My name is Chris Facey and I have been teaching Scuba Diving now for almost ten years. I have worked in locations all around the world and taken on challenges that I didn’t think I was capable of at the time.
Scuba diving has given me the chance to live in some amazing places and work with different cultures in places i could have only every dream of visiting. I have met and worked with some great people along they way. Despite this, it definitely hasn’t always been positive. I have had my fair share of negative experiences too.
My Scuba Mentor is a way for me to communicate these experiences, in a way that I hope to be able to inspires people to look at how and why they dive, give helpful and authentic advice and to bring people along on my journey into this career that I have fallen into.
Growing up in Birmingham, England, I didn’t really consider the sport of scuba diving as I ran around the streets of Shard End. Like most people I didn’t really know what career path I was going to take and to be honest I’m still not sure I have decided. As a child I had two passions. Sport, mainly football, (Up the Villa!) and wildlife.
I would often go back and forth between wanting to become a footballer and wanting to be my childhood hero, Steve Irwin! I ended up doing neither of those things and eventually found myself in the typical rat race as a young adult. With no end in sight to the day to day grind stacking shelves I decided to leave it all behind and travel. After a trip to Vietnam that left me with an empty wallet and a hangover, I knew that I needed to take a different approach in order to make this traveling thing last. At this time I stumbled upon an advert for a Divemaster internship. To be honest I didn’t even know what that meant. I decided to book it anyway, before I had even taken a breath underwater! It was a bit of a shock to my Open Water Instructor, Adrian, when he found out I had already booked my Divemaster course as he prepared my gear for our try dive. Scuba diving just felt like something that I would be good at.
I flew out in September 2013 to Seychelles. It was my first big trip away from home and I completed three months on a volunteer coral research program. I then moved onto Thailand to complete my Divemaster course. I was extremely lucky in my course to have support of top notch instructors who cared for my potential future in diving. (It often isn’t that way on a Divemaster course, but more about that later).
I then became an Instructor shortly after and haven’t really looked back. I have been working for almost a decade now and have ticked off some of the bucket list places to live and work. I have seen some of natures most magnificent marine life and taught people how to do the same. Teaching is my favorite part of the job and I think I accidentally ended up combining those two passions I had as a child. Wildlife and sport, more specifically teaching scuba diving.
I have worked in 10 countries so far including Thailand, Seychelles, Fiji, Malaysia, Tonga, Trinidad & Tobago, Australia, Saudi Arabia, The Azores and even Birmingham, England.
It has been a crazy experience so far and I want to share it all here, Hopefully it helps you become a better diver.
