Scuba Sunday is a feature on scuba divers both here in New Zealand and some of the divers I have come in to contact with from all over the world.

Today’s interview was completed by the Divebunnie herself, Clare Wilders.

While it is slowly warming up here in New Zealand and our season is starting to build, Clare’s is cooling down a wee bit however I don’t think it ever gets quiet in her location.

Clare blogs every few days on her days as an Instructor at Ocean College and the Divebunnie website is full of interesting information for female scuba divers.  Take a look in the Inspiration Dive Divas section – you might see someone you recognise!
The DiveBunnie site has the nicest dive wear for females that I have seen anywhere (I think we should do some teeshirt trading between the two of us!).
Every now and again we catch up via the Scuba Obsessed Podcast (Fridays 3pm-ish NZST) but most of our catching up is done via Twitter.

I’ll stop fluffing around now – here is Clare’s Scuba Sunday ..

Where are you based?

I live in Sharm el Sheikh, which has been a bit of a diving Mecca for the last twenty five years, especially for European divers, as it plays host to our nearest tropical style reefs, and a collection of really quite spectacular and beautiful dive sites.

Why scuba diving?

I used to be a dancer, so love all things physical yet graceful, and wanted to remain active after retiring from my performing career. I also felt completely euphoric after every dive I did at the time, so thought it might be something I would enjoy doing as a career. I love the fish, the colours of the corals, and the sheer grace of being completely weightless.

Has scuba diving changed your life in any noticeable way?

Yes, it has given me another career, dancing is kind of all encompassing, so moving on is often very difficult. I was one of the lucky ones able to find a career that brings a similar level of inspiration and enjoyment. It also led me to move to Egypt, where I eventually met and married my hubbie George (also English funnily enough).

Your favourite dive?

That is a real tough one. I think it has to be Shark and Yolande Reefs in the Ras Mohammed National Park (here in Sharm), because it has a little taste of everything. The dive starts on a plummeting vertical wall, where we hang out in the blue looking for big things, it then progresses onto a glorious coral garden and ends with the remains of a wreck. In summer it is jaw droppingly spectacular with huge shoals of fish hanging around on the vertical wall, and an area where just about anything else can turn up from manta rays to whale sharks. Even if nothing big shows up, the dive itself is really really very pretty indeed.

The other contenders for this spot are the wreck of the SS Thistlegorm (a spectacular coral and fish covered WW2 wreck nearby), Jackson Reef (the garden is a complete mess of different colours and totally packed with coral, and the North side in summer, is where we head looking for hammerheads)

Favourite piece of kit?

Hmmm probably anything that keeps me warm… I am not good in the cold.

Favourite marine life?

That is such a tough one… love dolphins, love sharks, but I also love the little things like nudibranchs, and love the feistiness of clownfish. One of my most amazing experiences was actually snorkelling with a whale shark. I was having to move out of its way it was coming so close to us.

Your diving bucket list – is there;

• a course that you want to complete

• a place you want to dive

• something you want to see?
• I can kind of answer all three of those questions with one answer, as the course I would one day like to complete would then enable me to dive two dive sites I already know well, but can’t dive deep enough to see one of the features of each dive.If I did my tech diving courses I would then be able to dive into the canyon on Thomas Reef (the first arch is around 45m) and dive the proper grown up Blue Hole in Dahab (we do a tame, recreational version which I love), the arch there starts at about 35m but stretches further than people imagine and ends up at about 66m, hence sadly it has been the site of many unfortunate accidents, where people have tried going on single tanks or beyond their training.I would also love to dive the Galapagos and see one of those proper “Blue Planet” style swarms of hammerheads circling below or above me.

You are given 30 minutes to talk to anyone about anything ocean or marine related. Who would you talk to and what about?

Hmm now that is another tough one. I would probably like to chat with Andrea Marshall about her manta ray research, the places she has dived, and hope that she might grant me an interview for the DiveBunnie inspiration zone. Being a lady diver and a woman who works in the world of science, which is such a male oriented profession, she is the perfect candidate for our DiveBunnie Inspiration Zone : http://www.divebunnie.com/inspiration.asp She is already listed there as a groundbreaker in women’s diving, so to interview her directly would be fantastic.

What do you do on your safety stop?

I relax and look around me, in the hope that we might see one more snippet of magical, underwater life before we have to head back to the surface.

For more;

• DiveBunnie – For the girlie diver in you
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