Pt.1 – The Journey To The Master Seal
Text by Jeremy Cuff/www.ja-universe.com
Photography by Jeremy & Amanda Cuff/www.ja-universe.com
When Amanda and I first got into diving, the spark didn’t light immediately, but when it did two or three years later, it powered a diving odyssey that took us to places that we’d almost certainly never have visited without that “diving reason”. That journey is now being undertaken by our 10 year old son Zac. Here’s Part 1 of his story of becoming a diver, the journey to becoming a PADI Master Seal…
Anyone with a young child (or children) will know that if you want to maintain interests such as diving, it’s not easy. You’ve really got to want to do it, and find a way to incorporate it into an already busy and hectic life. As we’ve always wanted to keep doing it, our way has been to involve Zac in what we’ve been doing. Kids love being taken on adventures; we would see where they might lead us.
The First Time In The Sea, Corsica
Since Zac was a baby, aged around 3 months, we started taking him to the swimming pool on a regular basis. We thought that being comfortable and confident in the water was an important life skill, and besides, we might be able to tempt him to dive with us later on.
In the autumn of 2003 as relatively new parents, and in a determined “let’s carry on our life mode” Amanda and I (with a 7 month old Zac in tow) attended a course in the south of France with renowned underwater photographer Kurt Amsler to hone our image making skills. After that, we visited Corsica for a week, staying in the excellent town of Calvi.
It was here that Zac had his first experience of the sea, just off the beach in flat calm water under blue skies. As I shot some images of this, it was amusing to see his chubby little “drumsticks” kicking away whilst Amanda held him. This was the true beginning of his diving journey.
Swimming Pools, Sea & Snorkelling (Various Locations)
As we continued with our dive travels, we ensured that Zac came with us where possible, allowing him to participate in what was going on. Sometimes we would enlist the help of Amanda’s mum (Grandma), getting her to travel with us to longer haul destinations so that Zac could be looked after whilst we dived.
The spin-off of these trips was that Zac would get to travel, often to very interesting places, and get to witness plenty of diving. As we were seldom far from water, he would get to experience various swimming pools and sometimes have opportunities to get into the sea, often armed with a mask and snorkel. It was great for building his confidence in the water. We also were able to teach him about some of the species that we were seeing on our dives, by showing him our own images and by using species identification books.
Zac’s first ever snorkel was at the excellent Lady Elliot Island in Australia aged 4, where he was able to see coral reefs and schools of fish. This coincided with the time that he watched “Finding Nemo” a lot, so the timing was perfect.
We were able to share some great times with him during this period, where the world and its infinite possibilities were opening up before him.
The Cayman Aggressor Family Week – A Big Milestone
Things stepped up a gear when we discovered the family week liveaboards run by the Aggressor Fleet in the Caribbean. It seemed like the perfect idea for families like ours, so we checked the dates, found that the Cayman Aggressor worked best with the UK school summer holidays and after consulting Zac, we made the booking. He would be 6 years old at the time of the trip.
The liveaboard itself was a source great thrill for Zac, with the steep staircase leading downstairs to our cabin along the narrow corridor, the dive deck with his own space, and the hot tub on the sun deck. Within seconds he’d laid claim to the top bunk and began making it feel like home as various toys spilled out from his backpack. We could forget any ideas about privacy, but that’s alright, it would be great fun.
The family week itinerary is based on the normal “grown ups” trip, but with a few subtle tweaks to make it more “child friendly” both onboard and in the water. Basically, you spend the first night and following day off Grand Cayman before making the crossing to the best diving at Little Cayman, where you spend most of the time, plus a visit to Cayman Brac, before heading back to Grand Cayman.
By the time we had reached Little Cayman, my cool diving dad status (probably imaginary!) had been downgraded as Captain Henri became Zac’s new hero. He would sometimes say “the best captain in the world” of “the best boat in the world”. It’s certainly true that the crew were very friendly, encouraging and patient with Zac, and as a parent you felt completely relaxed about him being onboard and well looked after when you were diving.
At Little Cayman, Zac would get his first opportunity to emulate a “real” diver. He would attend the dive briefing and be shown how to kit up, check air and so on. He would then enter the water with a crew member using a SASY (Supplied Air Snorkelling for Youth) setup which is a self contained regulator and tank, but for surface swimming only. With this equipment, a child can thus breathe through a regulator like a diver, check air and view the reefs from above, but without the snorkel filling with water. He enjoyed a superb encounter with a grouper and some yellow tailed snapper, helped by a liberal sprinkling of food by the crew.
It was a great step towards becoming a diver. We watched Zac perfect his giant stride entry and laughed as he begged Captain Henri to “give me some weights”. On one of his SASY “dives”, he went with Sam on a “scooter” – a motorised torpedo like device that propels you through the water.
