but man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.”
– Jacques Yves Cousteau –
Paleokastritsa, Corfu — we stayed at the white hotel in the background. Photo: © Enrique Íñiguez (CC BY-SA).
Diving
In 1980, my wife Hélène and I went on holiday to Greece. By chance, we stayed at a hotel in the little village of Paleokastritsa on the north-west coast of Corfu — the white hotel you can see in the background of the photograph. It was there that we first came into contact with scuba diving. Every morning we watched the divers head out to sea in their boat, and gradually we became fascinated by the mysterious world they were setting off to explore. From that moment on, we were hooked.
We talked (and drank) a lot with them and became more and more enthusiastic, our snorkeling equipment did not look the same after that. We wanted scubatanks !!
So when we returned, we immediately joined the divingclub OSCD in Dordrecht in September 1980 and made a lot of new friends. After half a year training in the pool and in the (cold) North Sea waters we got our 1* CMAS diving certificate. After a few years of hard training I reached a 4**** / Master Scuba Diver, CMAS/PADI diving level and was very active in our diving club as Chairman for a few years.
Our very first dive! Into the cold waters of Oostvoorne Lake, the Netherlands — 5 April 1981.
Oostvoorne Lake, 1981 — group photo after our very first dive.
Our First Dive
In the picture on the left, we are about to make our very first dive, on 5 April 1981, in the decidedly cold early-spring waters of the Oostvoornse Meer in the Netherlands. It was a cold and windy day, certainly not the kind of weather that immediately brings tropical diving adventures to mind. The grey sky, chilly wind and cold water made getting into our neoprene wetsuits an adventure in itself — but nothing could dampen our enthusiasm.
My wife Hélène is on the left and I am in the middle. Behind us, to my left, are Otto Cijfers and his son, and on the right, seen from behind and wearing the twin 10-litre tanks, is Joke Pluymert. We are all fully equipped in our neoprene wetsuits, with 10-litre scuba tanks and Scubapro regulators. Looking at the photograph today, the equipment seems rather heavy and old-fashioned, but to us it was all part of the excitement of learning to dive.
I can still remember the thrill of that special day: that extraordinary rush of looking down into the darkness below and discovering the freedom of almost flying underwater. The first few breaths through a regulator felt strange, but within minutes a completely new world had opened up. The sounds from above disappeared, replaced by the hiss of the regulator, the stream of bubbles and that extraordinary silence you experience beneath the surface. From that first dive onwards, I was hooked. I went on to make hundreds of dives, but nothing can ever quite match the excitement and adrenaline of that very first descent.
Afterwards we gathered for the group photograph below — cold, wet and probably more than a little windswept, but immensely proud that we had made our first real dive. None of us could have known then where diving would eventually take us, from those chilly Dutch waters to some of the most beautiful tropical seas in the world. What began on that grey April day at Oostvoorne would become an adventure lasting more than three decades.
Well… perhaps a few came close!
Early diving days, around 1981 — with my friend and diving buddy Rien Broere.
The Early Days of Diving
This photograph takes me straight back to the early 1980s, when diving equipment looked very different from what divers use today. Here I am with my good friend and diving buddy Rien Broere, ready for another dive in the cold Dutch waters. We may look rather well equipped, but compared with modern diving gear, much of it was wonderfully simple, heavy and mechanical.
Rien, on the right, is wearing his unmistakable Fenzy stabilizing jacket, a classic piece of diving equipment from those days. In his hand is an underwater lamp — not something bought ready-made from a diving shop, but one he had built himself. That was quite normal among divers then. If a piece of equipment did not exist, was too expensive or simply wasn’t good enough, there was always someone in the diving club who could make or modify it.
I am standing on the left in my Sea Quest stabilizing jacket, with a small 5-litre reserve air cylinder hanging underneath. Dive computers were still a thing of the future for us; depth gauges, pressure gauges, watches and decompression tables were the tools we relied upon. Equipment was bulkier, less sophisticated and certainly less comfortable than today — but we trusted it.
Looking at this photograph more than forty years later, it is not only the old diving equipment that brings back memories. It is the whole atmosphere of those early diving years: loading the car with far too much gear, driving to Zeeland, getting into a cold and often still damp wetsuit, checking each other’s equipment and then disappearing beneath the grey Dutch water.
The equipment may look old-fashioned now,
but the excitement of going diving was exactly the same.
Those were the days!
Wreckdive on the Keten 18, 28-05-1989 in the Oosterschelde in Zeeland
Bonaire, 1982 — after a dive, with Hélène on the left and me on the right.
Diving in Zeeland and Bonaire
Here on the left, we had just returned from a dive near the wreck of the Keten 18, in the Oosterschelde in Zeeland, on 28 May 1989 — and, for once, on a beautiful sunny day! I am the guy standing third from the left, wearing the dark-blue windbreaker. Next to me is Roel Russchen. And take a look at the wonderfully old-fashioned Fenzy stab jacket worn by Egbert van der Werf on the right — you certainly don’t see many of those anymore! The man holding the brick is Sjaak Stam.
