Why no diving?

I’ve been back in the UK almost 10 years, and I really haven’t done much diving. Why? Well basically I just didn’t have the motivation to dive in Scotland. All my dive buddies don’t live here so I haven’t really had the push to dive.

2023

That is until 2023 when I went on a holiday with my family to Croatia and there was the opportunity for my son to do a DSD (a Discover Scuba Dive). He had been excited about diving from a young age but we wanted to wait until he was old enough to be able to do a DSD. And as there was a dive shop close to where we were staying, we thought why not.

2024

This started his love affair with diving. The plan quickly became to take him to Malta the next summer to learn to dive at my favourite dive shop – Divewise. Honestly, I have never come across a better dive shop than them. They are highly organised, helpful, do everything from DSDs to CCR courses. Such a great place. So in the summer of 2024 we went off to St Julian’s in Malta and signed my son up for his Junior Open and Junior Advanced Open water courses.

He absolutely loved it. His mother isn’t into diving so being able to leave him in capable hands while we did other things was great. I was also able to come out with him for 3 of his dives. We did his graduating Open Water dive on the HMS Maori together, one of my favourite wrecks. Though after 11 years it has clearly seen better days. The swim through the body is no more, but it was great to see the old girl.

For his advanced he opted for the following: Deep (ofc this is mandatory), Wreck, Fish ID, PPB, and Nitrox. So not only was he walking away from his time in Malta with his Advanced certification but he was also going to get his first specialty. There were no words to describe his excitement.

I joined him for his Wreck and Deep dives of his Advanced course. Where we did Tugboat 10 & the P33 for his wreck, and St Michael for his Deep. It was great to see how he had improved in such a short time. I loved getting to dive with him and share those moments.

2025

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to dive in 2025. This was mainly my fault. I had gotten in to the Chicago marathon so that became our big trip of the year. So diving was off the cards.

2026

Similarly 2026 was starting to look like we weren’t going to get any diving in either (mainly because I have gotten in to Tokyo Marathon 2027 and need to save up the money for that trip). However, a last minute booking, a dip into savings, and a gift from some relatives meant that we could take a week’s trip to Gran Canaria.

So of we jetted to Gran Canaria. The plan: get him his Wreck and Deep specialties. Why these? Well some dive operators require Wreck to go to a site that has a Wreck (so having that opens up more diving sites). And Deep? His AOW was restricted to 24m as it was a junior certification, it made sense for him to do Deep so that he could experience the effects of going deep.

Honestly, his first couple of dives didn’t go that well. It would have probably been better to have had at least 1or 2 orientation dives to get accustomed to diving again. If we had been at Divewise they would have insisted on these dives, and I can understand why they are important. As I am no longer teaching, I prefer to give a hands off approach and allow the dive shop / instructor to do their thing. Obviously I would intervene if I saw something dangerous but it was fine. Over the dives for both courses he rapidly improved and became proficient in diving. He really has a knack for it and I think he has the makings of becoming a great diver.

My favourite dive out of all the specialties that I was able to teach was, Wreck Dive 3. This is laying a line on the outside of a wreck and following it. This dive had the ability to super-charge your buoyancy because it requires so much thought that buoyancy has to become second nature. And after that dive you could see his confidence and ability grow.

What’s next?

Well since coming back from Gran Canaria, he wants to dive in Scotland. As I wasn’t motivated to do it before due to lack of having a dive buddy / community, I now have someone that I can dive with. Next steps are a Drysuit specialty for him and a refresher for me. If all that goes well, then I would like to try and get at least 50 dives in Scotland within the next year (maybe 100?).