Friday January 12th, 2018

Happy New Year, and welcome to my first 2018 post written in the UK! I’ll be talking about the UK later but before that, this is a great moment to start looking back at 2017.

The year got off to a good start with a day of diving in Sydney after the famous New Year fireworks. Although not as glamorous as other parts of Australia like the Great Barrier Reef, Sydney has a good array of marine life and warm, comfortable water temperatures. I was impressed by the large number of dive spots that lie close to such a busy and exciting city. Our favourite find was this adorable baby cuttlefish during a shore dive near Manly.

I then spent a lot of time at a dive site near Tokyo that a friend introduced me to in 2016. Located close to the city of Odawara, Hayakawa Diving Service is about an hour away from Tokyo by direct train. I loved its close-knit community feel, the quaint little bay where all the dives were held and the independence of the instructor and dive masters. Divers were actively encouraged to find a buddy, plan a dive and dive the plan, unlike other shops in Japan where divers are simply shown around with not much opportunity to use their skills for themselves. Despite being so close to Tokyo, the marine life was incredibly varied and every dive brought new discoveries.

Women’s roles in society have been a hot topic and 2017 was no exception. In late 2016 I joined an NGO called Women 4 Oceans (http://women4oceans.weebly.com) and in May 2017 teamed up with another diver and ocean lady in Tokyo to organise a networking event (http://women4oceans.weebly.com/tokyo-event.html) for women working in marine-related fields. I was delighted with the opportunity to talk about my work and share my underwater photos. The event had over 40 participants and was a huge success, with plenty of inspiring talks and a solid group of women united by their love for the ocean.

In June 2017 my husband and I said farewell to Japan and returned to the UK to begin the next stage of our lives. This marked the start of an extremely hectic summer as 9 and 11 years’ worth of belongings started to arrive and we found a place to live in Bristol, all while dealing with the sadness of leaving Japan and learning to adjust to UK life. But as sad as it was to say goodbye to Japan, the UK is already bringing a host of marine-related opportunities. In September 2017 I spent two days at the National Dive and Activity Centre in Chepstow on a seahorse survey course run by the Seahorse Trust, a UK charity which studies seahorses and their habitats to educate the public and raise awareness of seahorse protection. We had two days of classroom sessions where we learned about seahorses, how to protect them, the role of divers and underwater surveys, and how to conduct such surveys underwater. Now that I’ve taken the course, I’ll be joining the instructor course in February 2018 to learn how to teach it to others, and take part in some survey dives along the south coast in summer 2018.

I then delved into the UK dive scene even more when I travelled to Birmingham in October 2017 to attend DIVE, a 2-day annual event organized by UK magazine DIVER. Like the Marine Diving Fair in Tokyo, hundreds of exhibitors come together to offer training courses, dive gear and holiday packages, while divers can network and get diving tips and advice. As well as hearing a talk on freshwater diving, I met the staff of a dive shop in Plymouth, listened to a talk on UK shore and boat diving and saw some impressive underwater photos taken in UK waters.  October 2017 also saw the start of Blue Planet II on BBC 1. I was honoured to attend the premier in Bristol with the BBC Natural History Unit, and amazed by how much is going on in the UK when it comes to all things marine.

Later this month I will submit my MSc thesis on aquaculture and disaster management, specifically the recovery of aquaculture in Japan’s Tohoku region after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011 and whether that can serve as an example to other countries with aquaculture industries that are vulnerable to natural disasters. Having set myself up as self-employed, my aquaculture and fisheries writing work is growing fast. This year I’ve been put in charge of a new series on women in aquaculture for 5M Publishing in the UK (https://thefishsite.com/articles/women-in-aquaculture-new-series-launched) and (https://thefishsite.com/articles/women-in-aquaculture-conchita-milburn), and in May 2018 the UK’s Mercator Media (World Fishing and Aquaculture) are sending me to Singapore for a 3-day offshore mariculture conference. My main goal this year, however, is to discover the UK diving scene and I’m excited about this next chapter and discovering a new kind of diving. Rising Bubbles will continue with a mix of UK diving and aquaculture reports, and the latest marine and diving updates from Japan.

Thank you for reading, and see you underwater!