I am officially a qualified PADI Divemaster! Yay! Was this my goal when I first started diving? Nope! Did I ever think I had what it took to be a DM? Truthfully, no. I first qualified as an Open water diver when I was 17 on a trip to Kenya. Aside from a couple of dives on a family holiday I did not go diving for nearly 10 years, always keeping it as a fun memory but nothing more.
My proper journey into the dive world really started when I met Jojo through work in 2018, she told me that she was a diver and that her partner, Leon, ran a dive school. Jojo encouraged me to come along to a pool session and do my ReActivate to refresh the skills and knowledge I learnt on my open water course. Within a few weeks of meeting Jojo, Leon and the rest of the team, I had signed up for my Advanced Open Water course and booked on to an Egypt liveaboard the following year! In the summer of 2018, I went diving as much as I could; I completed my AOW and several specialities to improve my skills. I made lots of new friends and went on lots of underwater adventures. However, if you had asked me then if I were going to complete my Divemaster I would have told you no way, I am not a good enough diver to do that! I did however start getting more involved in supporting the Dorset Diving team, and in the 2019 I found myself in the role of Crew for the team.
In 2019 I completed my Rescue diver course and became PADI Master Scuba Diver, which I honestly believed was the end of my training. To fulfil my role as crew and be able to help support the Dorset Diving Instructors in the water, I nervously invested in my HSE medical. I was happy, then the word Divemaster was thrown in my direction, mostly by Leon and I kept batting it away. However as many of you will know Leon is stubborn and in September of 2019, I signed up for my Divemaster course. It started out great; over the following months I started to get parts signed off very quickly. I also realised how wrong I was about my diving and how capable I was! Sadly, something happened that absolutely no one saw coming…2020. In March, my training stalled due to this pesky little thing called Covid! Along with my training my motivation for completing the course stalled as well, I just could not see the end of the road whilst stuck at home watching the world essentially fall apart. Thankfully, others could and in August, with encouragement from Leon and the team, I picked my DM manual back up and organised the completion of the remainder of my course! Finally, on October 4th 2020 whilst at Vobster Quay I completed my final training dive!
The course was challenging and at times a real struggle, with truly unexpected hurdles, but it was also one of the most rewarding courses I have ever completed! Bring on the summer and introducing more people to the amazing underwater world!!
I'll see you in the water very soon!