May 2016: Murcia, Spain

I discovered that I had a passion for diving after doing a few discovery dives in the Egypt and Mexico.

To this day diving in the Red Sea was the best diving I’ve experienced given how beautiful and untouched the coral reefs were and the amount of incredible sea life that was around. I did this dive back in 2008, so who knows what state the coral reefs are like in now days given what’s happening around the rest of the world. In Mexico I dived off of Cozumel Island and sadly a lot of the coral was dead but this was due to hurricane damage.

In 2016 I decided to complete my open water PADI and the perfect opportunity came about when my parents bought a place near La Manga, Murcia. I completed the theory side and exam back in the UK and stayed with my parents for a week in Spain to complete the practical side of the course with Adventure Divers (https://adventuredivers-spain.com), who are located in La Manga. I booked onto a group course however, given it was slightly out of season I was very lucky to have a 1 to 1 with Neil George, owner and manager of Adventure Divers. Neil was an amazing instructor; he was great to learn from, made me feel very comfortable and relaxed the whole time…even when I had panic moments!

I completed the practical course in a pool, in fresh water followed by the same exercises in the sea. It’s a very different experience diving in fresh water to salt water, your buoyancy changes (there is 1.6 pounds more buoyancy in salt water than in fresh) and the sea conditions can change very rapidly.

I was so surprised when diving in the Mediterranean! All my dives were from the shore and on most occasions the sea was so clear, I could see up to 15 metres at times. There was also so much sea life from a variety of fish, octopus, star fish, sea urchins and sea slugs!

It look 3 full days to complete the practical course…then I had my open water PADI!

The trip ended with some fun dives with Neil and Laura, one of the dive masters, which was so much fun!!

Adventure Divers also has a Facebook page and amazing reviews on TripAdvisor, please search: Adventure Divers and Activity Center