As International Women’s Day approaches, Wight Dolphins are celebrating their 13 female members who not only bring a great strength and depth of skills to the club but also boast a wide range of qualifications and a varied diving history.
Carmen Venn is one of the newest club members. She started diving in January 2024, completing her Ocean Diver course with Wight Dolphins and she is now completing her Sports Diver course. Carmen particularly enjoys diving at Bembridge and Christchurch Ledge.
Marney Gibson has been diving since 1999 and having learned to dive with a different organisation she is the equivalent of a BSAC sports diver. Her favourite dives are boat dives, around 10-20m depth. When the opportunity arises Marney likes to take the helm of the club boat, the Wight Dolphin. She loves to dive on wrecks and doesn’t mind poor visibility diving. One of her favourite locations to dive on the island is at Bembridge where she says there is always lots to see along the pipe.
Fiona Hunt is one of the clubs most experienced and qualified divers. With 31 years of diving under her belt and has an impressive array of qualifications including BSAC Open Water Instructor, Dive Leader and Closed Circuit Rebreather with the ability to dive on mixed gases to 60 metres (CCR MOD2). Fiona’s favourite dives include SS Galia (Poole Bay); Walls at Stac Lee (St. Kilda); SS King Cadwallon and Trellemain Wall (Isles of Scilly); wreck of The Svint (N. Cornwall); Northern Arch and Poor Knights Islands (New Zealand); and Silfra (Iceland).
Jan Fletcher first took up diving in 2017 when she completed the Open Water and Drysuit courses with PADI to enable her to go diving in the Maldives which is where she fell in love with diving on reefs and with turtles. She went onto complete her PADI Advanced Open Water and Enriched Air courses in 2022 and joined Wight Dolphins in 2024, completing her Sports Diver course with the club. Jan’s favourite dives are abroad in warm waters, especially locations where there is lots of colourful sea life to be seen. She particularly enjoys diving the reefs and wrecks in Egypt and loved diving with the thresher sharks in Malapsacua in the Philippines. Though Jan much prefers diving in warm waters she has enjoyed some great diving around the island coastline, of note being HMS Upstart, an intact submarine at 40 metres about 7 miles off the Needles.
It doesn’t matter where or who you started diving with or if you’ve never dived before in your life, Wight Dolphins are a sociable and friendly club who are ready and waiting to welcome you and take you forward on your diving journey.
