I dream of diving...

When I realised my path in life led underwater I at first had no idea where to turn.

It’s not exactly a common path to go down, and especially so as an Icelander, even though we have some great divers I met later through my career.

I started by emailing Kilroy about their education programs. I was fast set on becoming a professional diver from the first time I heard about it.
They were of course happy to help and told me about this wonderful program in the Philippines with a non-profit called Marine Conservation Philippines. It’s run by a Danish couple, Helle & Søren, who also were inspired to leave the ocean a better place.

The program they offered a combined education of PADI Advanced Open Water, PADI Rescue Diver & PADI Divemaster.
I had decided that I wanted to know my country first underwater so I signed up for the beginner course (PADI Open Water) with a small diving company in Iceland called Diving Island.

During my first class I of course had to familiarise myself with the equipment, do some E-learning and make sure I got comfortable just breathing through a regulator, which can take some getting used to, so I was happy we were just in a swimming pool that had enough depth for the exercises.
After that we went for our first open water dive, which was in Þingvallavatn, the biggest lake in Iceland and in my opinion it went pretty well for a first time diver.

Next up was a trial by the land of fire & ice...

My 2nd open water dive was a little bit rough. I went with my instructor to do my dive in Kleifarvatn, a geothermal lake in the South West of Iceland.
It might sound warm, but as it’s a big lake and a small amount of geothermal water coming in it every day, it was only about 10°C.
Thankfully, in a dry suit that would usually be quite warm.
However, as soon as we were ready to go, Iceland decided to show me a harsh welcome into the dry suit side of diving.

The lake had a soft silky bottom which can feel like quicksand when you’re carrying a 30kg steel tank on your back.
I somehow ended up flat on my back and basically had to turtle roll my way into the water to continue my lesson, which must’ve looked like a scene from a slapper comedy.
We dove down and started the exercises which thankfully I did well in but little did I know that the lesson was far from over.

We went up to the surface where we started backstroke back to shore, but as soon as we started swimming - immediate HAIL STORM!
And yes, directly in our faces as we struggled against the windy waves swimming back to shore.
I just couldn’t help but laugh when we finally made it back. It must’ve been a little test from the universe to make sure that this was really something that I wanted to do.
And yes, in fact, it really was and still is.

I figured if THIS wouldn’t stop me from chasing my dream of becoming a diver, nothing ever would stand in my way.

Thankfully, the rest of my education took place in the Philippines, but more on that later