I’m a watersports and adventure activities student, so surely I have no fear right? Sharks, jellyfish and eels should pose no threat, it’s easy for me to do, but you could never do it right? Wrong. Before I began my course, I was like many people scared of heights, but more importantly scared of the ocean! I found facing my fears in Ibiza expanded my horizons and freed me to get sucked into a world of serene beauty, unlike any I’d experienced before.

The great thing about Ibiza for beginners is that the water is warm and clear (you can see up to 40m), meaning you’re comfortable and for those fearful of the unknown (more people than you think, including myself), you can see what’s sharing your water. There are no sharks found in the waters around Ibiza, nor giant squid or Portuguese Man-O-War or any other scaries. There are however some fascinating fish, octopus, eels, sunken ships and even an old tuna factory, 30m down.

The courses I undertook were PADI courses, the leading body for scuba diving in the world, in fact 97% of dive centres are PADI run. The Open Water Course came first, covering all the basic skills and knowledge needed for safe underwater exploration at 18m. Punta Dive are lucky to have four dive centres and two dive boats on the island, as well as two beaches suitable for diving from the shore. These are protected from jellyfish by natural reefs and provide perfect confined water areas for beginners.

The second course is Advanced Open Water, this is where the diving gets more thrilling. The course gives you the chance to explore using different gases, deep diving and caves. As well as giving you the knowledge to start identifying different fish and plants and developing buoyancy skills. The best thing about this course is there are no exams!

The next level is Rescue Diver, this as you would expect concentrates mostly on rescue skills. What to do if issues arise underwater and on the surface. This goes hand in hand with the Emergency First Responder first aid course also included. These valuable skills can be transferred to almost all environments.

Finally begins the Divemaster course, this takes approximately a month to complete and gives you all the knowledge, skills and experience needed to go out there and begin a dive career. Well almost, it’s a bit like getting your driving licence, you get all you basics, but you progress as you continue, the more you do it the more you learn. Even if a career as a dive instructor is not what you are looking for, there are many jobs out there requiring dive skills: research, photography, documentary filming, working in an aquarium, the list is huge. This opportunity opened so may doors for me. I met many new friends within the industry, including potential employers. I was also then privy to exclusive job adverts using my PADI professional number on the PADI Pro website.

A typical day started with preparing equipment for Discover Scuba Diving sessions. Then assisting them into the water and helping them through their first underwater experience. Followed by a nice lunch in the shade of a palm tree, maybe a quick nap, before fetching equipment for an afternoon boat trip. Punta Dive also sell Discover Scuba Diving sessions at local hotel pools, so when I wanted to learn some selling and marketing skills, I could. Further plumping out my CV.

But it’s not all work work work, Ibiza is a notorious party island, where the term ‘superclub’ was born. Amnesia, Eden, Es Paradis and Space to name but a few. Yet this is just one part of the island. With its scorching sun, clear waters and white sands, all kinds of crowds are drawn. For such a small island (smaller than Wales) it houses so many diverse environments: deep red dusty lands, craggy cliffs and lush green forest. There are ‘hippy markets’ all over the island selling hand crafted goods and chilled out beach bars.

I stayed directly opposite Murphy’s Irish bar and was able to work there in order to fund staying on in Ibiza and volunteer my diving skills, enabling me to gain more experience. The bar had live music every night played by the house band and a restaurant on the side serving authentic Indian meals.

I would advise anyone who can afford to, to take this chance. Or even if you can’t, find a way, save your loan, save your wages, do whatever you can, this course will change your life!

JAWS was out at the movies and my mum and dad thought it would be a good idea to let me swim with sharks, they thought if I wasn’t eaten then at least there would be silence whilst I was underwater.

So off to the local dive school I went and enrolled in the PADI Open Water course. I was the youngest in the class and the instructor took me under his wing and taught me the basics of diving. It was awesome and I knew that I had found my vocation in life from the moment I put my head underwater.

The weekends became a thing I looked forward to again; as golf was no longer an option and the waters of Sydney were heaving with sea life.

