You often read articles about learning to dive but the teaching team here at Global Dive get to look at it from the other side.
People come to us with all sorts of reasons to learn to dive and we have to adapt and cater to these in order to give the client the course they need and want.
‘I’ve always wanted to learn to dive’, ‘it’s been on my list of things to do’, ‘I want to get crayfish’, ‘I’m sick being left on the boat’, ‘I’m scared of fish’, ‘snorkeling is not enough for me any more’, ‘I’m going to Fiji next month’, ‘my partner dives’.
These are all valid reasons to learn to dive but all need to be taught slightly differently.
The basics are always the same – Reg recovery, mask clearing, buoyancy skills, dive tracking – but to keep a diver diving you need to know what motivates them and this starts and continues from the learning stage.
Divers are a social bunch!
Now some of these are easy to address.
We can get the diver out for a scallop dive, show them how to identify a male Sandagers wrasse from a female, or take them to Fiji but sometimes even the diver doesn’t know what it is that gets them in water each time.
This is where the social element comes into it.
We take them for a drink at the local or get them along to a club night so they can meet, mix, mingle and chat to as many other divers with as many different interests, abilities and diver levels as possible so that they can find their diving mojo, not to mention a buddy or two.
So this is where you come in.
Every one of us can help other divers – of all levels – to get into diving.
Whether it be by offering a space on your boat or a lift to the dive site, showing the photos or video you took, researching and planning the next wreck dive, sharing the scallops and crayfish you caught at a summer BBQ, showing off your latest piece of dive equipment, or that thing that divers do best…talking to anyone and everyone about diving.
We do.
Anna Clague
