Neill, Head of Dive in Style, and Amber, Intern Extraordinaire recount their very different experiences of learning to dive.

Amber

I'm an Aquarius so water is in my blood and I couldn't wait to get qualified and take the plunge. So aged 16, I teamed up with a local PADI dive centre to start learning to dive. I spent the following two weekends in a classroom and in the local pool completing all the pool and theory work.

The fact that I was standing on the edge of a slightly dilapidated pool in an oversized t-shirt (I think it had Garfield on it!) feeling a little self-conscious disappeared as soon as I took that giant stride into the pool and took my first underwater breath.

Despite sounding like Darth Vader, the moment I was in the water, all the heavy equipment became weightless and I loved every second of it. My dive instructors were fantastic at making sure everyone was happy and performing their skills to the standard expected, and all of the classroom theory became worth it.

Then came the open water bit. Let's just say I wouldn't recommend diving in Portsmouth in November in a wetsuit! One good thing I suppose is that after that experience is that it makes all the wonderful ones I have had since even better.

Neill

My first experience of learning to dive was very different to Amber's. I was on a boat on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia on Boxing Day 1998. Asked if I wanted to try a dive, I immediately said yes. Three of us were taken down to a bar beneath the boat and told to hold on so see whether we liked the sensation of being underwater. The two other people I was with had a few problems but I had never felt more comfortable. And so it began.

As soon as I got back to dry land I signed up to do my PADI Open Water Diver course and the Advanced course in Airlie Beach on the Whitsundays. The sun was shining, the visibility was great, there was incredible coral and marine life everywhere, and to top it all off I developed a childish crush on my ex-model instructor. I dread to think how she felt about the chubby 18 year-old hanging on her every word.

Each dive was better than the next and the Advanced Open Water Diver course, which I completed on a liveaboard, was amazing. The only slightly negative of the whole thing were the post-qualification celebrations back on dry-land which, in typical Brit-in-Oz style ended up horribly debauched.

So my first experiences of learning to dive set the scene for the last 12 years of obsessive diving, and I haven't looked back.

Dive in Style is offering a Free PADI Open Water Diver Course to all clients booking a trip before the end of April 2011 for travel in 2011. Terms and conditions apply.

Dive in Style is offering a Free PADI Open Water Diver Course to all clients booking a trip before the end of April 2011 for travel in 2011. Terms and conditions apply.