This really goes back a long way to when I was at school, and I remember being captivated by the underwater adventures of Jacques Cousteau. This was way before recreational scuba diving was even heard about and the only way to become a diver was to join the forces or become a saturation diver working on the rigs in the north sea, who had an average working life of about 2 years at that time before they couldn’t dive anymore.
If your careers advisor was anything like mine they were very dismissive of anything out of the ordinary, so it was off to college to study engineering, learning loads of stuff that I would never need to use again.
So fast forward quite a few years, to when I was holidaying in Thailand, with family and friends and we went on a few snorkelling trips, in both the Gulf of Thailand around Chumphorn, the Andaman Sea off the coast of Phuket and around the Phi Phi Islands, where I got a glimpse of quite a few special creatures, a turtles at “bird’s nest island” near Chumphorn, squid and cuttlefish swimming in day light off Phuket and pipefish and a seahorse on the house reef at our resort on Phi Phi.
On several occasions the boat also contained Scuba Divers, either doing their open water training or enjoying guided pleasure dives, and after talking to some of these divers, listening to their enthusiasm for diving: “I thought that looks like fun and I want some of that”.
I finally got round to doing my PADI Open Water course at Chumphorn Cabana resort on my next visit to Thailand, which was in October 2003, Being stuck in a classroom ,in 30°C plus heat and 80% plus humidity, for two / three days doing the open water theory work is not something a recommend at all, the only rest-bite, being the daily confined water pool sessions. but the two days doing the open water dives more than made up for it, I think I still have a copy of the video, that one of the divemasters shot during my first open water dive, if I can find it I will upload it. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see one of the resident turtles, during the dive at ”Bird’s Nest Island”, but I did get a close up view of a black and white banded sea snake during our last open water dive. That was it I was hooked!
The following year (2004) we were lucky enough to spend the entire summer holiday in Thailand with the kids, whilst we where there we tried to book some pleasure dive at Chumphorn Cabana again but they were booked up, so I found a dive school nearby called Absolut Wreck, which was based at a small resort called Ban Krut about 40 km north of Chumphorn, after doing a couple of days pleasure diving with them, we returned later in the holiday to complete my PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course, which I followed up with three more days pleasure diving with them.
On returning to the UK, encouraged by my conversations with Nick the divemaster at Absolut Wreck, I found a local PADI dive Centre and sign up for my PADI Dry Suit Course, which I completed in October 2004 at Stoney Cove. Quickly followed the following year by my Night Diver (On that occasion John Smallwood was my buddy and for once the 6°c water temperature was warm and inviting when compared to the 2°c air temperature plus wind chill factor), EFR, and Rescue Diver qualifications.
My first UK sea Dives where during June that year (2005) during a trip with that dive club to Plymouth, where we dove Eddystone Reef, HMS Sylla, the outer harbour defence wall, the James Egan Laine and the final dive on Mewstones Reef.
Then Life, family, kids, work all got in the way and before you know it nearly five years have passed, in more than a blur than a flash.
So that is a potted history of my diving experience until the beginning of this year.