As a small boy, my fascination with the underwater world began while snorkelling on the North Norfolk Coast (UK) during family holidays. When I caught the travel bug while at University studying Zoology, this fascination became an obsession after visiting the Red Sea in Egypt, and on returning to the UK obtained my PADI Open Water certification the following Autumn on the south coast of England. During subsequent travels in Central America I took this qualification further, attaining Divemaster in the year 2000, and spent time there gaining extensive experience assisting with the teaching of new students and learning about equipment care and maintenance. During this time I decided I had to find a career that combined diving with my love of nature and so on my return to the UK wnet back to univserity and studied and MSc in Applied Ecology, with a focus on Marine Ecology. This led me to finding my first professional level job in the Bahamas, where I attained my 100th dive while working as Chief Scientist on a volunteer based conservation science programme. My dive total has now passed the 750 mark and is still rising. I have also dived in Indonesia and Africa, and attained my Wreck and Deep Diver certifications. My emergency first response certification was last renewed in 2018.
During my work as a divemaster I obviously spent a lot of time on top of the water as well as below it. Becoming more and more familiar with a life on the oceans waves, my practical boat handling experience did not begin until I started working as Chief Scientist in the Bahamas, where at the beginning of each new volunteer phase I would be responsible for taking out groups of eight to ten divers along with the resident dive instructor in a 24ft Carolina Skiff. During this time I clocked up almost 150 hours of experience, and gained a great deal of seamanship and navigational understanding. While working in Anguilla I gained further experience on a 16ft Boston Whaler, a 36ft locally built rib, and also got involved with the local sailing club and took a short sailing course. More recently I have completed seamanship and navigation training with the Royal Anguilla Police Force and successfully passed the level one examination on the Rules of the Road.
Diving and boat handling are now integral parts of my consulting work, more details on which can be found here.