School holidays were the best fun and with the dive club we went on holidays around the coast of New South Wales and I slowly became the mascot of the dive club. I didn’t have to carry bottles, just go and get coffees and bacon sandwiches for the other divers once the dives were done. The guys didn’t mind that I never gave them their change back because they new I was putting it towards buying some dive kit and before too long I had all that I needed.

My brother got a golf set so I thought it was only fair that when I was short a few quid to get the best equipment available that mum and dad would pay the difference.
In Sydney like Ibiza nearly every house has a swimming pool so when I wasn’t diving I was practicing in the pool trying to perfect my trade. Dad took advantage of this and before I new it I was cleaning the bottom of my pool as well as the neighbours pools. Money for old rope I thought, diving and making money was it possible!

Winter arrived and the rugby boots came out but diving was never to far away from my mind and with the first signs of warmth I was straight into my kit. To my surprise though the kit didn’t fit as my growing spurts where erratic and the whole cycle of dodging giving change back started again.

As I was getting bigger and stronger I was carrying tanks and by the time I was 18 I was ready for my Dive Master course.

At 18 other things started to take precedent over diving like the 3 W´s…Work, Women and Worry, but diving was one of those things that I couldn’t shake, it was in my blood and I needed a fix every now and again.

By the time I was 19 I was plucked from the comfort zone of Sydney and was sent to England for work. In search of a social network I went diving to see what it was like, but coming from the warm waters and never having dived in a dry suit before I didn’t enjoy it, I didn’t see the point, cold, dark and the bacon sandwiches just didn’t do it for me.

Holidays became the only outlet I had for diving and Ibiza was one of those holidays. A week of raving and maybe I would get some dives in along the way. Well I got that wrong, it became a week of diving and I didn’t even see a club the whole time I was out here. Ibiza became my dream home and after 10 years I can honestly say that I am not going anywhere, why would I, great dives, great food and no sharks.

At 13 I had no idea of the places I would see in the world. I have worked in Diving in many places including Fiji, Thailand, Hawaii, Red Sea, Malaysia, Turkey and Greece
and I used my dive ticket as the portal to my travels. This was all due the fact that I was a restless kid who hated the idea of golf.

It is for these reasons that Punta Dive is offering a family package of diving for all residents and Sun readers who have a teenage child who is struggling to find things to do over the summer break. In diving there are huge possibilities and it is a trade you can take anywhere in the world. The PADI Dive master certification will open doors for you and the community of diving is a friendly and professional.

Come and see us at our Cala Martina centre and see what it is like to be part of a team and enjoy everything that Ibiza offers underwater.
Who knows where this could take you as diving doesn’t just stop with teaching diving it could lead you onto a commercial course, technical course, diving on the oil rigs or building ports the possibilities are endless.

Even though I am Australian and some people might think this has some bias but the answer has to be Australia. Even though the Red Sea has the best diving in general the best dive I have ever had was at a place called South West Rocks in the north of New South Wales.Located just off the coast from a sleepy little village called Forster you catch a boat and within 5 minutes you on top of a small island, similar to the islands dotted around Ibiza.

The guides are all hippies and don’t rush you in anyway but boy do these guys know their way around the dive sites. You drop off the boat and follow these long haired skinny fish into a cave that is completely dark. You turn your torch on and you think to yourself, they lied this isn’t a cave this is a tunnel about the same size that Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson crawled through to escape from the Germans in WWII.

The heart rate increases, and before you know it the shadows that are cast off the wall start to make you wish you has followed their advice and use the toilet before departing.
Then something bumps you and that’s it, the flood gates open but it was nothing to be alarmed about, it was only a GROUPER the size of a VW that has come to see what has disturbed its sleep.

Then it gets interesting, the tunnel finally turns into a cave, big enough to now turn around to see if your wife is still behind you or has she been taken by a mysterious serpent that takes great enjoyment in leaving a man without any way of feeding himself. She is still there and we hold hands to confirm our love or so that to help each other to stop shaking. What a trip!