Diving in Zeeland had its own special character. The water could be cold, visibility sometimes only a few metres, and the strong tidal currents of the Oosterschelde demanded careful planning. But there was always something adventurous about it: getting all the equipment ready on the shore, waiting for the right moment in the tide, and then disappearing beneath that rather uninviting grey-green surface. You never quite knew what you were going to find down there.
Our first diving trip abroad was in 1982, to Bonaire in the Dutch Caribbean. After learning to dive in the cold and often rather murky waters of the Netherlands, entering the warm, crystal-clear Caribbean Sea was a revelation. Suddenly there were coral reefs, tropical fish and seemingly endless visibility. We could simply walk into the sea from the shore and find ourselves in a completely different underwater world. I made 40 dives in just 14 days — how about that! And what a luxury it seemed: no thick wetsuits against the Dutch cold, no struggling with tides and currents, and no wondering whether we would be able to see more than a few metres ahead. On Bonaire we could look down from the surface and already see the reef waiting below us. For two relatively inexperienced Dutch divers, it felt like discovering what scuba diving had really been invented for.
Looking through my old diving logs today brings all those memories flooding back: 24 December 1982, Invisible Islands; New Year’s Day 1983, Alice in Wonderland; 3 January 1983, Carl’s Hill — and then Karpata, Willemstoren, Angel City, Playa Funchi, Rode Pan and so many others.
Each name brings back something different: a reef, a particular dive, the people we were with, or simply that wonderful feeling of descending once again into clear blue water. Even after all these years, opening one of those old logbooks can transport me straight back to a particular day, a particular place and a dive I thought I had almost forgotten.
Those names in my old diving logbook are enough to bring an entire underwater world back to life.
My underwater photography equipment after a few modifications — still the Olympus OM-1 with its dome port, but now with a new computerized flash, directional lighting and a Sea & Sea exposure meter.
A school of bannerfish over a tropical coral reef — photographed during one of my dives with my Olympus OM-1 underwater camera.
1982, Bonaire, Dutch Antilles. Olympus OM1 in an Ikelite under water housing, 18 mm wide angle, dome port and my Vivitar flash.
Underwater Photography
During the following years, I became an enthusiastic underwater photographer. On the right, that’s me in 1982 with what was then my pride and joy, an Olympus OM-1 in an Ikelite underwater housing, fitted with an 18 mm wide-angle lens, dome port and Vivitar flash.
On the left you can see my equipment after a few modifications. I was still using the trusty Olympus OM-1 and dome port, but by then I had added a new computerized flash, directional lighting and a Sea & Sea exposure meter. Compared with today’s digital underwater cameras, it all looks rather cumbersome — but at the time it was serious photographic equipment.
And remember: there was no digital screen to check the result immediately. You composed the picture, judged the light and exposure, pressed the shutter — and only after the film had been developed did you discover whether you had actually captured the photograph you had hoped for.
Underwater photography in those days required a fair amount of preparation and patience. Everything had to be checked before entering the water: the camera settings, film, batteries, flash, O-rings and, above all, the watertight seal of the housing. A single hair or grain of sand on an O-ring could allow seawater to enter — and that could mean the end of an expensive camera. Once underwater, there was little you could change, so you had to think about the photograph before you took it.
But that was also part of the fascination. A roll of film gave you only 36 exposures, so every photograph mattered. After returning home from a diving holiday, there was always that wonderful moment when the developed slides or prints finally came back and you saw, sometimes weeks later, what you had actually captured beneath the surface. Some were disappointing, of course — but occasionally there was that one photograph where the light, colour and composition had all come together. That made all the effort worthwhile.
I eventually sold the entire outfit to a diving friend in 1990. He later sold it again, but remarkably, the next owner was still using the same camera and underwater housing years later. That must surely count as a compliment to Ikelite! And take a look at the old mechanical decompression meter on my right arm. No digital dive computer displaying depth, dive time and decompression information at a glance.
Diving — and underwater photography — was a rather different world back then!
This is what diving is all about — weightless in the blue, drifting quietly above the reef and enjoying a world unlike anything on land.
After a dive — pineapple juice, a splash of rum, and another great day at sea!
Diving Around the World
In the years that followed, my wife and diving buddy Hélène and I travelled to quite a few diving destinations around the world. We explored the Red Sea along the coasts of Israel and Jordan, as well as on the Egyptian side.
We also dived extensively in the Maldives, Thailand, Indonesia, Cuba, Bonaire, Carriacou, Mauritius and Aruba, as well as, of course, in the Mediterranean and the rather less tropical waters of the North Sea. Each destination had its own character. Diving in Zeeland could mean cold water, limited visibility and strong currents, while only a few hours by plane could take us into an entirely different underwater world.
But for me, nothing quite compares with diving in tropical waters. Warm, crystal-clear seas, magnificent coral gardens and an extraordinary world of colour that simply does not exist above the surface — this is what scuba-diving dreams are made of. Descending into that clear blue water, with the reef slowly appearing beneath you, never lost its magic. Coral reefs alive with fish, the beauty of soft corals and gorgonians, and above all the awe and grace of the larger marine animals: sharks, rays and turtles. Encounters with eagle rays, manta rays and stingrays made some dives unforgettable. And there was always that wonderful element of surprise: you never quite knew what might emerge from the blue around the next corner of the reef.
