Speaking with Charlotte about her first time scuba diving

Second in the serious of blog posts which we will be doing speaking with people about their first time scuba diving.  Today we hear from Charlotte who learnt out in Fiji.

Charlotte, First learnt to dive on Yasawa Islands, Fiji in 2007 aged 25;

"In April 2007 I went on holiday to Fiji to meet some friends who had spent a year travelling.  We travelled up and down the Yasawa Islands, stopping at various Backpacker resorts on the way.

We stayed at a beautiful place called Manta Ray Resort.  One night I got asked by one of the dive reps if I'd every dived.  I hadn't and didn't fancy it because of the thought of sharks.  However I found myself signed up for the first dive the next morning!

Beautiful sunshine it was NOT! I went to the dive hut in the pouring rain hoping it would be cancelled…. No such luck!

As I'd not dived before the lady instructor said she would hold my hand the whole time to keep an eye on me, my buoyancy and my depth.  She sorted out all my gear as I had no clue and showed me what was what.

We waded out from the beach in front of the resort, had a couple of tests with the regs and then went under!  To say I was amazed is an understatement! It was beautiful! As the colours and tons of tropical fish, it was such a fantastic experience!

The instructor swam me around pointing out all sorts of weird and wonderful sea creatures.  At one point we stopped in front of what looked to me to be a dead lump of coral.  The instructor started wiggling her fingers in front on a hole in the coral no bigger than a 50 pence piece and all of a sudden an Octopus emerged, one tentacle at a time and then swam off!  It was fascinating!

Before I knew it my 40 minute dive was over and we'd swam back up to the beach.  I didn't see any sharks (phew!) Although I think I was secretly hoping I would!  I had fallen in love with diving after 1 dive and had discovered a whole new world that I wanted to see more of!"

Talking with Ian about his first diving experience in Thailand

Diving is not a very common sport but is becoming more and more popular with it being ranked as the do-to sport in 2013.  We're going to be spending the next couple of days talking with some divers about there first time experiences underwater.  Here's what Ian Roberts had to say;

First learnt to dive in June 2010 on Koh Tao, Thailand aged 21

"I went travelling around Southeast Asia with some friends in 2010 who were all aiming to do some scuba diving as part of the adventure.  Initially I wasn't sure what I thought about the idea of diving, looking at all the equipment required it seemed very obvious to me that humans are very much not designed to go underwater, making the whole idea of it seem very unnatural.

With some convincing from my friends, and not wanting to miss out, I signed myself up but still had my reservations.  After an introduction in the swimming pool under controlled conditions I got used to the idea of breathing underwater, became comfortable with all the diving gear and more confident that I was in good hands.

Feeling more at ease after the pool session I signed up to do my PADI Open Water course on Koh Tao which was an absolutely fantastic experience.  Koh Tao is an interesting, somewhat crazy, place which offered awesome diving facilities.  Completing the Open Water turned out to be the most memorable few days of the entire trip which, if it wasn't for my persistent friends, I would have missed out on.  I enjoyed the diving so much I also completed two adventure dives which count towards my PADI Advanced Open Water qualification, including a night dive which added a totally different dynamic to the experience, which I aim to complete in the future.  Gaining my PADI Open Water Qualification allowed me to easily undertake fun dives when I visited Nah Trang in Vietnam as we continued on our travels.

I urge anybody who finds themselves in my situation, with the opportunity to go scuba diving, to say yes.  Ask friends or family who have been diving before for their opinion, I guarantee it will be a positive one.  You will not regret it!"

Many thanks for your time Ian and hopefully we will see you underwater again very soon!

The Importance of Having Dive Travel Insurance

Today we're going to talk about the importance of having dive insurance while partaking in any scuba diving adventure.  We've teamed up with Westfield Sub Aqua Insurance, who are offering all our customers a discount when booking any holiday or training course with us.  We all think that terrible accident isn't going to happen to us and some of us travel without any travel insurance.  The costs of specialist dive travel insurance in the Red Sea starts of at just £43.91 per person, a very small cost to pay if indeed you need to use a decompression chamber or any other sort of medical attention.

Many people think they can get a cheaper travel insurance policy elsewhere.  Yes, that maybe the case but have you read the small print in terms of what scuba diving cover it provides.  Here is a couple of points from Westfield's website regarding non-related dive insurance travel polices.