The light at the end of the tunnel gets bigger and brighter and the nerves start to calm down and the your breathing slowly return to normal. You look at your gauge and are amazed at how long you have actually been underwater and how much air you have consumed. Seriously you go through air here quicker than in any other place I have dived because of the fear factor.

Then you are finally illuminated and can see your fins at last and you begin to feel that the worst of best however you want to look at it is over. The guide turns to you and asks if you are OK and of course you say yes because the last thing in the world right now is to have a man made out of match sticks thinking you are soft. He winks at you and you think it is a sign of respect or congratulations but it is his way of putting you into a false sense of security.
The fun part as they say is about to start.

Penny (my wife) and I are smiling thinking all is going to be OK but like a double ending to a horror movie you turn around the corner and are confronted but at least 40 sharks. Oh My God. These aren’t small little reef sharks these are sharks that like flesh of any kind. Not known recently for taken humans but are graded in the top 5 most dangerous sharks in Australia, behind of cause the Great White, Tiger, Mako, and Bull Shark. These things are called Bronze Whalers look them up…… man eaters.

40 of them and they are all facing us. This is because they are facing into a current and we are in the current sailing towards them. They face the current so the oxygen passes over their gills and they don’t have to move. And here we are being propelled towards them at a rate of knots in a wetsuit full of nerve juice. Mmmm I am sure that somewhere I read that sharks are attracted to this and can pick up on the sent.

Also I read that sharks can sense fear. We felt like human pin balls bumping of these man eater. It was this point I realised why all the guides were so skinny, because all the fat ones had been eaten. I’m 130kg and I am seriously starting to piss them off as they probably aren’t happy with the fact that I am hitting them all and disturbing their chill out time.
Dory made it through the jellyfish in Finding Nemo, we can do it.

Then something in my peripheral vision caught my attention, its Penny and she is fining past me head down and kicking like a mule, go for it Penny you go first, better you than me, but I grab her and slow her down, not because I’m a gentleman but I need her. I’m useless without her like most men. We get though the pack of hungry wolves and look behind us, but low and behold they have all turned and are now facing us again. Are we in a vortex or are these guys ready to attack.

To the boat, this is not fun anymore this is quite possibly anybodies worst nightmare. Safety stops done and the boat in reach we start to surface. The guy on the boat is having a beer and really not paying attention to our needs. We ask him to lower the ladder and in an Australian county accent he says “ladders broke mate”, you will have to take you kit off in the water and pass it up.

Great more time in hell!

Penny you go first Ill wait for the inevitable. But please for the love of god hurry up. Penny gets on the boat; I’m still in the water and starting to pray. The guides in the boat as well and I’m like how did you get in their so quick, he says the ladder you asked for is broke but the other one on the other side of the boat works great.
You bastards!

I get on the boat and take my kit off and look at these guys and ask what was all that about. City folk they say, we like to wind you up a bit. Thanks mate but I felt like shark boat out there. No mate they only feed at night this lot, in the day time they are really peaceful and almost in a state of unconsciousness, they won’t hurt you, we dive here everyday and nothing ever happens.

The boat trip back was not quick enough for me but before we knew it we were laughing as the adrenalin started to subside. They guides were funny as hell and told us that they do this most days and everybody reacts pretty much the same way. They don’t have a night club up there and the bars are rubbish so they have to get their kicks somehow. To our surprise we were back on the dive boat again the next morning and having already done the dive once we were chomping at the bit to get back in the water. There were 3 other divers on the boat as well and we let them go first. The dive guides went through the same routine and having once been a victim to their sense of humour I felt for them but realised that these guys new what they were doing and that if it was good for me then it was good for everybody especially if they were city folk.

Although I have dived all over the world, this dive was the best for emotional reasons as there were so many highs and lows but to be surrounded but 40 man eaters, and being a lover of big fish, this dive will take a lot of beating. Penny rates it as well but I think the next time we dive somewhere with country folk she will send me out there first and stay on the beach with the baby before she commits to a dive in a new centre.

