PADI OPEN WATER DIVER COURSE

Welcome under the sea.  We – Fabien, Dani and Laura, took advantage of free time given by the project to do something long waited and dreamed of – Open Water diving course. Just hundred meters from our volunteer’s house located in the small port, Marina della Lobra, we spent one week in The Punta Campanella Diving Centre learning, practicing and exploring the world of scuba diving.

The PADI Open Water Diver course is the world’s most popular and widely recognized scuba course. This course consists of three main phases: knowledge development to understand basic principles of scuba diving, confined Water Dives to learn basic scuba skills, open Water Dives to use learned skills and explore. Together with our instructors Gianluigi, Lisa and Victoria we learned theory, important rules, usage of equipment and preparation for dive. We did a lot of exercise to be confident and prepared for the underwater discovery.

Diving is an incredible encountering with sea which makes you feel like part of another world. It is the feeling of flying between the aquatic world. This experience brought us in deeper and more sensitive relationship between us and Mediterranean Sea. In summer we are living on kayaks in Bay of Ieranto on the top of dark blue waters. We are protecting the aquatic life against human impact. The direct observation of these blue waters, the chance to perceive beauty and colors of this world is very important when it comes to work for such a long time being above the waters. To be able to comprehend in more personal sense that under the dark blue there is nothing to fear, there is no danger just life of constant movement, paradise of peace and silence.

We did practice and dives around area of Sorrento Peninsula – Punta di Puolo, Cala di Mitigliano, Vervece.  One of the most incredible participations was diving in area of Vervece which is in protected area of red Zone A. Diving in this area is allowed only with permission. Here we saw fishes like Barracuda, Murena, Dentice, Salpa, Castagnola etc. The feeling was like swimming in a big aquarium, an unique sensation because it is very hard to find a place like this where you can see so many different species in the same place.

Open Water Diver course was so important mostly because our work relates to spreading awareness about marine conservation, and the best way how to talk with people is to find contact with the sea in deeper level in our inner selves. The knowledge we gain will help us in our work. We got very lucky to be able to compare diving in protected area and area which is affected by humans. While living in Marina Lobra we notice every day hundreds of boats passing by from one side of Peninsula to the other, from Sorrento and Golf of Naples to Capri island and back. These boats are interfering with aquatic life, as well our most painful topic – enquiring and over fishing.

We suggest everyone to try scuba diving at least once in life. There is so much more to learn and see and we hope that this experience will let you be more aware about aquatic life and will make you choose more sustainable ways of living and tourism while traveling.

Thank you team of  Punta Campanella Diving Centre – Gianluigi, Victoria and Liza for this fantastic time!