What started as a small idea, an idea which was pretty much sketched out on the back of a cigarette packet so to speak, has become so much more than what I ever envisioned.
The original idea for The Scuba News was to become a simple source for scuba diving information. It was planned to be a side project. Big scale was never factored into the initial idea….and yet, here we are 10 years later – Multiple international editions, readers from over 100 countries. A rapidly growing newsletter subscriber list. Contributors from a wide variety of diving industries and disciplines. A new and expanding Liveaboard section and boat charter service, a new Travel Deals section. A manually created Scuba Diving Book Store which is being updated daily. A very new and rapidly growing Kit Finder Section. A growing number of retail partners starting to add their products and services. A team of people who assist in making The Scuba News what it is and have the same vision to develop and build on what we have achieved so far. Not to mention a lot of new features currently in our “testing lab stage” that we aim to roll out over the next 12 months.
Seriously, what a ride the last 10 years have been. Running The Scuba News has been wild, challenging and exciting. Then when you factor in the COVID-19 Pandemic which decimated a lot of our industry, this added a whole new dimension and we not only fought to survive but we also tried to do what we could to assist other businesses in the diving sector. Providing as many tools and avenues as possible, many of them free, to help connect divers with diving businesses struggling to re-open in a post-pandemic world.
The Scuba News is not a one man band though. What we do, what we are working on and what we will continue to do is a collaborative effort. None of it would have been possible without you, our readers, our contributors, our advertisers, our partners and the amazing team of Managing Editors we have around the world, that curate the best scuba diving content to share with you and also my family. They deserve a little bit of special praise for being understanding, despite as non-divers, not fully comprehending why a scuba diving publication takes up so much of my time and energy!
Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for getting us to where we are and I couldn’t be more excited about the next 10 years of The Scuba News.
