Diving business marks special day by publishing long-awaited course
Directors of Ocean Ventures Fiji Sara Carlson and Matthew Norman were able to mark World Oceans Day in a unique way, by publishing their online South Pacific Coral Reef Ecology course. It had taken them the last six years to write and produce it. “We have worked as site managers, reef ecology lecturers, or Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) scuba instructors in Indonesia, Greece, Mexico, Dominica, and Honduras,” Ms Carlson said. Ms Carlson is from the United States and Mr Norman from United Kingdom.
They set their business Ocean Ventures Fiji in 2017, based in the relatively unexplored Natewa Bay near Savusavu.
“When operation, Wallacea decided to set up a new site on the Natewa Peninsula, they suggested we open up a dive centre to run the diving portion of their conservation expeditions.
“We moved to Fiji in November 2016 to set up our own business and have been running those expeditions in 2017, 2018 and 2019 (each year 170 high school students from several countries come to Fiji for two-week ecology courses; spending time in village homestays, a forest camp and our marine site).”
Today they are based at the end of Salt Lake Road, approximately 40 minutes outside of Savusavu.
They are the only PADI dive shop based in Natewa Bay, and placed a strong emphasis on conservation and safety.
“We immediately fell in love with Natewa Bay; the healthy hard corals and the people we’ve met and worked with so far in the villages lining the bay make the area incredibly special,” Mr Norman said. “It is a natural wonder and we hope we can do our part to help protect the bay for future generations.
“We feel that what differentiates us is our focus on education and conservation, as well as our small group sizes for customer service and experience.”