Having had the pleasure of working with Alex, the current Miss Scuba Uk and the other five finalists,
I must admit I feel very privileged.
All the six finalists and MSUK team flew out to Deep Blue in Fuerteventura and had an amazing week over there. Four of the finalists had never dived in open water, the try dive they did before we flew out was their only previous experience. I worked closely with the girls that were doing their SSI Open Water Course both in the classroom and in open water.
Two of the finalists were experienced divers, one a Padi Instructor and the other an Advanced diver. Both dived for fun in the many dive sites that Deep Blue have to offer, plus one of them even managed to add another speciality course to her name.
All the finalists worked very hard to fit in all the studying, photo shoots and other commitments they had to fulfil.
Along with Roland at Deep Blue, we also organised an ocean awareness dive, cleaning the ocean floor of unwanted rubbish, which we collected in abundance, much of which (fishing weights) will be melted down and reused by the dive centre as weights.
The end of the week came very quickly, and Alex was crowned Miss Scuba Uk.
Since winning I have worked closely with Alex and the Miss Scuba UK organisation doing speciality courses and fun dives.
Alex works very hard with all her academics and never complains, she just gets on with the tasks in front of her.
Diving up at Capernwray in mid winter with the water temp at 4 deg is not the most pleasurable experience you could have but we still found time for a laugh.
Alex has progressed from an SSI open Water Diver to a Speciality Diver, completing her Drysuit Speciality, Wreck Speciality and recently Nitrox 40% Speciality, along with clocking up more than 12 dives in the UK alone.
In the coming weeks we will be taking Alex through the Diver Stress and Rescue along with the React Right Specialities and of course there will be some more fun dives in UK waters.
We are hoping to dive the Farnes and St Abbs with Alex which are always fun.
In addition to her busy schedule here and planned overseas diving, I look forward to helping Alex gain more skills and experience in the future and hopefully getting her to Master Diver within her reign as Miss Scuba UK.
I have to thank Jill, Sue and Jaime -Lee as MSUK directors for giving me this opportunity, their professionalism and organising is second to none.
The care and attention to detail for all the finalists was very impressive, while still managing to have fun themselves too.
Now moving forward this years pageant is almost upon us. I look forward to meeting the 2018 finalists as well as our trip to Deep Blue in Fuerteventura.
Once again I will be working closely with MSUK team in the run up to the 2018 event in the UK and with the team at Deep Blue Diving in Fuerteventura.
Untill then!