My Diving Career
I have now been diving for 9 years, almost 5 professionally. I have done thousands of dives across many countries and trained hundreds of divers from experienced professionals to nervous beginners. Compared to many dive instructors I’ve had an unusual career- circumstance and serendipity took me into senior roles early in my career, and I kept building from there; at this point I have managed dive centres, research stations and coral nurseries in several countries and have been lucky enough to already make an impact towards the preservation of coral reefs through my conservation and education work. But everyone starts somewhere- this is the story of how I got here…
2015 - Learning to dive
I completed my Open Water Course in Akumal, Mexico. The sensation of being surrounded by vibrant, exotic, diverse wildlife sparked an immediate obsession with scuba diving and coral reef ecosystems.
2016 - Building Experience
A year out before uni gave me the chance do do several dives in South East Asia, as well as several months volunteering in Madagascar, which gave me my first taste of working in marine conservation and my first experiences of healthy coral reefs.
2017 - Getting Serious
In my first summer break from uni I traveled to South Africa, where I spent all of my savings on my Rescue Diver course and some extremely sharky diving, as well as an unreasonable number of land safaris.
2018- The Trumpetfish Era
In 2018 I visited a country that I would come to love- Indonesia. I spent a few months at a research station in Wakatobi (South Sulawesi) studying trumpetfish behaviour for my dissertation (following trumpetfish around with a gopro every day in one of the most stunning locations on Earth was a very fun job). A quick stop in Nusa Penida also gave me my first manta encounter (and my first proper earthquake).
2019 - Dive Pro
Immediately after graduating I headed to Mozambique to complete my Divemaster course. I took no convincing to also do enroll in my IDC, and a few months later I was a shiny new Dive Instructor. I fell in love with Tofo, the diving was wild and unpredictable with rough seas, crazy currents, and mantas, whalesharks, and humpback whales all over the place.
2019-20 Madagascar 2
I returned to Madagascar to run the diving operation for the project I had previously volunteered on. Shenanigans ensued and I found myself in the position of Project Coordinator, managing a multi-faceted research and community outreach project from our tiny camp in the jungle. Pretty intense for a recent graduate and new dive instructor, but the experience was invaluable. After 6 months my time there was cut short when we were evacuated by the British Embassy due to a global paramedic (another hectic experience).
2020 - Greek Interlude
At a time when there were almost no jobs going in tourism I managed to bag myself an instructor gig in Paros, Greece. It’s a beautiful country and a great place to visit but the diving doesn’t quite compare to what’s on offer in the tropics. Still, I enjoyed myself and had some unique moments such as a visit to the Acropolis with almost no other tourists.
2021-22 5-star Marine Biologist
I worked for 1.5 years as resident marine biologist at a resort in the Maldives, giving me my first experience of working in luxury tourism. I ran my own coral
restoration project and various marine biology talks and courses, as well as teaching diving and guiding trips almost daily to the best place on Earth to snorkel with mantas- Hanifaru. During this time I traveled around the country, diving in some of the best spots including South Ari Atoll and Fuvamulah.
2022-23 Island of the Gods
After leaving the Maldives I spent a while journeying through Indonesia again, diving in Komodo (incredible), Lombok (underrated) and Nusa Penida (can’t keep me away from this place). A couple months later I had a new job- managing a dive centre on Nusa Lembongan. I put a lot of focus on mentoring new generations of dive professionals and marine biologists by developing a marine biology divemaster course. Diving in Indonesia for a year was the stuff dreams are made of, and during my time here I took multiple trips to Alor (heaven) and Belongas (hectic).
2023- Present Day - Secret
I recently returned to the Maldives for a top Secret project that I’m not really allowed to talk about just yet. For now what I can say is that I recently spent 3 months at a state of the art coral restoration facility, working with experts in the field using techniques such as micro fragmentation, in-vitro spawning, and large-scale coral relocations. More recently I moved to one of the Maldives’ most remote Atolls and have been exploring never-dived-before sites and encountering a jaw-dropping amount of spectacular wildlife. More to come,,,
