Who am I?
© Didier Brandelet
French Polynesia, 1991. Military service, a few weeks before his first dive. (Standing on the left.)
1994
Dive Instructor State certification in Papeete. Then two years at the Raie Manta Club, in Rangiroa. Promise kept.
1996
I moved back to Paris and opened at Aquaboulevard, with Plongespace, France's first dive school open seven days a week, 365 days a year.
1997
Nitrox instructor, certification No. 0006. At the time, nitrox was still a niche option for recreational diving in France.
1998
I founded Eco Dive, a scuba equipment distributor, 100% online. The world's top manufacturer, a French company at the time, met with me and ended the meeting like this: "You know, sir, just between us, this internet idea of yours will be forgotten within six months."
1999
I founded PlongExpo, the first European and Mediterranean scuba diving trade show, at the Palais du Pharo in Marseille, with FFESSM.
2009
I founded scuba-people.com: 95 issues of an online magazine, a social network for French-speaking divers, and 20,000 active members.
Ten days a month on assignment: Cocos, Antarctica, the Philippines, French Polynesia, Ustica, the Maldives, Cape Verde... I wrote about, and filmed, the world's best dive sites.
2012 and 2013
The Marseille World Festival of Underwater Imagery honoured this work two years running: the Palme d'Or - Website Award in 2012, then the Golden Diver for underwater reporting in 2013, for "Humpback Whales of the Kingdom of Tonga."
A dream life, but an exhausting one. I felt like I was living on planes. I made the decision to stop.
Then Mexico
Playa del Carmen, Phocea Mexico, and Didier, who offered to let me stay and help him with communications. I stayed ten years. Together we opened the Club Med centre in Cancún and the base in La Paz, in Baja California. That's also where I crossed over to the other side: sidemount training, then full cave in the cenotes of the Riviera Maya.
French Polynesia, 1991. Military service, a few weeks before his first dive. (Standing on the left.)
1994
Dive Instructor State certification in Papeete. Then two years at the Raie Manta Club, in Rangiroa. Promise kept.
1996
I moved back to Paris and opened at Aquaboulevard, with Plongespace, France's first dive school open seven days a week, 365 days a year.
1997
Nitrox instructor, certification No. 0006. At the time, nitrox was still a niche option for recreational diving in France.
1998
I founded Eco Dive, a scuba equipment distributor, 100% online. The world's top manufacturer, a French company at the time, met with me and ended the meeting like this: "You know, sir, just between us, this internet idea of yours will be forgotten within six months."
PlongExpo, Palais du Pharo, Marseille, 1999. The poster for the first edition.
1999
I founded PlongExpo, the first European and Mediterranean scuba diving trade show, at the Palais du Pharo in Marseille, with FFESSM.
Scuba-People, issue 92.
2009
I founded scuba-people.com: 95 issues of an online magazine, a social network for French-speaking divers, and 20,000 active members.
Red Sea. © Francis Leguen
Ten days a month on assignment: Cocos, Antarctica, the Philippines, French Polynesia, Ustica, the Maldives, Cape Verde... I wrote about, and filmed, the world's best dive sites.
© Alexis Rosenfeld
2012 and 2013
The Marseille World Festival of Underwater Imagery honoured this work two years running: the Palme d'Or - Website Award in 2012, then the Golden Diver for underwater reporting in 2013, for "Humpback Whales of the Kingdom of Tonga."
A dream life, but an exhausting one. I felt like I was living on planes. I made the decision to stop.
Bahamas and Banco Chinchorro. © Greg Lecoeur
Then Mexico
Playa del Carmen, Phocea Mexico, and Didier, who offered to let me stay and help him with communications. I stayed ten years. Together we opened the Club Med centre in Cancún and the base in La Paz, in Baja California. That's also where I crossed over to the other side: sidemount training, then full cave in the cenotes of the Riviera Maya.
Scuba-People, 2009-2019. Ninety-five issues.
Why is this site built this way?
Because I ran a dive centre, I know what a Google rating really means, and what it doesn't tell you.
Because I ran a trade show, I saw this industry from the inside: those who talk, and those who keep their word.
Because I built a community of twenty thousand divers, I know which questions people ask before they leave, and which ones go unanswered.
Because I've dived and filmed on location, I know "moderate current" doesn't mean the same thing in Rangiroa and in Bonaire, and a beginner who isn't told that doesn't get the week they were expecting.
I don't know the 3,783 centres in this catalogue personally. Nobody can, and I'm wary of anyone who claims otherwise. That's exactly why this site relies on public, verifiable criteria rather than my personal opinion. My experience helped decide which filters to apply, not to hand out gold stars.
Marseille's calanques, 2002. My daughter's "baptism": her first dive.
Do you run a dive centre?
I ran one myself. Outside of a page ad in a print magazine that costs a fortune, a dive centre has almost no way to reach divers who are planning their trip. That's exactly what DivingDeal is for, and listing is free.