The BiG Scuba Podcast, a new UK based podcast. We discuss everything to do with diving and the ocean and hope to promote scuba diving to more people including women.
Podcasts have proliferated over the past few years in the UK and people today have a huge variety of choice about who and what they listen to. Scuba is such an interesting and very much a diverse sport that creates great discussions and conversations among people. There really wasn’t a podcast that reflected this so Ian and Gemma decided to create a podcast around the subject of scuba diving.
The BiG Scuba Podcast was launched in January 2020 by Ian Last and Gemma Kemp. Most of the podcasts we listened to when researching for The BiG Scuba Podcast seemed quite dry, specialised and male orientated. We wanted to create a light-hearted look at the sport and recreate that sense of camaraderie and inspiration that divers feel on a trip with friends and fellow divers. We also wanted the podcast to be independent, not beholden to a particular agency or dive centre, however, we still want to encourage our listeners to use their local dive centres. We wanted to freely voice our opinions as if we were sitting together in a bar after a day’s diving.
We base the podcast on all things scuba but this includes a wealth of subjects from actual diving, diving specialities and also the education, exploration and marine conservation of the underwater world and fresh water conservation too.
The Covid Pandemic prevented us from diving ourselves but we worked on inviting some amazing guests onto the podcast and in addition created our “Little BiG Chats” that are available exclusively on our YouTube channel called ABIGCHAT.
Scuba is considered very much a male orientated sport and we want to play our part in encouraging more women to take up the sport and develop on their scuba journey and we hope that following Gemmas Scuba Journey will assist in this.
While we don’t proclaim to be experts in every field of scuba diving, we love sharing our experiences with new divers, seasoned scuba addicts, non-divers and anyone else who enjoys listening. We are both very positive people and have a perspective of “no limits” to the podcast and YouTube channel.
Ian Last and Gemma Kemp are the “I” and the “G” of The BiG Scuba Podcast. We both are on the mic, camera and behind the scenes helping to create audio and videos from our content.
Ian Last is a PADI Divemaster, with about 300 dives from diving in the UK, Mexico and Red Sea. He works with our local PADI Dive Centre in Norwich, Norfolk and also teaches in the water. Ian was involved in a podcast which ran for just a year and then disbanded but as he enjoyed podcasting and could see the opportunities, he decided to put those experiences into creating The BiG Scuba and the content with Gemma, a friend and co-host.
Gemma Kemp is a very positive person and will make a good ambassador for new women divers in the sport of scuba. Gemma is waiting to complete the PADI Open Water qualification however, due to the Covid pandemic and lock down that has been put on hold until we can all dive again.
So, with Gemma being an almost non-diver, part of our podcast story is Gemma’s journey, talking about how it feels and the highs and not so highs .. Already some of our subscribers have contacted us to say they have found listening to Gemma talking about learning to dive really useful. We hope that more women can relate to Gemma’s journey and that then creates an interested to follow her progress and to give scuba a try.
We are both soon to join the British Divers Marine Life Rescue organisation and take part in a course
We are both soon to join the British Divers Marine Life Rescue organisation and take part in a course We are looking forward to a lot of diving once we are out of lock down.
We have already chatted to inspirational guests from around the world who are very well known in the diving world, marine biologists, cave divers and just divers who love the sport and who have positive inspirational stories to tell. Below is a summary of our Podcast releases do far… but there are several more in the pipeline for release but the details of those guests are top secret at the moment!
We have also chatted to other guests on our YouTube Channel and these include young divers just starting out on their journey, representatives of the BDMLR (British Divers Marine Life Rescue), a fellow YouTuber, a Mermaid, A freediver, and other people just passionate about the diving life.
Our other aim is to encourage the positives from the water sport industries, big up great diving brands from the UK, encourage more women to join in water-based sports whether its scuba diving, kayaking or free diving.
We will bring awareness to green issues and that will be reflected in our news topics and by some of the guests.
Our musician friends in Telling Truths, provided us with our opening tracks, Natalie in the band is also a fellow Divemaster. We also encourage other up and coming bands to send us music that we can use within the podcast too.
Social Media plays a huge part in our podcast and YouTube Channel. We use Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Being members of a few hundred diving and ocean related groups means we have amazing reach around the globe.
Are aims are to continue to explore as many areas of diving as we can find, have diverse guests on the podcast to talk about their diving experiences and help spread the knowledge and advice and opinions on conservation, scuba news and travel.
We actively encourage interaction with our listeners and have a Patron page so that anyone with an interest in scuba diving can have a voice at The BiG Scuba Podcast.
Take your first breaths with The BiG Scuba here!
