I started diving in the early eighties. I was doing quite a bit of sailing at the time and thought it would be a useful thing to master, if only to clear a fouled propeller. Having attended several months of lectures and training sessions with a local BSAC branch I had more or less given up. There is a limit on how many lectures you can attend given by a pipe smoking, bearded anorak muttering into a pint of beer about how many different ways you can die if you fail to carry out every unintelligible procedure with adequate precision.

However in summer 1982 a friend from another club offered to take me on a real dive to Weymouth. Ignoring the fact that I didn’t have any kind of qualification, off we went to dive the Hood. From there on in I was hooked, I joined Guildford BSAC and spent the following years working my way up through the grades and diving on the south coast with the club, eventually becoming a club instructor. In 1990 I drove to Guildenburgh to join the first ever IDC there, blissfully unaware of what the initials PADI even stood for. This was a turning point for me, proudly sporting my Open Water instructor badge on my shabby old long john I proceeded to press gang every friend and acquaintance I could get my hands into a dive course. PADI was totally new in my area then and the idea that anybody could learn to dive (not just masochistic bricklayers and plumbers who could recite all the signs and symptoms of decompression sickness, free dive to 7 meters in a freezing lake and blow up someone’s nose whilst treading water) was a revelation.

Soon old and young, men, and women of all ages and abilities were signing up for dive courses. Quickly realising that dipping in cold gravel pits in the UK wasn’t for me (or anyone else for that matter), I soon decided that the best place to complete the open water dives was abroad, in the sunshine and warm clear water. There then followed several years of intensive teaching in the pool and then escorting trips to Malta and Sharm. Despite the hard work (I think my arms are a good few inches longer now from moving tanks) I loved it. I was blown away by my first visit to the Red Sea. I’ll never forget seeing my first Napoleon Ras, or two to be precise. We were literally hooting through our regulators, wildly waving our arms and dancing underwater. The first liveaboard was a trip on Poseidon’s Quest around Pemba Island in the Indian Ocean, in the auspicious company of Leni Riefenstahl, who was only 93 at the time. From then on in it was liveaboard diving for me.  I was really struck by the contrast between life on the boat and the local environment. We were almost like visiting aliens, sitting in air conditioned luxury sipping wine and listening to the Big Blue, whilst outside there was a guy paddling a log whilst trying to trade a fish for as packet of cigarettes.

I never tire of diving. I am happy just being underwater, whether an exiting shark dive or just bimbling around in the shallows looking at the tiny reef fish. I have been lucky enough to share the joy of diving with Julie my partner and have also taught my children to dive. It’s great to have something all the family can share. Right now I can’t wait for my next dive trip!