I had the upmost pleasure to teach Hannah Pragnell-Raasch the PA Shark Conservation course at the Downbelow Dive Centre!

Being a staff member of PA we had no problem going through the knowledge development sections and I even managed to pick up some information from Hannah too (thanks Hannah!). The one thing that I love about teaching this course is that the student is always enthusiastic to the subject and thus makes the course a real pleasure to teach. 

We decided to do 2 dives and one snorkel session in the hope of finding our resident Black Tips in the TAR Park in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. Unfortunately the first dive didn't yield any success so we switch tactics and jumped on the snorkel boat before lunch to explore our secret Black Tip nursery area. Snorkeling towards the shoreline in the shallows I immediately spotted a decent sized 1 metre Black Tip - awesome! Sharing my exciting with Hannah all I got back was a blank face. Undeterred we carried on and this time I located about 6 Black Tip pups...and again Hannah didn't see them. Beginning to get frustrated, and slightly embarrassed, we switched 180 degrees and set off back the way we came. This time we hit the jackpot as Hannah found and photographed around 7/8 Black Tip pups...a huge sigh of relief! 

The afternoon dive didn't bring any success either, but either way it was a fantastic day with Hannah! I would like to extend my thanks to Hannah for coming and also to Richard and Joanne Swann (MD’s, Dive Downbelow) to extending Hannah an invite to complete the PA Shark Conservation course with me!