Into the blue with sharks and nemo fish

Whale sharks, nemo fish and lionfish in their natural habitat. The diving instructor Anita Andersen (24) from Denmark has seen it all. She feels free in her element 20 meters below sea level.

Orange, blue and yellow striped nemo fish rushes past in the crystal-clear water. Further ahead the lionfish with its spiky fin rays hides in the colorful corals. The only thing you hear is your own breath and the low click sound from fish eating corals.

Anita Andersen (24) is a diving instructor and she has been diving in several countries seeing a lot of different fish and plants below sea level. Her motivation is that she can do her own interest and at the same time showing others how much the depths of the sea have to offer.

• I like teaching in something I’m good at. To dive is a free space, where you can’t hear anything but your own breath, and the fish eating from corals. I like the silence. All the thoughts and things from home you just leave out and focus on experiencing the ocean, Anita Andersen says.

From Denmark to Bali

Anita Andersen had her first dive at the age of 10. A good friend of her mother lived on the island of Bali (Indonesia) and has done that for 25 years. Here the friend of the mother has been co-owner of a diving school, that Anita and her family decided to visit, and her and her father and brother took their diving certificate.

• My mother was a bit nervous and asked me “are you sure, you want to do it?”, but I have never been afraid of trying new things. Of course, you have to overcome yourself a bit to just fall backwards into the water, as you do when you dive, but I wasn’t afraid of the depths, Anita Andersen says.

That was where it all started for Anita. She had the opportunity to choose a 10^th grade class with some diving courses, and after high school she travelled back to Bali to the diving school of her mother’s friend. Here she could get some discount to do more diving and she could live for almost no money. Here she improved more and more and finally took the certificate that made her able to instruct others.

• It was obvious to do so, because it was so easy and cheap. Beside that I have always wanted to do something special. My parents have quite normal jobs, and there is nothing wrong about that, but I have always wanted not just to work in Denmark, and I wanted to do something, that would make people say “wow awesome!”, she says.

The unexpected whale shark

The time as a diving instructor has given Anita Andersen a lot of experiences. Both good and bad experiences. Some of her students can’t find the same calm in the depths of the sea, so they tend to panic. Then she must calm them down.

• For me it’s not to describe how to be 20-40 meters below sea level. It’s amazing to be in a place, where humans shouldn’t be able to go. However, if you don’t like not having control, it can be scary that you just can’t stop whenever you want. If you are 20 meters below sea level, it takes at least one minute to reach the sea surface, because you have to do it slowly to avoid injuries to your lungs, she says.

Her best experience came rather unexpected. It was a training dive with some other instructors without any customers. They didn’t really expect to see anything unusual, but suddenly at 40 meters below sea level. It was just there. The white dots on the back, the darkblue colour and the big mouth. A whale shark.

• Wherever I have been, where I was told that I was going to see a whale shark, I haven’t seen it. And then when I least expected it, it was there. The weather was perfect, and it was the most amazing day, she says.