I’ve always had an interest in the world of diving, and finally in 2020, having some free time available, I made the decision to take my first PADI course.

I went looking for a PADI dive center and among the many I found Evasioni Blu Diving, a 5-Star IDC PADI center. One of Evasioni Blu Diving‘s diving locations is on Ustica. Ustica is a small, wonderful volcanic island off the Sicilian coast where Italy’s first Marine Protected Area was established, and it’s a destination for countless diving enthusiasts.

Here I had the pleasure of meeting Rino and Esther, two exceptional PADI instructors who not only teach, but pass on their passion for the sea and scuba diving.

I took them as role models right from the start. And it was with them that I continued my training in this world that fascinates me so much: diving and scuba diving.

Having finished my first diving course, and certified as a PADI Open Water Diver, I went back to London for work, but something was missing…

Struck by Ustica, its wonderful dives and what I had been taught, I decided to return to Evasioni Blu Diving in Ustica to earn my advanced certification with the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course.

My experience with the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course

The PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course sparked such a strong interest right away that it led me to finish reading the “PADI Adventures in Diving” manual in a single day!

This diving course gives you the chance to reach greater diving depths, which intrigues me a lot. In addition, you develop new diving skills that make dives much more rewarding and help you gain greater confidence.

In the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course you get a first taste of the various PADI specialties available in the world of diving, including: underwater photography, cave diving, wreck diving, fish identification, and many other so-called PADI adventure dives.

Beyond the mandatory PADI adventure dives of “underwater navigation” and “deep diving,” you can choose 3 PADI adventure dives. I decided to try the search and recovery adventure dive, the night dive, and the peak performance buoyancy dive.

At the Cala Galera dive site in Ustica, I began practicing and properly using the underwater compass during my underwater navigation lesson. And despite the distraction of the schools of sea bream and an enormous dusky grouper, which kept pulling my eyes away from the compass, I still managed to find my way during my dive.

I learned to perfect my buoyancy during dives, which I think is very useful for every diver! Trust me, it’s better to be a diver with stable buoyancy than to look like a drifting buoy.

Afterwards, during my search and recovery adventure dive, I also learned different techniques for locating and recovering various types of objects lost underwater.

This dive combines many diving skills, from buoyancy to underwater navigation to controlling the buoyancy of the recovered object by adjusting the amount of air in the lift bag.

It’s a great sense of satisfaction to manage all this underwater! And anyone who likes “treasure hunting” will definitely have a lot of fun during this adventure dive!

My night dive was an exciting experience that let me observe the marine world in a completely different way than usual. You’d imagine you’d see little or nothing during a night dive, but marine life seems to wake up during the darkest hours, and it’s wonderful to be able to admire it. The octopuses, crabs and lobsters coming out of their dens, and the barracudas darting through the water hunting…

Finally, I managed to complete the long-awaited goal, namely my deep dive and reaching 30 meters.

It was an incredible feeling! Looking up above your head and seeing a ceiling of water that seems never-ending. That sense of lightness, silence and peace took me far away from the chaos and hustle of a city like London.

I recommend everyone continue their diver training after earning the first-level PADI Open Water Diver certification.

Andrea Denaro

27 years old

Head chef

London, UK

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