Dive centre gets behind military

DIVING NEWS

Dive centre gets behind military

Kerrie Eade

OTD owner Kerrie Eade.

Ocean Turtle Diving (OTD) of Basingstoke, Hampshire has become the first PADI dive-centre in the UK to sign the Armed Forces Covenant. The move is described as a commitment to provide practical support for existing and former military personnel in recognition of their value to the nation.

OTD, one of the UK’s three PADI 5* Career Development Centres, has pledged to offer personnel and their families a range of support and services, including discounted scuba-diving courses. It will also be working with local Combined Cadet Force schools to arrange dive-trips and training.

The centre specialises in training divers who might otherwise feel deterred by physical or mental barriers from taking up scuba as a recreational activity.

Owner Kerrie Eade, a PADI Platinum Course Director and Elite Instructor, is an instructor-trainer in adaptive techniques. She and her OTD team offer bespoke training programmes to meet the individual needs of divers including amputees and those with mental-health issues.

“Being under water is a well-known healer; the benefits of being in nature and slow, deep breathing are well-documented, and those with physical disabilities are able to be free and independent,” says Eade, describing the opportunity to work with veterans and service-leavers as “an absolute privilege for the entire team”.

“Over the years I have been lucky enough to see many serving and ex-service men and women learn to dive, go on to great things and become instructors themselves,” she said. “Learning to scuba dive has been life-changing for so many people who have benefited both physically and mentally.”

Former Royal Green Jackets veteran Paul Ungi, now a support manager with Capita at the Army National Recruitment Centre in Wiltshire, recently completed a PADI Reactivate course with OTD. Much of his previous diving had been undertaken while serving in Northern Ireland, but he had left the military in 1998 facing mental-health challenges.

“For me to take that step to introduce myself to Ocean Turtle took a giant leap of faith and confidence, but without doing so I would not have been able to complete my Reactivate Course and regain my confidence,” he says.

7 November 2020

“The water helps with my mental-health issues and I know that when I’m in the water, whether under it, on top of it or by it, the stresses of life ease and I feel so much more positive.”

Ungi is saving for a drysuit to continue his UK diving, although he says he is also keen to experience warmwater wreck-diving: “Although I do still suffer with issues, completing the PADI Reactive Course has been just the tonic to get me back where I want to be – under the sea!”

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