Ever since I moved to New Mexico about three years ago, I’ve noticed something that seemed rather out of place: a scuba diving industry that seems to be thriving in the middle of the desert.

To explain, I started my investigation with a drive around Albuquerque’s uptown — or what I like to call the Scuba District. That’s because there are three scuba diving schools within about two miles of one another.

On Menaul Boulevard, there’s the New Mexico Scuba Center. But if I wanted to get to the ocean, it’s like a 12-hour drive, minimum. So how does this deeply landlocked state sustain such a robust scuba economy?

About a decade ago, Yasmany Fuentes was wondering the same thing. He was working for a youth after-school program planning off-site activities when some of his students asked about learning to dive.

“‘Where the heck am I going to find scuba diving in the desert?’ That’s exactly what I said,” Fuentes recalled.

Turns out, his students were on to something. There were eight scuba schools to choose from just in Albuquerque and more elsewhere in the state. So, the kids got certified, as did Fuentes.

“And I felt weightless,” he said. “You know, being 260-odd pounds, I’m a big boy. And I was like, ‘I feel weightless. This is miraculous.’ I fell in love.”

Fuentes fell so in love, in fact, that he quit his job and bought a scuba school in Albuquerque called the Scuba Co.

But back to my question about what sustains the industry in New Mexico. “The answer is the Blue Hole,” Fuentes said.

The Blue Hole — it’s a big, rocky sinkhole where groundwater comes to the surface. Technically, it’s an artesian well. And it’s about 120 miles west of Albuquerque in a town called Santa Rosa.

The water is a brisk 62 degrees pretty much all the time, so it’s a great place for a swim on a hot summer day — and apparently, it’s an even better place to learn how to scuba dive.

“It’s really quite a beautiful spring, and it’s a lot of fun to dive,” said Scuba Co. instructor Rebecca Bulgrin. “It’s about 75, 80 feet deep, and there’s an outflow of about 3,000 gallons a minute, so it stays pretty clear.”

The current is gentle and it’s got great visibility. The Blue Hole also has the advantage of being one of the very few training sites in the American Southwest.

“We have divers from Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado who come and do training here,” Bulgrin said, “so it’s quite the treasure that we have in our own backyard.”

It’s a treasure that Jaycee and Hunter Vines, who live in Albuquerque, are happy to take advantage of.

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” said Hunter. “I’m glad I’m not limited by where we live,” added Jaycee.

Because this form of having fun can be costly, Fuentes said the industry and his business are sensitive to the way people feel about the economy.

“You know, when gas prices go up, when they hear something about the economy, when that bank went bankrupt, we saw a week of, like, brakes — everybody pumped the brakes,” Fuentes said.

But for the most part, Fuentes said business has been humming along since COVID restrictions started to lift.

While we were stuck at home, he said, a lot of us took a hard look at our bucket lists. “You know, I’m gonna enjoy more of my time. I’m gonna do the things that I want to do.”

If that involves learning to breathe underwater, Fuentes and plenty of other instructors can teach you how, right here in the desert.