yes And if you see those things diving and those are actually um fish eating birds So you'll be 30 feet underwater and birds will be swimming by you That's one of the ways they they find the bait balls is they actually they watch the birds as you're cruising around the boat And wherever these flocks of birds are diving down into the water to sweep up the little sardines That's where the cool stuff's hanging out And that's going to be me like I have a camera right that looks just like that Oh, yeah. Oh, no way and you have your camera with you. Let's like just look at that Yeah, that's gonna be a little bit about that camera So, um, this is my baby. So it actually holds your regular dslr So whatever lens and body I have is specific to this housing Um, so this is what I use on land and it cannot handle water So I you have to have a special housing made by this is my egg light As different dome ports that you can put on and because we're underwater you have to have bright lights um to Bring the color back in so there's a whole setup For underwater pictures when this thing's fully set up and ready to go it weighs probably 20 pounds I hate walking to and from the boat with it But yeah, 20 pounds is quite heavy. I actually want to share some of the pictures that um that you've taken I think with that camera correct me if i'm wrong. Let me pull one up Yep I I actually can't believe this is a real picture. It kind of looks photoshopped to me It's I swear, it's not I barely tweak my I do just a little bit of tweaking with my pictures hardly anything the anemone that that fish is in It's actually in the philippines. Um It looks fake even when you're sitting there staring at it you you have to convince yourself You're not watching like just a cartoon because it doesn't look real Wow Tell me more about this guy was in causamel She was cruising along the reef and we were all watching her and Was actually drift dive so all the divers kind of got tired But I am persistent if nothing else and I followed her and she just nestled down and hung out there and just let me Take her glamour shots for like 10 minutes. It was great Now when I think about drift dives I think about some of those movies where some people are drift diving and then they don't get back on the boat That scares that scares me. Tell me tell me more about drift diving like how is it safe and all the rest? Well, we always check the currents before we get in make sure they're not too strong and divers should have an smb Which is a marker buoy So if you would get separated you just inflate that it shoots to the surface and the boat knows exactly where you're at Even if you're far away from them, how else good i'm talking you can talk some to you Well, and the great thing about drift diving and causamel is the currents go from south to north and because causamel is so close to Mainland of mexico, there's a channel that is i think it's 12 miles wide It's not very wide But that's why the currents pick up so much but because the currents shift south to north Even if you do get swept away and i'll pick them up by the boat you can wind up in cuba So you can just get off there Have you ever drifted away and gotten lost or no there There are there was actually a movie made about that called open water It is a stupid movie. It's not actual, but if it's the dive operation you're going with Make sure that they're a good operation and all of them have manifest lists with everybody's names Some of them have tags where it should have to like tag in tag out and you get on and off the boat But at a bare minimum anybody that should be running a dive operation will have A roster of everybody to make sure you're checked back in but because The most of the sites are drift dives the boats are not moored. So the boats are actually drifting along with So chances are whenever you do come up at the end of your dive You're probably not going to be more than maybe a hundred yards from the boat, which Isn't really that far All right But I I don't even know what this is I is this a real sea creature Yes, so it's kind of like both sometimes I love macro photography is my favorite. Um, and my Every time I have my macro lens is to come onto the boat and have people say I didn't even see that So this is actually a close-up of a jeweled lobster's face So the if you look towards where like the yellow and the blue is in the center. Those are actually his eyes There's two orbs So this is a type of lobster that is covered in these beautiful jewels it looks like um And I just I fell in love with the the colors and so I kind of wanted it to be a bit of an abstract Close-up. But yeah, that is the face of a of a jeweled lobster Love it Okay, next and last Tell me about this That is me dreaming of our africa trip. Um, I actually took this at the Pittsburgh zoo. So um, when covet was really strong and everything was shut down and Um, actually this might have been a little bit before covet. I was landlocked whatever the reason we weren't going on We weren't able to get on our trips. Um, and I was getting antsy to play with my camera So a friend and I went to the zoo and we spent the day just with the animals taking pictures and And having a lot of fun. So so even if you can't get to the wild places, you know, you can go and find them That is an elephant. Oh, yeah, it's an elephant. I sorry. I miss that You sure it's not an underwater creature? I mean, you maybe maybe give him a snorkel put it in their little noses So random fact, um moots Actually dives to eat grass Believe it or not supposedly they can dive like 15 feet I want you to get some shots of that Probably insane to see a moose if I saw a moose underwater. So I don't know if that's true. I've I've heard I've heard that they're the most dangerous animal in north america as well. It could be I want to see My statistic could be off, but yeah Well, we'll have to see a diamond moose sometime There are also fish that can live on land. Yeah, so many crazy things. Yeah, Jenny lives on land She's purr fish someday. I'm gonna grow gills someday Well, you know, I don't know. Is there anything else that you guys would like to talk about um tonight I just wanted to introduce pittsburgh to What I think is uh, one of the best, well, what do I know? I've only dove and you know been diving with you folks But I think you guys are the best eye shop in pittsburgh. You're by far the largest You have a huge store People can come in get their gear you guys know so much about it You're putting out youtube videos educating people on on what it is that we you know You guys do which is diving and safely doing it. So I just want to let you guys know I appreciate your business and as somebody that lives in pittsburgh I think it's uh, wonderful that you're here and that you're growing Anything else you want to say to the audience before we let you go I just we hope to meet everybody We want everybody to you know, find the joy that we do in the sport and I know you don't have to be on a sandy beach to to do it And experience it and see what it's like And it's not an age limited sport So the youngest people that we could possibly take diving are eight year olds and we have programs for them But we've certified people that are into their their 60s and 70s And we have people that come on all of our trips that are in their mid 80s One of our most avid divers is 84 years old. I believe he comes on almost every trip It's a really cool thing for families as well because it's one activity that everybody can do on the same level It doesn't matter if you're 10 or 11 and and you have older siblings You know mom and dad everybody can dive at the same level and see the same things So it's a really great family activity as well It's it's actually one of the reasons michelle and I got into diving is right our our youngest daughter got into it That trickled up to michelle which trickled over to me which trickled to our our oldest daughter And now we all dive together and we love it. It's a great it's a great addition on a vacation Right, like you can go to the beach and then take a day and go diving, you know So if you're in the Bahamas, you're missing the whole point of the ocean if you don't see what's underneath of it Great Great Well, hey everyone that's really about it tonight. I just want to say thank you for watching Please visit scott scuba.com. They're a great store support local and they will take you around the world Everyone have a great night Bye. Thanks again