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| From the bottom of the garden... |
Buccaneer Diving was started in 1989 by Bruce Phillips at the age of eighteen. Bruce's love of diving started as a child in 1977 encouraged by his father who was (and in fact still is) a very keen diver.
Initially Buccaneer Diving was very small and had only two members, Bruce as the Instructor and Ropa (presently our head captain) as the boat captain; it operated from the bottom of Bruce's parents' garden.
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| Becoming biggest diving operator... |
Buccaneer Diving is now the biggest diving operator on the Mombasa north coast with dive bases at many of the major Mombasa hotels and booking offices at even more. Bruce became Kenya's first PADI Course Director (he is still the only PADI Course Director in Kenya) |
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| ... to the first resort base. |
Buccaneer's first resort base was opened at Reef Hotel with just twelve sets of equipment and a borrowed boat. Eighteen years later we still run their diving. The Buccaneer Base at Whitesands hotel was opened a little later that year,and remains as one of our 5 Star IDC Centres.
Jan Phillips, Bruce's wife, who is also a qualified PADI Instructor joined Bruce in running the company in 1991 when she moved out to Kenya from England.
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| ... and Award Winning Dive Center. |
In 1997 Buccaneer Diving was made the first PADI 5 star IDC centre in the country.
Buccaneer Diving has also received PADI Service to Industry Awards, a PADI Educational Award and is the East Africa PADI redistributor.
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| True love of the Indian Ocean |
Bruce's love of the Indian Ocean around which he grew up makes him very keen on it's preservation, and this means that Buccaneer Diving has been involved in many environmental projects. These include amongst others, free training courses for members of the Kenya Wildlife Service, regular beach clean ups and the creation of East Africa's largest artificial reef the MV Dania (see also Buccaneer Wrecks). Buccaneer Diving also employs a full time marine biologist, Sander den Haring. |
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