For any further information about Punta Dive go to email us or call Nick on 660 919 532

Look forward to seeing you underwater soon,
Nick the fish……

When the answer finally arrived that the Don Pedro would stay put it sent a wave through the tourism industry of Ibiza, however this wave has turned into a trickle because people have been too concerned with the current economic crisis in the world and have shied away from investing into marketing and publicity.

For years there had been an underlying tone about revamping tourism on the sunny island but there wasn’t anything else that Ibiza could offer except for its famous nightlife.

Punta Dive, Ibiza biggest dive group since 2008 has financed several dive magazines from around Europe to come out and do articles on the Monster of the Med and has had a good response however these articles are only on the stands for a month at a time and like all forms of advertising they can only be reached by the people who see them.

Ibiza is in serious need of a promotion campaign that will touch the broader audience and show that Ibiza has more to offer than its world famous discos.

The Don Pedro could be just this attraction that Ibiza needs, as the diver market is ever growing and the majority of divers are fanatics especially those who dive in cold water ever weekend in the cold lakes and quarries’ of Europe.

Just 2 hours flying time from most parts of Europe and with Ryan Air flying 3 times a week form Stanstead in the winter Ibiza and the Don Pedro would become a natural destination for these hardy divers who are use to diving in cold waters.

In 1980 the Zenobia a ferry sank on her maiden voyage out of the sleepy fishing village of Larnaca in Cyprus and helped reform tourism on the island. And to this day has clubs from Europe diving her week in week out through the whole year. Apart from the Zenobia, Cyprus as a dive destination has nothing to offer and only in recent years has Ayia Napa has become a party hotspot.

Punta Dive is looking for the Don Pedro to become widely known and believes with this one ship wreck could help reform Ibiza and attract tourism from another sector of the market that it really doesn’t touch.

Ibiza is in such a unique position in that divers who normally travel in groups whether it be family of other divers are natural explores and once here will help fuel the economy as well as other local business that are reliant on tourism for their way of life.

Also we would like to thank all the people who showed up fro the FREE Discover Scuba Diving course held last week. It was a great result and we made some new friends who are now well on their way to becoming certified divers.

For any further information about Punta Dive email us or call Nick on 660 919 532

Look forward to seeing you underwater soon,
Nick the fish……

I lived in England for several years before I came to Ibiza and joined a local dive club.

The people were friendly like in most dive centres and they invited me to join them on a dive.

It was November and the air temp was getting low but the guys made me feel welcome and assured that the water wasn’t that cold. They told me that they had kit to fit me and that even though I hadn’t dived in a dry suit before that it would be alright. They would run through a few skills on how to control my buoyancy with a bubble of air wrapped around me.
Alright no worries! I was already a Dive Master and when I arrived to the dive shop at 6am ready for the 3 hour car journey to a pit in the middle of nowhere I was told that they needed a victim for a rescue course that they were running.
Cool should be fun. I pity the guy who has to drag me up the beach.
We arrived at this pit and I was amazed at how many other dive centres had converged on this god awful place. All I could see was steam coming of people’s heads, coffee in everybody’s hand and fat balding men checking out all the divers who arrived.  It was like a Hell Angel’s convention and there were some guys walking around as if they were god’s gift to diving.  Talking to people about the new equipment that they had just bought and how their dry suit would withstand the worst artic conditions.
Being a new boy in the group and coming up from London we were bound to get the Mickey taken out of us. Friendly jokes, but if you read between the lines laced with venom.
Ok time to get suited up.

Apparently I am deceptive in stature and the dive leader had packed a wetsuit for me that was made for a normal man. Not an ex rugby playing Ozzie who scales stop at 120.
Thanks any talc guys. I’m pretty sure that ill need some Vaseline to get into this one.
Like all good centres there was a spare on hand, take this fatty said one of the bearded, bald divers who had more badges on his bag than a scout leader.  I grabbed it and put it on.
A dry suit hey, the wind was cold but again I was assured that the water would be warmer.

