The diving club first try with Nino Batagelj, a tetraplegic person from Slovenia, May 29th 2014 on the Croatian coast. After a pre-meeting, which was mainly based on explanations about the “ddi first try dive programm” that sunny day was perfectly made for putting the theory into practice.

Nino was before his accident, which caused his adverse effect, very active in different kind of sports, but never tried diving before, so he was quite excited. Nino was very interested in the procedure how to prepare theequipement and passed all the required skills without any problems in confined water. Although Nino’s mobility of fingers is limited, he never lost his patience, enthusiasm or motivation.

It was for me the first time that i was leading a disabled person under water , since I finished my ddi education in October 2013. It was for me an absolutely impressing and positive experience and cooperation.

Doing his open water dive, gave Nino selfconfidence and freedom. Moving under water was easy for him, because he likes swimming anyway. The perfect conditions like good visibility and the nice fauna and flora of the croation sea, gave both of us the feeling that the 30 min bottom time were just some seconds.

Back on the surface Nino told me, that he wants to dive again as soon as possible....for me the most beautiful way of saying "thank you" and the confirmation that i fullfilled my misson good :-). It would be a great pleasure for me to certificate him as DDI OWD.

Matjaz Repnik, DDI insturctor #:10-0365