Between dives, parents and kids can do as little or as much as they like. Divers can use kayaks to go for a paddle, or go ashore. I took Zac over to land on Little Cayman for a spot of beach combing. Other times, he would hang out with Jonathan the chef, watch DVDs, or have a dip in the hot tub. The crew can also organise microscopes for studying water samples and teach sea life identification from guidebooks.
After each trip, the crew post a trip report on the Aggressor website which Zac eagerly awaited, and to his delight they used an image of him at Stingray City to illustrate the week. The crew also filmed the activities of the week (underwater and above) to produce a trip DVD for anyone who’s interested. Our copy has been watched countless times by Zac since our return home and is a testimony to how much he learned and benefitted from the trip that was adventure, fun and education all rolled into one. For a long time after the trip, he insisted that any visitor to our house watched it!
Great Barrier Reef “Reef Teach”/Snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef from the Pro-Dive Liveaboard, Cairns
With the success of the Cayman Aggressor under our belt, more things became possible. In researching an itinerary for our 2010 Australia trip, we established that the Cairns based Prodive liveaboards that visit the Great Barrier Reef will accept children and non-divers onboard, so we decided to take Zac (then 7 years old) and Grandma.
In Cairns, we decided to go to one of the excellent Reef Teach seminars the evening before departure. It’s aimed at both adults and children, with the objective of teaching visitors more about the Great Barrier Reef. It’s usually presented by locally based marine biologists and gives visitors fascinating insights into life beyond the esplanade. Zac was especially intrigued by the specimen jars and enjoyed the coral and fish identification aspects, which he carried forward on to the liveaboard itself by taking identification slates when snorkelling.
Unlike the “family week” trips, the crew were unable organise any special activities due to the number of passengers. Grandma, it turned out, found the trip a bit of an ordeal by spending time sporadically puking into a sick bag, something Zac still reminds her about today!
I sat out a couple of dives so that I could take Zac snorkelling, ensuring that he didn’t miss out on some of the action. When we were diving, he would sometimes snorkel with a Singaporean couple who were happy to go with him. In between times, he would get a chance to feed a “boat friendly” napoleon wrasse from the dive deck.
Bubblemaking in Bandos, Maldives
Though the Maldives are most certainly a suitable destination for children, not many of the islands are really set up for families wishing to dive, or for those with a modest budget. After some research, we found that the best answer for us was a mere fifteen minute speedboat transfer from the airport in the form of Bandos Resort, a long established island, popular with families, but with decent diving.
The Bandos dive centre offers the PADI Bubblemaker course for 8-9 year old children which we enthusiastically signed Zac up for, even though he didn’t need persuading. We assumed that the course would be conducted in the main swimming pool, but once he’d been briefed at the dive centre and kitted up, along with a young French boy called Liam who was also doing the course, we discovered that their dive would actually be in the sea, on the house reef.
The two boys, under tight supervision from the instructor (who Zac nicknamed “Master Shifu” from the Kung Fu Panda film) enjoyed a superb, and I think somewhat overwhelming experience along the top of the reef wall, seeing a myriad of colourful fish and even a couple of adult black tip reef sharks that cruised the reef a few meters below. After such a unique shared experience, the two boys became friends – we called them the “Bubblemaker Brotherhood”.
It was so enjoyable, that we visited Bandos again the following year (in 2012), this time with our friends Simon and Tonya and their son Thomas, where more “bubblemaking” was the order of the day. On their dive, which lasted about 50 minutes, they had a good encounter with a turtle.
Overall, we found Bandos to be a great choice. The house reef was good, there’s some nice dive sites nearby, the food was good and plentiful, the kids club was open when we needed it, the evening entertainment gave Zac a chance to race hermit crabs and practice his robotic dancing for the talent show, and the rooms were pleasant.
Doing the PADI Master Seal Course & Hosting A Dive Party
Through our local dive centre, The Divezone in Melksham, we signed Zac up for the PADI Seal course, which would take place over a number of weeks at a couple of local swimming pools at Corsham and Melksham. This course, designed specifically for 8 and 9 year olds, is the first step on the PADI diving ladder of true diving qualifications and rewards the successful child with a certification card.
Unlike the PADI Bubblemaker which is more of an experience, the PADI Seal course mixes the fun and experience side of diving with the first steps of learning the required skills. Each week, Zac would attend with the other members of the “seal team” learning various skills such as setting up kit, buoyancy control and regulator removal in the safety of the shallow pools.
In the end, Zac would go for the Master Seal version of the course, which involved demonstrating some extra skills such as underwater photography (perhaps he’s following in our footsteps!). At the end of the course, Zac was delighted with his achievement, proudly showing family and friends his certification card. He had completed his “Journey to the Master Seal”.
During this period, the Divezone team would also run an excellent “Bubblemaker Party” for Zac’s 9th birthday, with ten boys all diving together for the first time. A definite cause for celebration.
Look out for Part 2 of “Getting The Urge To Submerge – A Boy’s (Diving) Story” in an upcoming edition of Sport Diver.