During the dive briefing we were told that the bottom was mud and that we had to keep our buoyancy as neutral as possible. Makes sense!

Ozzie we need you to go and lose yourself at the bottom and we will send this guy out to find you. Don’t worry we will give him an idea of where you are.
The adrenaline was pumping I was going to be part of a rescue, ok I was the victim but I was in the team.

Bald bloke zip me up if you would mate I’m about to go in, ok came the response, have you used one of these before, no, never but she will be right mate.
I jumped in the water and I am floating like an oversized Michelin man and I am not going down, more weight please.
20 kilos later I am starting to sink, little by little but it is a struggle. Starting to sweat I finally become vertical and pull the purge valve on my dry suit and begin to feel better. I am sinking faster but starting to feel cold. My hands are frozen and I look at them to see that I have not only purged the valve I have pulled it of completely. My dry suit is now flooded and I am sinking. Going down!
I hit the bottom and the mud gets disturbed and within seconds the hands that I can’t feel become invisible.
Ok no worries I’m a big boy, stop, think and breathe you will be alright, and besides they are coming to find me anyway as part of the rescue course.
The seconds seem like minutes and the minutes seem like hours but I am breathing, I’m part of a team and the pros up stairs will find me soon.
Come on guys whenever you are ready. I’m starting to shake a bit here.
My prayers are answered, contact is made but from an unlikely friend, not my rescuer but some other diver who is doing some fun diving. What is fun about this? I grab his leg and feel him jump; obviously he didn’t expect somebody tugging at his new fins.
You Ok, no I’m not, I’m frozen and my rescuer is probably ordering his second coffee, so if we could get out of here I would be ever so happy.
With his help we start to ascend through the dark water and into the murky, I can see light but it is still to far away. I’m frozen now and am not well pleased to be still in this hell hole. I though hell was meant to be hot with sulphur and fire not, somewhere that an iceberg would feel at home.
Finally on the surface and my savour is there. He comes to me and says I was just on my way down to see you, cheers geezer but I don’t need your help any more I just want a hot shower. You will be lucky mate, no hot showers here, what do you think we are in a 5 start resort. FANTASTIC!
We get back on land and after removing my wet dry suit I start to get myself warm, by any means possible.
A cup of coffee is on hand but my hands are still shaking and I manage to spill most of it over myself, probably giving myself 3rd degree burns.
I don’t care; I thought diving was meant to be fun.

Then bald bloke says, you will have to pay for that, you broke my purge valve. Ill break something else mate if your not lucky, I though that this was the best dry suit on the market, I sincerely hope it’s under guarantee mate.

At no point did I feel in danger, but I learnt some valuable lessons, which was never rely on anybody else to pack your dive bag and never dive in conditions you aren’t use to without at least having a local orientation.

If you are going to use a dry suit, practice in one first in a swimming pool and by all means don’t ever listen to a bald, fat guy who throws you a wetsuit.
My diving experience in England was limited to a few dives because of several reasons but the biggest was that I saw no fun in getting up early in the morning to dive in a mud pit that had no life except for moss growing on the rocks. The next reason is because a dry suit for me seems pointless, I’m sure that there are some that can handle anything that’s thrown at it but why oh why would you bother.

There are some many things to see all around the world and the majority of dives can be done in water that requires a wetsuit, or a semi dry at a push, just like Ibiza.
Diving by and large is a safe sport, that if done well will bring happiness to you and those around you, but you should never try and go it alone especially if you don’t have the experience for the area you are diving in.

After this experience I was not put of diving, I grew to respect it more and stopped being reckless and started to be aware of the potential problems that you may come across.
This was only the worst dive ever because everything seemed to go wrong from the start. I felt a little bit of peer pressure and was rushed before the dive. The water was too cold and a leaky dry suit is no fun for anybody especially if it is in water that is in single digits.
Bring on the warm waters of Ibiza and dive at your own pace.

For any further information about Punta Dive go to www.puntadive.com or call Nick on 660 919 532

Look forward to seeing you underwater soon,
Nick the fish……