TAKING THE PLUNGE; DIVERS SEEK OUT EXOTIC VACATION LOCALES.

Byline: Karen Schwartz Associated Press 

It starts with a yearning for something different. A chance to boldly go where few men have gone before. A longing for an adventure, a challenge or a chance to see weird critters.

It's the world of scuba diving, a sport that lures its participants from one end of the globe to another. And it's booming.

An estimated 6 million people in the United States are certified divers, 2.5 million of whom went diving within the past year. The revenue generated by the dive travel industry, through air fares, hotels and diving services, is about $1.7 billion annually, according to the Diving Equipment and Marketing Association.

In the 12 years that Lee Scruggs, of Loveland, Colo., has been diving, the sport has taken her and her husband, John, to many of the Caribbean Islands; to Belize, Costa Rica and Honduras in Central America; to the Pacific islands of Hawaii, Fiji and Papau, New Guinea; to Palau, Truk and Yap in Micronesia; to Indonesia and to the Red Sea.

Why does the 53-year-old woman travel the world in order to jump into the water for an hour at a time?

``To go to a tropical island and get out of Colorado in the wintertime,'' she quipped.

But there's more to it. Once underwater, surrounded by colorful fish, sculpted corals and majestic pelagics, ``You have to pinch yourself sometimes. It's so beautiful and quiet.''

Susan Hirsch, 35, of Providence, R.I., was certified only two years ago. Since then, she's been diving in Belize, Honduras and Hawaii.

In the cold waters of Narragansett Bay near her home, ``You're lucky if you can see the flip of a flounder in the sand,'' she said.

But at an exotic locale, ``It's like being in a cartoon - the colors and the shapes and the textures.''

``It's an experience that is completely out of oneself. And I don't have to worry about the stresses of job and day-to-day life,'' said Hirsch, a lawyer for her state's child welfare agency.

Carl Roessler, who is considered the granddaddy of dive travel specialists, said he's seen a lot of changes in the 31 years that his See & Sea Travel has been around.

Better equipment and easier access to Caribbean islands have made the sport much more popular. As a result, more and more novice divers are heading to the Caribbean where the waters are warm, currents calm and the resorts well-equipped.

``Diving off the East or West coasts, while wonderful for enthusiasts, is sometimes daunting for beginners,'' he said. ``However, if they can go to a beautiful tropical island in beautiful toasty water with a minimum of equipment to lug around - it's a very positive selling experience.''

But that influx of new divers to the traditional dive destinations is pushing more experienced divers to go farther afield, sometimes spending their entire vacation on a dive boat-cum-floating hotel - called liveaboard - that cruises to remote reefs and sometimes never stops at land until the week is up.

``As these hordes of eager beginners are going to the Caymans and Australia, the more experienced divers are going on liveaboards to get farther and farther away from the crowds,'' Roessler said.

Five years ago, there were perhaps 40 liveaboard boats, while today, there are 150 to 200, he said. Some of the boats are little more than converted ferries or fishing boats, while others were built from the keel up as dedicated dive boats, with air conditioned cabins, film processing, even hot tubs on board.

Roessler is ready to go the next step, and has equipped a Grumman HU-16 Albatross sea plane with guest rooms so that he can fly four to six people to remote destinations near Palau. For $6,000 per person per week, the diving elite will use the plane as their home and as their diving platform.

But even for less ingenious travel agents, the dive market is a lucrative niche.

``People start with beautiful creatures on reefs,'' Roessler said. ``Then they get bored with those and move up to schooling hammerheads'' that are at locations like the Cocos Islands off Costa Rica and the Galapagos.

``We keep them for 25 years,'' he said of diving clients.

And dive vacations are not cheap; a trip on a liveaboard can run $1,500 or more per week, plus air fare and land costs.

Even basic packages for novice divers double an agents' commission because they not only sell the resort stay, but the diving, which usually costs about $60 to $70 per person per day, said Susan Wilmink, publisher of Dive Travel, which offers marketing seminars to travel agents.

Advertising through the trades, Dive Travel charges $29 per person to explain at the seminars the basics of what divers are looking for and who the wholesalers are. She expects about 250 to 300 agents will attend this year.

In fact, dive travel itself is becoming further subdivided, with special trips advertised to highlight sunken wrecks, caves, whales - even sharks.

``Fifteen years ago, if people thought they were going to see sharks on their diving vacation, you couldn't sell it,'' Roessler said. ``Today, if I can't assure them they'll see sharks, they won't buy it.''

So 50 years after Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnan invented a device called the Aqua-Lung that allowed people to breathe underwater, many travelers have decided they don't just want to see the ocean's creatures on the Discovery Channel, they want to see it for themselves.

``There's a whole heightened interest in the oceans and preserving the oceans,'' Wilmink said. ``A lot of people have the feeling if they don't get under there and see it, they might miss it.''

On Location

Some numbers to contact for information on a dive vacation:

Adventure Express Travel, [phone] or [phone].

Aggressor Fleet (has several liveaboards), [phone] or [phone].

Landfall Productions, [phone].

Mad Dog Expeditions (rough-and-tumble adventure tours), [phone].

Peter Hughes Diving (has several liveaboards), [phone] or [phone].

Rascals in Paradise (specializing in family vacations), [phone] or [phone].

See & Sea Travel, [phone].

Tropical Adventures, [phone] or [phone].

Outtakes

Before taking a scuba tank and heading underwater, you'll need some basic instruction and equipment.

If you're on vacation, you can get a quick introduction to the sport by taking a resort course - a few hours of instruction that allows you to try a few dives with a guide to depths shallower than 30 feet.

But if you want to dive unsupervised, you'll need to be certified by a recognized agency, and that means completing a course that involves 25 to 40 hours of instruction in the classroom and in the water.

Expect to pay between $400 and $500 for basic certification and essential equipment.

Several diver certification programs are offered around the country. Among the popular ones:

The National Association of Underwater Instructors, or NAUI, [phone] or [phone].

The Professional Association of Diving Instructors, or PADI, [phone] or [phone].

Scuba Schools International, or SSI, [phone].

The YMCA Scuba Program, [phone].

The Handicapped Scuba Association has specially trained instructors to assist people with disabilities, [phone].

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos, 2 Boxes

Photo: (1--color) Divers in the waters off Fiji often spot these bright orange-and-white clown fish hovering amid mauve tentacles of a sea anemone.

(2--color) A silhoetted scuba diver descends into the ocean with underwater camera equipment in Hawaii.

Sam Shelanski/Associated Press

(3) Divers board a boat for another trip to Sipadan Island's reefs off the coast of Malaysia. The remote area is drawing so many divers, there has been ecological damage.

Denis D. Gray/Associated Press

Box: (1) On Location (see text)

(2) Outtakes (see text)