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News & Info
THE DIVEQUEST TEAM
– divers to make your dreams come true
Graham Abbott is from northwest England and is the founder, expedition director and dive guide behind Diving 4 Images. He first started diving in the Asia-Pacific in 1997 and has been non-stop diving ever since. It quickly became apparent to Graham that Indonesia was the richest place for underwater life and he wanted to be based in and explore the area to the maximum. Diving 4 Images was born out of demand for high-end, specialist dive guiding services within Indonesia. Since 2002 he has managed to guide and work with an ‘A list’ of diving’s greatest names including Alex Mustard, Peter Rowlands, Norbert Wu, Eric Cheng, Peter Scoones and David Doubilet. Graham has recently been brought in as consultant by Howard Hall and his IMAX team. He also directs expeditions for Conservation International with Gerry Allen and Mark Erdmann. His spotting abilities have led to a new species of mantis shrimp soon to be named Lysiosquilloides hiltonabbotti. His true passion lies in showing photographers, film makers and marine life enthusiasts the joys and wonders of this underwater world in his new back garden. He does take the odd photograph, though only with a pocket camera so as not to intrude on his work of spotting for those diving with him.
Mark Beaman is the Managing Director of Birdquest Ltd. After graduating from Cambridge University he spent some time in ornithological research before becoming involved in birding and wildlife tourism in 1978, going on to found his own company in 1981. His love of the natural world led him to take up scuba diving in the 1990s and, following on from his many years of experience in the field of environmental travel, it was a natural progression to create the Divequest programme together with Hilary Lee.
Shannon Conway lives in Fremantle, Western Australia. Originating from Poole, on the Dorset coast of England, Shannon has always been fascinated by the ocean, spending most of his childhood summer holidays in Bournemouth with his grandparents, searching rock pools for marine creatures. Shannon and his wife Amanda moved to Australia in 2006 in the search for crystal blue waters and sunny skies. After changing from a previous working life in IT, Shannon now focuses on his new career, sharing his passion by teaching underwater photography. Shannon is a very successful underwater photographer, and has won a variety of awards from the Western Australian Underwater Photographic Society and the British Society of Underwater Photographers. He has also been awarded the top slot on many Photoquests and was the winner in the underwater category of the prestigious Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica and Papua New Guinea Nature and Landscape Photographer of the Year award in 2007 and 2008.
Martin Edge lives in Dorset and has been diving for over 25 years and taking underwater photographs for almost as long. He is widely acknowledged as one of Britain’s leading underwater photographers and one of the finest teachers of underwater photography skills. Over 1000 of his photographs have been published in magazines, books and journals and his latest book, ‘The Underwater Photographer – Digital and Traditional Techniques’ was published in April 2006. Martin has dived around the world and has guided groups for Divequest since its beginnings. Martin’s wife, Sylvia, often accompanies him and adds a helpful extra element for those participating in Martin’s trips by assisting with modelling, equipment setup and photo critique.
Charles Hood lives in Cornwall and caught the underwater ‘bug’ in the 70s whilst living in the Middle East and using his mother’s Minolta Weathermatic camera! After returning to the UK he qualified as an advanced instructor and also as a diver coxswain and coastal skipper. Charles’s many underwater photography awards include high rankings in BSoUP, Natural History Museum Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Digital Photographer Magazine ‘Best of the Year’, ‘European Wildlife Photographer of the Year’ and SanDisk ‘Images of the World’ competitions. More importantly Charles has been published in TIME magazine (front cover), ‘The Times’, ‘Telegraph’, ‘Independent’, ‘Daily Mail’, ‘Guardian’, ‘Sun’, ‘Geographical’, ‘Western Morning News’ and ‘Cornishman’, photo magazines in China, Rumania, Israel, Germany, Italy, USA, Spain, Australia, Iceland and, of course, the UK. Charles has amassed over 60 front covers! Charles currently works part time for Dive magazine and also as a freelance journalist and underwater photographer.
Rachel Horsfield is a Trainee Manager with Divequest, and also daughter/step-daughter to Hilary Lee and Mark Beaman. Rachel knew she had to become a diver from the age of six when she watched Hilary and Mark become qualified while near freezing to death in the Lake District. Vowing never to repeat their mistake, Rachel’s first dive was tucked under the arm of the Dive Master in Tobago at the age of eight and she subsequently became qualified at the earliest possible moment, completing her Open Water course with an open-water dive with numerous sharks at the famous ‘chumsicle’ at Walker’s Cay in the Bahamas. From the age of twelve, Rachel has been well and truly spoiled, logging dives in the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Sea of Cortez, the Red Sea, Wakatobi in Sulawesi, Bali, Palau and Yap. In spite of all these temptations, Rachel graduated in 2008 from the University of Nottingham with a degree in American and Canadian studies and was fortunate enough to spend a year living and studying at the University of California, Davis as part of her course. When not helping Divequest clients arrange their holidays and day-dreaming about diving herself, Rachel will no doubt be found in the swimming pool or watching football.
Hilary Lee is co-founder and Managing Director of Divequest. After a successful career in science teaching, she changed direction to work in the environmental travel business. Hilary now combines her passions for long-distance travel, the natural world and scuba diving in the administration, research and planning of the Divequest programme. She complains that a heavy workload keep her from getting away from her desk to explore the underwater realm, but her long list of dive venues keeps on increasing. After a successful career in science teaching, she changed direction to work in the environmental travel business. Hilary now combines her passions for long-distance travel, the natural world and scuba diving in the administration, research and planning of the Divequest programme.
Mark Mullen is the Divequest Client Manager. He began diving in the early eighties and after a few years of avoiding propellers, self inflating BCDs and the then prevailing fashion of diving in Speedos, finally got himself a ‘proper’ certification in the 1990s. A couple of years and lots of coursework later, Mark qualified as a diving instructor, and went on to work in Baja California, instructing and guiding in the beautiful and diverse waters around this Mexican peninsula. His love of the world underwater then took him to Central America, Western Australia, the Mediterranean and Egypt, where Mark continued to work in the water before moving into the sales and management of scuba diving activities for a group of Red Sea dive centres. After 8 years of travelling and diving, seeing the largest and smallest creatures in the water and experiencing some of the best (and worst) diving to be had in the world, most of his wish list has been ticked off. Missing the glorious weather associated with the British Isles, Mark returned to the UK, hung up his flip flops and entered the cut and thrust of dive tour operations. He is not surprised to see Speedos returning to dive fashion (it is cyclical after all), but maintains that he will not be swayed by the vagaries of fashion.
Alex Mustard lives in Hampshire, holds a Ph.D. in marine biology and works as a freelance marine biologist, author and photographer. He took his first underwater pictures aged nine, has had his images widely published and has won first prizes in both the prestigious Festival Mondial de L’Image Sous Marine in Antibes and the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the year competition. His main diving interest is observing and photographing the everyday behaviour of marine life, something that many divers miss. Alex is the digital officer of the British Society of Underwater Photographers and co-administrator of the digital photography website Wetpixel. Alex’s latest book, ‘The Art of Diving’ (2006) was written in conjunction with Nick Hanna.
Mike Watson spends much of his time as Client Manager for Birdquest, but also spends some of his time in the Divequest office. Formerly a Bank Manager for NatWest, Mike’s life-long obsession with birding and wildlife led him to a complete career change. Although he tells us the deepest dive he has done so far is to the bottom of the swimming pool at Dunston, Newcastle (4 metres!), we are hopeful that he will one day take his Open Water qualification and join the ranks of the diving fraternity.
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