What a great day we had this year for PADI Womens Day 2017, not only were the girls out in force but the boys put aside their masculinity and embraced the celebrations for the afternoon!
How did Master Divers celebrate? We got our dresses on and went diving of course! Amazed looks were plentiful as Divemaster, Brian, Instructors ,Tony and Josh and Photographer, Rob all walked down the beach to the boat in a variety of coloured dresses and a pink wig, which Tony pulled off beautifully! They even went diving in them. The water was that clear on the day, you could see Tony coming back to the boat by looking out for the little pink dot underwater.
The lovely ladies on the boat that day were Giselle, or as we call her, Gigi. Gigi is one of our Divemasters, which is your first step to entering the professional world of scuba diving. This also allows you to work, in the scuba diving industry, anywhere in the world, but there was only one beautiful tropical island and dive center that beckoned for Gigi…Yes, you’ve guessed it, Koh Tao and Master Divers.
And then there was Hayley. Hayley, is a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor (OWSI), with specialties in Deep, Wreck, Search and Recovery, Enriched Air Nitrox (EANX) and O2 provider. Hayley actually did her Instructor Development Course with us and our Course Director, Gaz Lydon. She loved it that much, plus we loved her, so she stayed. Hayley is now not just an instructor but also our ‘ECO Warrior Queen’. Read her blog, ‘Introducing Me’ to find out more.
Whilst the boat was busy out diving, the rest of the team were organising for the night time activities and signing up more divers for the next day. There is a big female team at Master Divers, which became obvious that day in the office, and believe it or not this is not everyone…10 points if you can also spot the intruder!
The celebrations rolled into the evening with food platters and cocktails for everyone at our cafe bar Coconut Monkey, and yes, the dresses stayed on…personally I think the boys secretly enjoyed it!
So, we celebrated in style, but why have PADI Womens Dive Day each year? Its simple really, to encourage more women to take up scuba diving, whether that be as a profession or just for fun. Scuba Diving, for a long time, has been a mainly male based activity, however this is changing. Each year the number of women who participate in scuba diving is increasing. Cathy Evans, PADI guest blogger, and founder of Girls that Scuba, recently wrote ‘Since PADI’s first Womens Dive Day in 2014 there has been a 2.2% increase in female certifications for PADI recreational courses, from 37.2% to 39.4%’ it’s not just courses that are increasing either, we’re rocking it in other areas to. Cathy’s blog ‘The Rise and Rise of Female Scuba Divers‘ showcases some of the most influential women in diving today. Girl Power!