Of all the tropical places we visited, however, the Maldives remained our favourite. We loved it so much that we returned four times. Back in the early 1980s, the islands still felt wonderfully remote, and once beneath the surface there seemed to be an almost inexhaustible abundance of marine life.
Those were wonderful days in the Maldives, and in many ways we were fortunate to experience the islands when we did. Sadly, the underwater world there is no longer quite as we remember it. Over the past decades, mass tourism, rising sea temperatures and climate change have taken their toll, with repeated coral bleaching and a serious decline of many reefs. The Maldives are still extraordinarily beautiful, but the pristine coral gardens and abundance of marine life we encountered in the 1980s and 1990s have become all the more precious in our memories.
The diving there was phenomenal. Almost every dive revealed another profusion of marine life: healthy soft corals, gorgonians, Tubastraea and mushroom corals, surrounded by countless reef fish. Turtles and sharks were plentiful, while eagle rays, manta rays and stingrays would sometimes appear out of the blue.
And perhaps that is what I remember most. It was not simply the individual dive sites or the animals we encountered, but the pleasure of experiencing all of it together with Hélène. We shared hundreds of dives, from the cold waters of Holland to some of the most beautiful tropical seas in the world.
Every dive was different — and every descent felt like entering another world.
Kauai, Hawaii, 2016 — enjoying life!
Kauai, Hawaii, 2016 — surfacing after a dive!
More Diving Adventures
Manta Ray Night Dive, Kona, Hawaii — adapted from an original photograph by William Stamps Howard / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Image modified by Cees Kloosterman.
Drifting along the reef with blacktip reef sharks and turtles, while large trevallies, mackerel and dogtooth tuna prowled the walls below us — these were the moments that made tropical diving so unforgettable. Sometimes we simply drifted with the current, hardly moving a fin, watching an entire underwater landscape slowly pass beneath us. Even today, the names of those dive sites are music to my ears: Ko Racha Noi, Wägali Faru, Lion’s Head — with its shark feeding! — Careless Reef, Shab Rumi, Abu Ramada, El Jardín de la Reina, El Ancla del Corsario, Maaya Thila, Bathala, Fish Head, Maadi Varu — the hammerheads! — and so many others. A name in an old diving log is sometimes all it takes to bring back the boat, the people, the smell of the sea and the excitement of that particular dive.
In 1999, we dived in Mauritius, and in May and June 2000 we travelled through Peru. On our way home, we stopped over in Aruba, in the Dutch Caribbean, where naturally we could not resist getting underwater again. Wherever we travelled, if there was an ocean nearby, sooner or later we usually found ourselves wondering what was beneath the surface. Then, for several years, our diving became less frequent. But in 2010, when we travelled to Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii, we took it up again. The absolute highlight was the famous Manta Ray Night Dive — one of those experiences that deserves to be called a must-do. Watching these enormous, graceful animals glide silently through the dark water, sometimes passing only inches away as they fed, was almost surreal. Illuminated by the divers’ lights, the mantas seemed to appear from nowhere, sweep overhead and disappear once again into the darkness.
In 2013, we made a major journey through South Africa to enjoy its magnificent landscapes and wildlife. We watched whales at Hermanus and travelled on to Gansbaai, famous for its great white sharks. Near Dyer Island, just off Kleinbaai and Gansbaai, we experienced something completely different: a Great White shark cage dive with White Shark Projects. Seeing such a powerful animal at close range — not on television or in a documentary, but only a few metres away in its own environment — was another unforgettable encounter with the marine world.
In April and May 2016, we returned to Hawaii for four weeks of island-hopping, visiting Maui, Kauai and the Big Island. On Kauai, I made several boat dives with SeaSport Divers out of Poipu. By then, diving equipment had changed enormously from the equipment we had used when we started in 1980: modern buoyancy compensators, compact regulators and sophisticated dive computers had made diving easier and more comfortable. But the essential experience had not changed at all. There was still that familiar moment sitting on the edge of the boat with all the equipment on, mask in place and regulator ready — followed by the splash, the bubbles, and then the sudden quietness as you descended beneath the surface. Within seconds the world above disappeared and another one opened below.
Looking back, diving was never simply about collecting dive sites or adding another entry to a logbook. It was about adventure, friendship, travelling, discovering new places and sharing so many of those experiences with Hélène. From those first cold dives in the Netherlands to coral reefs, sharks, manta rays and the warm blue waters of Hawaii, each period of our diving life has its own memories.
More than four decades after that first cold dive in the Netherlands, the fascination of descending beneath the surface was still there. I am 77 now, and sadly, that dive in Kauai in 2016 turned out to be my last. But after hundreds of dives, countless adventures and so many wonderful experiences shared with Hélène, the underwater world will always remain a very special part of my life.
“Every time you dive, you hope you’ll see something new – some new species.
Sometimes the ocean gives you a gift, sometimes it doesn’t.”
―James Francis Cameron
