Irma McClaurin with Dive Master Eric Wederfoort. Photo Credit: ©2011 McClaurin Solutions
 My first memory of moving underwater wasn't real. At 8 years, old I participated in a special science summer program for what we would now call "gifted" children; I wrote a play in which the setting was the sea. The main character was a young girl who finds a seahorse that takes her on a magical journey underwater.

Never mind that I had not even visited the ocean or the sea, and never mind that I couldn't swim. My imagination -- which is immensely powerful when we are younger-- carried me to unknown places and introduced me to an enchanted new world, well, of which I could only dream.  Read More