PADI Course Director Richard Swann has just completed 7 speciality instructor courses with 2 recently qualified PADI Open Water Scuba Instructors.

Steven and Sevket have been with Downbelow for the last 2 months on professional diving internships, becoming PADI professionals.

One of their elected speciality courses was the AWARE Shark Conservation Speciality.

For this, Course Director Richard donated his time and offered the program for free.

The candidates only had to pay the application fees to PADI, which in turn will give it directly to Project AWARE, meaning everyone's a winner.

Being passionate about the marine environment and sharks in particular, Richard wanted to give the gift of shark knowledge to these 2 instructors, as he knows they will teach others with this qualification.

In the battle to bring so many shark species back from the brink of extinction, we will need to spread the message far an wide.

Downbelow does it for sharks and now Steven and Sevket do too.