Scuba Diving Guide Experiences

It has taken me a long while, to get around to writing this article. Partly due to the motivation to write about past life experiences, when my current experiences are less than interesting!

It’s fair to say that my time as a scuba diving guide was for the most part fantastic. The opportunity to get up in the morning and take part in a sport that I love is nothing short of a dream come true. However as with all dreams, often the reality is slightly more shaded than the reality.

Initially I expected most, if not all of the clients to be of a similar standard to myself and those that I had dived with previously. Not to say that everyone who learnt and developed there diving around the same period as me were the best divers, including me. However, all had an ability to dive safely.

I was honestly shocked at the amount of holiday divers, who were not only a danger to themselves, but also others around them. The amount of poorly trained divers that are awarded certification was frankly scary. As a dive guide it was my duty to ensure that these divers were safe and as well as this, that they had a good time. As well as ensuring that other proficient divers in the group did not have their dives reduced or ruined. I often had my hands full, although there were times when all was well under the water.

I had some fantastic dives with clients, where it was as if I was being paid to dive with friends; this was the dream job I had envisaged. I met some truly amazing and fantastic individuals that I would happily dive with again and again, if the opportunity presented itself in the future! Maybe it was me, but it also seemed as though these divers seemed more appreciative of the job that I did, although this might not be the truth, it’s often how I felt.

I enjoyed being engrossed in a world where everyone has a common interest; it was easy to strike up conversation with people who have a far more worldly experience of scuba diving than I have. Many of these conversations have only fanned the flames of my want to continue exploring the underwater world across the globe!

As a guide I came to understand the local marine life more and more. Each and every time I was stumped at what I had just seen, it was off to the books or to the Internet to find out exactly what it was I had seen. I tried to learn each of the common species, and shared this knowledge with clients. In learning this information, I came to understand the make up of the habitats of certain species, and this massively helped me find interesting life on each and every dive!

Although this blog has always been an honest account, there are certain aspects of being a dive guide that were ultimately negative. However this will have to be brushed over until some point in the distant future, when such things are not of any importance anymore and have ultimately been forgotten about. In all honesty I’ve been putting off writing this post for two months and I’m not sure if what I’ve wrote actually portrays what I was intending to put across. Either way I’ve had a go and at least its something.

Its fair to say that the overall experience has only heightened my love of the sport, so much so that I even dived on my days off from time to time. I am seriously interested in improving my diving knowledge and experience over the coming years, and who knows where this could potentially lead? Weirdly, I’m looking forward to getting back into UK waters, there’s only so much clear blue sea that one UK diver can take, before the call of the freezing cold, one metre visibility dives call him home! I have a loose plan for my diving year, if it goes well then this could be the best diving year to date, however I have often felt let down, as diving plans have turned into diving let downs. Let see? I’m positive that this year I can develop as a diver, experience some of the best diving that the British coast has to offer and I will make sure that I post what happens on here!