After spending two weeks with Cristina Zenato, my plan was to go to Bonaire for a few weeks to start my rebreather journey! I was here to complete my rebreather Mod 1 course on a Divesoft liberty unit with Adam Beard at an awesome tech diving shop Area9 in Bonaire! After my training I was supposed to head over to Indonesia to help in a scientific diving project using my rebreather. However, that expedition was cancelled and after good talks and a few puppy eyed pleas, I was able to stay and enjoy beautiful Bonaire and the awesome folk at Area9 for three whole months, and boy were they awesome!
At first the Mod 1 training was extremely humbling, as this was again a whole new configuration and figuring out my buoyancy with the minimum loop volume was, at least for me, a genuine challenge. Aside from the challenges the course was exiting and I fully enjoyed learning a new way of diving. I also found it interesting how many things you need to think about even when just putting your gear together as well as the added list of things that can go wrong. I absolutely loved the course and was hooked on learning more about CCR diving and how to get better at it. Additionally, Adam is a wonderful instructor who knows how to make struggles of learning fun and I am so grateful that he took the time to teach me!
After finishing Mod 1, I stayed in Bonaire with Area9 for GUE Technical Fundamentals under the absolute diving legend of Bonaire, Mr. G. This course was excellent in honing in all the fundamental diving skills, which also reminding me that even in basics, there are things I need to learn and practice. And thus I met my worst enemy of a skill – the flutter kick! As someone who has always dived in silty places, I’ve always used the frog kick and to be completely honest, I think learning how to do the flutter kick properly might have been the most difficult thing I have done during my entire scholarship year. After finishing the GUE course I got to help Area9 as a deck hand and a support diver (or a deco monkey) on their deeper and more challenging dives! Just seeing all of the divers gear and hearing about the dives definitely furthered my curiosity about diving even deeper!
Spending three months on one island really allows you to get to know the place. I got to know the dives, the reefs, the people and the routine of a diveshop. And somewhere in all of that I was reminded of how much I just genuinely loved diving, not just as a tool for science but just as something fun to do and enjoy. Bonaire and Area9 allowed me to do longer dives, fun dives which was exactly the kind of boost I needed! Area9 is also a hotspot for extremely good tech divers and I am so grateful that I got to meet and spend time with the people working there but also the customers who taught me a lot about tech diving and gave me some pretty good tips about diving locations and places to see and experience!
Thank you again to Adam Beard, Mr. G, and the whole Area9 team for the incredible training and experiences and for making me feel so welcome and a part of the team for the three months!
Thank you again so much to the Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society for making this opportunity possible. Also an extra warm thank you to all of my amazing sponsors Fourth Element, DAN Europe, Halcyon, Backscatter and Suunto for helping me on my journey!
You can continue to follow my journey through blogs, or hop on my Instagram!
