or: One of My Scuba Instructor Dreams

I am looking forward to being back in the clear waters of Mauritius with the wrecks, the corals and the billion, trillion fish (approximately). Leading dives and teaching others not only how to dive but also about what they are actually seeing and what they can do to help improve the environment for future generations.

It’s beautiful underwater yet we are destroying it.

I am fortunate the 40+ dive sites we use in the north of Mauritius are usually fairly clean with the occasional fishing nets, lines and spark plugs plus the one can of mint condition Vodka Smirnoff . 

The more people that experience diving, the greater the number of people who will help protect this habitat.

This is my hope.

I am yet to meet any person who has gone underwater, even once, surfaced and said anything along the lines of “That is easily the worst experience of my life!’ What I do tend to hear is “Wow! That was amazing / beautiful / stunning. Thanks!’ Or some variation to this, faces radiating joy and / or wonder as they climb back into the boat.

It’s rewarding to me to be a part of this experience with them. To help them go underwater for the first time when they may not know how to swim or may never have even seen ocean until arriving on the island, to see them conquer their fears / concerns and come up so joyful is amazing. Gutsy on their part too.

Now I’ll be able to teach them more skills so they can be certified divers and go anywhere around the world to dive in similar conditions. Imagine these people taking their excitement back home to their families in France, India, China (most tourists that dive with me tend to be from these countries) and influencing them to make other choices around plastics, disposal of rubbish and what they eat as a result of what they have seen and learnt from being underwater.

I am so excited about the knock on effects of teaching just one diver that when I think about teaching 25 (the number I need to certify to be considered a Master Scuba Diver Trainer since I have already learnt how to teach five or more specialities (I know ten – my interests are wide and I figure they’re all likely to be useful!)) I am beaming. If each person I teach influences only two others to use alternatives to single use plastic, that’s 75 people. Now, assuming they each use one straw a day, that’s 27,375 plastic straws not reaching the ocean to be pulled out of the nose of a turtle per year. Then if each of these people influence just one other person (since perhaps they haven’t dived and seen first hand what  it is like underwater), that’s 45,625 straws per year.

And I think this is being quite conservative.

It doesn’t even include all the other single use plastics. This is only straws..

So not only will these people be having an amazing experience, they will be helping to ensure that others can also see beauty underwater for centuries to come.

What’s not to love about teaching people how to do this?

And about the fish…

 

* Thanks to Bob Marley for the title to this post.