Jump into… Guided Dives
Just passed your Open Water course and not sure what’s next? Of course your diver training will have prepared you for diving out with your buddy, but it’s sometimes a daunting thought. Just like when you passed your driving test… remember that first time behind the wheel when the instructor was not there? I totally get it!
When I first started diving, ALL of my training was done in quarries. Not that there is anything wrong with quarries… I mean, I own the best one in the world! Only joking, other quarry owners… they’re all good in their own way. But, there is nothing like diving in the sea. The thought of literally jumping into the unknown, a place where you cannot purchase the map at the front desk, or know where you need to go down to see the boat and that resident sturgeon. You have the opportunity to potentially see any of the 170,000 marine creatures that the UK is home to and possibly an area that nobody else in the world has dived. That sense of adventure is what we all, as divers, long for.
With that in mind, I totally get that the flip side of this is scary: being a brand new diver, or a diver with no sea experience, and that’s fine. We all need a hand to start out somewhere. I was not that lucky; the people that I dived around with, all dived at the same time and place each week, and so when I started up alone, I began exploring the UK waters. Learning what times were the best to dive, what spring and neaps meant, where the best entry and exit points would be… and it took a lot of work to become competent in this type of planning. And still does each year that we check out new sites!
That’s the reason that I have made sure that we keep our theme of small, guided dives. Little Viv is coded for a lot more divers than the 4 that we take, but it’s all about that personal touch of being able to take divers to an area that they are all comfortable with, whether they are new or experienced, and guide them to the best locations to witness North Wales at it’s best. The guided dive aspect is one of the main things I love about our centres and probably always will be. Opening up new sites to divers where they don’t have to feel like it is impossible and giving them a helping hand to witness some of the most stunning sites under the UK waters. That’s what it’s all about.
So, if you haven’t done so yet, and I am not just saying this as an upsell for my own business… Wherever you are in the UK, make sure you put at least 1 sea diving location on your tick list for 2022. You will definitely not want to turn back!
Clare began Duttons Divers at just 19 years old and a short while later became one of the world’s youngest PADI Course Directors. Find out more at www.duttonsdivers.com
