About Us
We are unique to the UK dive market in offering remote and far-flung destinations with liveaboards, resorts, and dive centres the world over. At Dive Worldwide we really do have the ultimate diving collection. Africa, South America or the islands of the South Pacific are high up our list and each of us at Dive has our favourites which we would be delighted to talk you through.
Another year has passed and what a busy one it has been. With technology ever-changing at a more frantic pace we are always adapting to meet these developments. I hope you have noticed all the improvements we have been making to our website which I know will be enhanced significantly in the next few months. We have brought to you our up-to-date news and photographs from our own travels, as well as thousands of professional photographs from journalists and our dive centres around the world. I think our most exciting development is the inclusion of video clips from far flung corners of the world. Do watch out for this new and exciting addition and we hope to bring many more inspiring developments throughout next year - so, as they say, watch this space....
Not content with sitting in the office, we have again been out exploring and testing new destinations to offer to you. Earlier this year I went to Guatemala and Belize and was blown away by the spectacular scenery and awesome ancient cities in Guatemala, not to mention the hospitality and friendliness shown by the Belizean people. So where else have we been this year? Well the list is getting longer each year; Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Western Samoa, Tonga, Seychelles, Colombia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Tanzania, Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands, Madagascar, Vanuatu, Maldives and Tobago. Many of these trips have formulated the changes in this year's brochure with another 12 pages of wonderful dive itineraries. The main enhancements have been in the Pacific and Indian Oceans with far more areas of Western Samoa, Tonga and New Caledonia added. In the Indian Ocean we have included the Seychelles, Mauritius and Rodrigues. Central America has seen an expansion of our trips in Nicaragua and the addition of Guatemala to our Belize itineraries. Other inclusions are the Andaman Islands and a whole selection of new liveaboards throughout the world.
Last year saw the development of our latest division, Families Worldwide. With this added experience in the office we now have some family friendly dive itineraries to Africa, Indian Ocean and South East Asia - giving children every chance to find out more about the amazing world we live in.
Travelling to different countries really brings home how important it is to preserve our world. With this is mind Dive Worldwide has introduced new initiatives to support the Shark Trust and the option for you to offset your carbon footprint caused by travelling.
I hope you enjoy browsing our website and we look forward to helping tailor-make the holiday of a lifetime for you.
Helen Brown - Dive Consultant
Helen learnt to dive participating in a marine conservation project in Fiji during university. After completing a degree in Tourism, Helen decided to go backpacking and rediscovered her passion for diving. During her three years away, she travelled the globe through South America, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Asia and the Caribbean. She was lucky enough to dive the Great Barrier Reef, the Philippines, Palau, and the Caribbean and by gaining her instructors license, she could teach diving in many of these locations too. She finally decided to come back to the UK and combine the two things in life she loves, diving and travelling and get paid for it! She has been working for Dive Worldwide for two years and during this time she has visited & dived many more destinations such as Fiji, Mozambique & the Red Sea.
Bridget Van der Horst - Dive Consultant
Bridget learnt to dive in 1984 and was a regular UK club diver for many years. In 1990, having decided that diving was her passport to the world, and armed with her newly acquired instructor qualification, Bridget set off for six months in Australia; returning three years later, having worked as an instructor in both Australia and New Zealand. Once back in the UK, Bridget worked as an instructor for two years, taking groups of students up to Stoney Cove at 5am on winter's mornings, plus regularly organising and leading groups of students and experienced divers on trips out to the Red Sea and other countries. When the cold water finally lost its appeal, Bridget headed out to Egypt and the position of chief instructor for a large and busy dive centre. From there she managed a dive centre in Lanzarote before moving to Crete, where she and her husband set up their own dive centre.
Since returning to the UK in 2002, Bridget's dry suit has been hung up, however, she has made regular warm water trips abroad to check out new locations and dive centres. She is now using her vast knowledge and experience to coordinate group and individual travel arrangements for Dive Worldwide and has since also dived in many parts of The Caribbean, Kenya, The Maldives, Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, South Africa, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea and Cape Verde Islands.
Juliet Gush - Dive Consultant
Juliet's passion for travel started at an early age. Coming from a family of airline pilots, she was fortunate enough to spend her childhood holidays in far flung and exotic locations. Her true independent travel began once she left school, visiting South East Asia during a gap year and spending her University holidays abroad. Having learnt to dive in Australia when she was 15 years old she spent 10 years logging dives in various locations around the world before becoming a professional diver. After two years working overseas in Egypt and Thailand as a PADI Instructor, she visited Sulawesi for some incredible diving before returning to the UK to combine her passion for scuba diving with her experiences in the travel industry. Some of the other destinations she has dived include: Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Belize, Zanzibar, Tobago, Grenada, Croatia, Colombia and Mexico. She has yet to fulfill her desire of seeing a Whale Shark!