Swimming with manatees and stingrays, diving in caverns, working on a log cabin, getting married underwater, yes…under the sea. Reading the stories and accomplishments of Ada Credeur will push you to get out and enjoy life and try something that will make you feel alive or discover a potential you didn’t realize. And, as in Ada’s case, might lead you to the love of your life.

While at a fishing rodeo at Cypremort Point in 1989, Ada found herself talking to a stranger telling him that she was interested in taking scuba diving lessons. She’d just returned from a cruise where a side excursion of snorkeling with stingrays piqued an interest in diving. Terry Credeur was already certified in scuba diving.

“During the time I was taking my scuba lessons, Terry and I started dating and we stuck like Velcro,” Ada laughs. “A couple years later when I knew we were going to marry, I saw an ad in a scuba diving magazine about underwater weddings in Key Largo, Fla. I suggested it to Terry and he was game for it. We were planning to have family there, but Hurricane Andrew hit that August (of 1992) so we eloped with a couple of friends.”

On October 14, 1992, Ada and Terry were married in an underwater sanctuary at John Pennekamp State Park in Key Largo, Fla. There were traditional and nontraditional parts to the ceremony. “I wore navy blue leggings and a hot pink bathing suit underneath a white Danskin top. I had a hair barrette that held dried flowers. My mother had made a wristlet corsage before I left – that she thought she was making for a friend of mine.”

The couple was given a crash course in sign language to get them through their vows. Then, outfitted with scuba gear, they slowly descended 25 feet below the water’s surface to the area’s renowned Christ of the Abyss Statue. There, they exchanged wedding rings tied in a conch shell. The marriage license was signed on a divers slate with an underwater pen, but Ada clarifies that after the ceremony on a boat they signed an actual document. “We took the regulators out of our mouths long enough to kiss underwater. Days later, we sent pictures to relatives and on the back side it said: We took the big dive! – that’s how we told them,” says the New Iberia resident.

Through the years, Ada has not only shared in her husband’s interests, but excelled in many of them. Her prowess with a bow and arrow – quite effective at 80 yards – led her to regional and national competitions – both indoors and outdoors – bringing home several trophies. It’s also her preferred method of hunting squirrels, rabbits, wild hogs and deer – three to date.

On the water, Ada enjoys fishing, relaxing and taking in the scenery from her kayak. “We’ll paddle seven to 10 miles at places like Grand Isle, Cocodrie and Golden Meadows.” Just after this past Christmas, in Leeville, the couple were fishing from their native kayaks and Ada caught three black drum, 33 to 44 inches, one after the other. “I had to let them go because I didn’t have room with the speckled trout already in the boat,” she recalls like it was yesterday.

Ada has proven that she’s equally as good with a carpenter’s belt. When the couple began constructing their dream log cabin in 2018, the 27-foot, dried red cypress logs arrived with bark on, as a cost-saving measure. It was Ada who hand hewn the wood starting with an old straight draw shaver and at other times switching to a hand planer. Bowing down to the pioneers of the 1800’s, she eventually graduated to using an electric planer. All the floor and counter tiles were laid by the novice carpenter who proved quite capable and she helped put up the interior walls. “Oh, and I also cut the tongue-and-groove cypress boards,” she adds – having earned her bragging rights. It was 18 months of weekends and after-work hours (Terry actually took months off of work to oversee the construction) but to see the cabin on the bayou, between New Iberia and Ada’s hometown of Jeanerette, there’s no question that it was worth the work and the stories that are built into the walls.

Next to the cabin in Terry’s blacksmith shop, Ada watched as her husband forged and discovered a love of artistic blacksmithing. She works in cold forging making lovely copper bracelets and other times in hot-iron forging, swirling the metal to create intricate finials. “This year, I really want to learn to make hot-forged and welded flowers that are more detailed and delicate looking,” says Ada, whose crafts are sold at Bird on the Bayou in New Iberia.

Before her hands started pounding steel, they were crocheting, knitting and tatting (a vintage lacemaking technique) at 9 years old. “My mom taught me that happiness is handmade,” says the now 60-year-old who has taken that advice to heart, uplifting and connecting with others through her crafts.

Her handmade greeting cards that say “Thank You,” “Thinking of You” and “Happy Birthday” are well known and highly anticipated by family and friends. Her expression of caring is as much in the work she puts into them as in their wording. They’re truly one-of-a-kind cards embellished with rubber stamped designs, hand colored or painted with acrylics, often thinned with unscented paint thinner for effect; some are hand embossed. Her list of recipients has grown over the years. When the pandemic first hit, Ada sent 60 cards to the residents of Maison Teche nursing home in Jeanerette.

And, she has a thing for gift tags. Just before this past Christmas, she made more than 300 and gave them to friends and fellow employees at The Ortho Clinic, where she is the billing manager, and Iberia Therapy Services, her other work site as clinic manager.

Like many right now, Ada is missing her traveling adventures, a logbook that includes swimming with the manatees in Florida’s Crystal River, diving in Cozumel and in the caverns of the Blue Grotto Dive Resort in Florida, hiking the Smokey Mountains, horseback riding at a Texas dude ranch, and journeying down the rivers of Switzerland, France, Germany and the Netherlands on a Viking River Cruise.

The couple hope to continue their tradition of visiting a national park each year. Ada, who admittingly sees only the good – not the bad – in things, looks forward to going to the Blue Ridge Mountains and Montana sometime this year.

Slowing down and getting in touch with nature is Ada’s happiness touchstone. Her advice on a happy life sounds like the lyrics of a country music song: “Take a deep breath, let the wind hit you in the face, and the sun touch your skin. Look up into the sky dreaming and relax.” And to that she adds, “Make something with your hands and give it to someone; I promise everyone around you will smile.”

The “A” List:

Dream Destination- Yellowstone Park in Wyoming

Favorite scuba diving location- Cozumel

Best Valentine’s Gift- Three horse shoes forged into hearts and together made into a one heart

Go-to Restaurant- Yellow Bowl in Jeanerette

Favorite Romance Movie- “Sleepless in Seattle”