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Scuba Magic

FEATURED DIVE OPERATOR OF THE WEEK : SCUBA MAGIC This week we had the opportunity to speak to Lyn Cooke over at scuba magic in Roodepoort. Together with her husband Robin they started a scuba shop simply out of their love for the underwater world and to share this special place with as many people as they could. Their promise is that with Robin you are guaranteed to see something spectacular and experience a whole new world.

Q.	*Hi Lyn. How are you? Do you mind giving us a bit of background about you shop and how you got into scuba diving?*
A.	Sure no problem. A friend introduced us to scuba. We went off to the pool and did all the necessary training and after our first dive in the sea both Robin and I decided “that’s it! We aint scuba diving no more” Then another instructor who was on the trip took us under his wing. We went on four dives with him and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. That was in 1995.

Q.	*What was your 1^st dive like?*
A.	Horrific! We went up and we went down and we had surges and we thought that if this is diving it aint for us. I was holding Robin’s hand and he was acting like everything was fine. But when it was time for us to come up we inflated our BC’s, which nobody told us we weren’t supposed to do. When we got to the surface we both had such violent headaches and decided we not diving anymore.

Q.	How did you overcome that and manage to get into the water again?
A.	We were in Sodwana and decided to give it another try and absolutely loved it. The instructor was brilliant and we just couldn’t wait to get into the water again. After that, whenever we had a holiday or a break we would go diving.

Q.	How many dives have you had since?
A.	Robin has 3000+ dives, because he is an instructor and I have 500+ dives behind my name.

Q.	What is your most memorable dive?
A.	It was out in Malagan and we saw dolphins and we saw whale shark. It was absolutely wonderful. Funnily enough we actually ordered them. When we went out in the morning we said “this morning we ordering dolphins and whale shark” and we saw dolphin and whale shark, it was dynamic.

Q.	You run a dive shop in Johannesburg. How long have you been going for?
A.	In 2000 we started running the shop from home and we got too big so we bought a property on Ondekkers drive and we got bigger still so we bought another little building just off Mouton road and we have been running there ever since 2005.

Q.	What are you Easter diving plans?
A.	We are having a Easter treasure hunt. It’s always good fun for all levels of divers. We handicap the strong divers by only allowing them to use one fin and things like that. The first few people to find the ribbons get an Easter egg and a prize.

Q.	Lastly, do you have a message for our readers?
A.	Come dive with us! Magic is in scuba and we are Scuba Magic.