• Depth Restriction (as low as 6 metres)
• No Cover for Sea Rescue (this is a bit like selling skiing cover without mountain rescue)
• No hyperbaric chamber treatment cover
• Cover is excluded if the holiday was primarily booked as a diving holiday ( i.e. they're not covering diving holidays)
• Cover for medical cost of a diving accident can be very low
• No cover for Dive Kit, or loss of diving days due to illness
• No Shark Diving, No Wreck Diving, No Night Diving

Westfield have excluded the above points all they ask for is that you're within the current safety recommendations of BSAC &/or SSAC &/or PADI &/or CFT &/or TDI &/or IANTD.

To find out more about what Westfield offer Scuba Duba Dive visit our Dive Insurance page.

The Website is Live

Well if you are reading this blog you're probably aware that the official Scuba Duba Dive website has finally come off the a test server and gone to the live domain, scubadubadive.com. We've launched with just a range of dive training holidays which will be expanded over the coming weeks.  We'll also be launching some exciting dive holidays for those of you who are lucky enough to already be qualified divers.  We'll be running holidays in Australia, Turkey, Egypt, Thailand with the views to expanding to other countires as the Scuba Duba Dive network grows.

The next stages in the growth of Scuba Duba Dive will be launching various press release articles around the dive community and implementing a marketing and social media strategy with the main objectives being to get you the customers to interact with us over Facebook and Twitter.  We are launching an exciting competition to win a weeks diving somewhere and will be putting the Scuba Duba Dive clothing designs to social media for a public vote.  The equipment packages will also be finalised as we're currently researching what is the best equipment around at the moment which is most suited for our programs.  So lots of exciting things happening and we will keep you updated with the progress but for now;

Remember..... Like us on Facebook, Follow us on Twitter and Join us in the sea!

Why Young People Should Use Travel Agents?

Always wondering what the benefits of booking all your own travel arrangements versus booking via a travel operator.  We all think that doing it ourselves will save money but in this day and age we need to think about what fiancial protection you have while booking all the holiday elements by yourself.  The benefits of booking with a travel operator is that they have the in-country support 24hours and UK support 24 hours.  All Scuba Duba Dive's holidays are 100% financially protected and we have in-country and UK based reps who are available to help in case of an emergency 24 hours a day.  For further information I recommend reading this interesting article in the Huffington Post about why you should use a travel agent.  Click here to view the article

If you'd like to know more about what Scuba Duba Dive can offer you in terms of diving holidays and training give us a call or email and we'd be more than happy talk to you about are mission and ethos when it comes to providing you with that perfect diving holiday and training experience.  As in the end all the team have been there and done it themselves.

Web: www.scubadubadive.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ScubaDubaDive
Twitter: www.twitter.com/ScubaDubaDive
Telephone: +441224-900640

Lieve's Diving Journey

Lieve, Dahab Rep

I started diving during a holiday in Egypt and I was hooked from my very first dive. There was a whole new world out there to discover! My plan was to stay for some time in Dahab and do my PADI Open Water course before heading to Cairo. However, loving the underwater world and the diving so much, I cancelled my ticket to Cairo and signed up for the PADI Advanced Open Water course. For some weeks I enjoyed getting to know people sharing the same passion for diving, visiting nice dive sites with the most colorful reefs, learning how to become a better diver, watching fish and trying to remember their names.

Once back in Belgium, I immediately checked when I could plan my next trip to get some more dives in my logbook. After holidays of diving in Dahab, Sharm El Sheikh, El Quesir and Jordan, I felt ready to start the PADI Rescue Diver course. I found a counter job in a dive center in Dahab, which I could combine with the PADI Rescue Diver course. This training showed me so many new aspects of diving, that I got curious to learn more about it. The PADI Divemaster training was the logical next step and, to me, the most fun and interesting course of all the diving courses I had taken so far. It makes you a different and more confident diver. You learn more about the organisation and planning of dives, about dive equipment, you learn how to demonstrate all the skills you practiced during the PADI Open Water course, you get familiar with how to guide dives and so much more.

Now working as a PADI Divemaster feels very rewarding. I enjoy every dive and can’t imagine to work in an office again, far away from the sea and this incredible feeling of freedom you have under water. When I am in Belgium, I truly miss the Red Sea and the diving.

For sure, an adventure and experience I can recommend to all of you!

Diving Dahab, Red Sea, Egypt