Meet the Crew

These are the people behind CostaBlancaScuba.com

Between them, they have technical and educational qualifications, tens of thousands of logged dives and 58 years of combined diving experience.

Peter (Pete) Esser

Diving is something I always wanted to do. Like most kids I was fascinated watching Jacques Cousteau explore a world filled with strange and unusual creatures. In 1973, I had my first snorkelling experience in the Mediterranean Sea during a summer holiday. I took a deep breath, dove off the side of a pier and was immediately overwhelmed with the sights of a brand new world just below the surface. From that time on, I spend as much time in the water as I could, year after year, holiday after holiday. Eventually I found myself involved in a fascinating sport – Scuba Diving. Although trained in the Netherlands, my ‘real’ education began when I joined a Spanish diving club where I served as an underwater tour guide for tourists. During this time I also developed a friendly relationship with Maria Rivera Delgado who introduced me to a more holistic approach to scuba diving. This philosophy helped forge an effective team, united in one purpose, one goal and one objective: to explore the underwater treasures of Costa Blanca

In 1996 I learned how and created this website organizing several aspects of my familiarity with the local diving opportunities.

Pete, former U/W tourguide and initiator of this website. These days he enjoys applying his years of experience to new projects.

Maria Rivera Delgado

Maria began her diving in 1989. After spending many years as a recreational diver, she became interested in expanding her diving horizons. In 1998, Maria began her technical diving career by taking a rebreather course offered by TDI. Since that time she has discovered a new world of “extended range” diving which is experienced only by a certain sub-group of the diving community. Today, she is an avid technical cave, wreck, Trimix and rebreather diver.
She holds certifications with FEDAS, NSS-CDS, TDI, IANTD, DAN and GUE. She is also a PADI divemaster with years experience in the hotel, tourism and diving industries. Originally from Lausanne in Switzerland, Maria moved to Spain, after working for over 6 years in the Maldives.

Author of our technical page. Just recently Maria has moved to Dubai where she currently works on the Hydropolis project.

Basile Fournier

From Nice, France . A sea lover, he began his underwater experience as a little boy free diving, then went on to spear fishing. Before becoming a professional diver, he worked as a lifeguard and also taught sailing in Italy . He is fluent in English, French, Spanish and Italian and is an equipment specialist and Scubapro technician. He loves Costa Blanca, knows all the dive sites, and has an uncanny knack for finding animal life. Basile started as a dive instructor in 1989 and has worked in the Caribbean, Mediterranean sea, Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

Basile now works as an Aquatic Ecologist for a French consulting agency, involving substantial amounts of fieldwork (lots of crawling around, setting nets for fish studies, and scuba diving).

General feedback visitors
For information regarding: accommodation, gear rental, diving medical certificates, diving insurance, education, prices, car rental and so on, please refer to our list of preferred partners.

Epilogue

It is interesting to see whether the info that was published exactly 10 years ago by us have had its effect. Well, business is booming. Dive centres have tried to keep up with the exploding popularity of the sport. New dive centres and clubs are sprouting like weeds all along the coast. Most recently, the delegation of Alicante launched their own Spanish website, a new initiative for promoting diving to enhance awareness of the coastal environment.

Clearly, the time had come to pass on the torch and move on. Last year, the team split up to pursue other projects around the world.

This website will stay online for your convenience but will no longer be updated.