Jess Zellers
Service, Dive Rite, Inc.
She is probably one of the few Americans who do not daydream about retirement or a long vacation to the Caribbean, because Jess has already done it. “After a very cold first year of college in Rochester, New York I needed a summer job and wanted to be warm… so I went to St. Thomas [US Virgin Islands] and looked for a summer job”. She crewed on a boat taking people snorkeling to Trunk Bay on St. John. You know it’s a good job when you can refer to Trunk Bay as ‘the office’.
The islands are where Jess learned to dive. She really enjoyed wrecks and this one sea cave just off St. Thomas. It actually took awhile to figure out that the part she liked was going into something. This is also where Jess had first heard of cave diving. The crew was out one night and one of the local divers was talking about these nuts in Florida who… the rest is a blur because all she remember is ‘caves with water’. Having enjoyed the dry caves in Pennsylvania and diving in St. Thomas, these people didn’t seem like nuts to Jess.
While diving in the islands was fun, there’s a big difference between that and diving the wrecks and quarries of the northeast. “I was certified in St. Thomas, but the folks at my dive shop up north taught me how to dive. There were a lot of critiques and help from one guy in particular”. As it turns out she loved the challenge of cold water diving, compass navigation only and the increasing redundancy (weight) of her gear. That began the running to joke of ‘Jess is just about ready to do her cave class’. Being a college student with a technical diving obsession isn’t easy… especially when you need to go five states away to do it. “Trip logistics were nearly impossible, so I just moved to Florida”.
She moved, graduated college, finished cave classes and now cave dives at least three or four times a week. After almost two years of diving Devils several times a week it never gets boring. “I’m amazed that for as much of this cave that I know there’s still places I haven’t been. And the places that I’ve been how many number of times can be seen like it’s the first time”.
As an admitted Devil’s junkie she can most easily be found somewhere in her natural habitat, the cave system at Ginnie Springs.