By Katie Schanze//Staff Writer

Photos courtesy of Ellyn Roberts

As a 9-foot shark crept closer, Ellyn Roberts wondered what she’d gotten herself into. It wasn’t that she had a huge fear of sharks, it’s just that when you’re 80 feet deep in the ocean off the coast of Belize and a large fish with sharp teeth won’t back off, your nerves can get a little shot.

Ellyn, a mother and grandmother, may seem like your typical 51-yearold. As the division administrator of cardiovascular health at East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine, she is accomplished in her career— “Ellyn strives to excel in her world,” her sister Leigh says.

With as much love as Ellyn has for her profession, she harbors a deeper passion for a unique hobby which has transformed her: scuba diving. “While loving the fast pace and stress of her professional life, Ellyn has always loved the yang of her life after work. She re-energizes through peace and nature, ” Leigh says.

Ellyn, who only began diving in 2011, has completed 51 dives in several locales across the globe including Little Cayman in the Cayman Islands, Placencia and Turneffe Atoll in Belize and Tobago Cay in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Beginning a new hobby like scuba diving at almost 50 years old may be surprising to some, but it had been on her bucket list for years. “It was kind of a huge life changing event,” Ellyn says. “I was going to be turning 50 soon, I had moved to a new city, I had a new job. I was looking for a trip to take by myself.”

After completing her training and certification at Lake Rawlings Quarry, Virginia, Ellyn travelled alone for the first time, which she calls “surprisingly comfortable” and went on her first diving trip to the Cayman Islands. Spending a week with other divers at a dive resort and doing several dives each day, she fell in love.

Her love for diving quickly became obvious to her family and friends. “Diving caught Ellyn’s attention pretty quickly and she really fell hard for it,” Leigh says. “The freedom, the adventure, the tranquility and the wide open space under water was a definite draw for her.”

Ellyn has been challenged, amused and scared while diving. Sharks can be one cause of fear, but like the 9-footer in Belize, they generally back off and leave her alone. However, the emotion she feels most often is amazement.

“You’re just like ‘Oh my god,’ you can’t take enough of it in,” she says. “You have funny experiences, scary experiences. You think that you’ve seen the most awesome thing out there, but then you see something even better.”

She has swam in coral canyons in Belize and in water so clear and full of life she could have been in an aquarium. She has searched for whale sharks (finding them is still on her bucket list) and seen such clear nights in Belize that half moons created shadows from the palm trees on the sand. One of her favorite things to see in the water are the huge, spotted eagle rays, which can grow up to 16 feet long and which Ellyn calls “majestic.”

What’s the hardest part about this hobby? Besides leaving when a trip is over, “buoyancy is the most complicated part of diving and it’s critical,” she says. “When you find it, you’re weightless. A lot of new divers struggle with that. On my first trip people helped me with that. I like the science of it, the physiology. It does a lot for your confidence.”

Ellyn is what people in the diving community call an “80/80” diver, meaning she never goes deeper than 80 feet and never wants to dive in water colder than 80 degrees. “Some people make fun of 80/80 divers but everyone has their own niche in the diving world. It just doesn’t interest me to go much deeper.”

It’s hard for Ellyn to exaggerate how much she loves the combination of travel and diving. She has traveled to both Belize and the Grenadines just this year to pursue her passion, and you can see the sparkle in her eyes as she describes the local people in Placencia Village, Belize and the “consistently amazing” diving of Turneffe Atoll.

“I think I like it so much because I learn new things all the time,” she says. “It’s challenging. You get to travel to amazing places and meet really neat people. I love the local men and women. I love the local villages, the food. I am so intrigued by the cultures.”

For Ellyn, who says “hundreds” of dives are in her future, scuba diving is more than just a new hobby or a sport. It’s a lifelong dream realized.

Growing up in Norfolk, Virginia, Ellyn was always adventurous. Loving almost every adventure sport she could get her hands (or feet) on, she always had access to the ocean and loved the water. A favorite place was her family’s vacation home in Bath, NC on the Pamlico River where she was always crabbing and swimming.

“She always loved being outside and enjoyed the freedom that it offered,” Leigh says. “She was always athletic and adventurous,” her sister Amanda adds. “As she hit her teenage years she became determined to do her own thing.”

After completing an Outward Bound program at 16, Ellyn’s first job was working in an outdoor school for emotionally disturbed adolescent boys. The job had her hiking the Appalachian Trail for two weeks and canoeing the Suwannee River for six weeks.

She soon transitioned to academia, getting her bachelor’s degree at Virginia Tech, her nursing certification from Radford University and her MBA from Averett University.

However, Ellyn never lost her love for the outdoors and adventure even though it took a backseat to her professional life for awhile.

“I was not surprised when she started scuba diving, although it had been quite a few years since I had seen that determined spark in her,” Amanda says. “I see the Ellyn I grew up with, now.”

Now that Ellyn is living in her family’s life-long vacation spot, Bath, she gets to experience life outdoors on the river everyday, even during tough and stressful work weeks. Of course, that doesn’t mean she’s settling down. She’s always planning her next dive trip.

“I feel like I have a gazillion places to go,” she says. “I want to go somewhere new every trip. Fiji, Palau. I’m exploring St. Kitts and Nevis right now. I want to go to places I’ve never even heard of.”

So what’s next? Don’t think this diving aficionado isn’t still ticking items off her bucket list. “I’m going to learn how to spearfish lion fish,” she says. “They’re taking over in the Caribbean, so my next goal is to buy a speargun.”

“She told me once that diving was an adventure that everyone could do,” Leigh says. “All ages, conditions, personalities. I think she sees diving as a life-long adventure.”