Meet the Diving Squad
Welcome to Diving Squad! Where we love creating travel guides aimed for backpacker-diver types; showing people how to save money even whilst scuba diving.
We’re also super into writing dive gear reviews, liveaboard comparisons; funny scuba-stories, life lessons learned from the ocean, shark raps and more.
Strap on a virtual dive mask and come with us; see what we’ve seen, learn what we’ve learned and witness the ocean through our eyes.
But wait!
Who the hell even are Diving Squad!? Time to meet the team:
Alex quit his Ecology job in 2018 to pursue life as a full-time scuba diver adventurer. Since then he’s been a rootless Divemaster and has so far dived much of the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Red Sea, Maldives, Ireland, Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama. For him this is still just the beginning…
He initially created Diving Squad as a place to share his scuba diving travel experiences with the world. It is through such travels that he met many wondrous and whacky characters – the finest of whom have been recruited into Diving Squad to make it what it is today!
A Maverick by heart, Alex loves reaching far-flung dive destinations; no matter how remote and then proceeding to “dive the fuck out of them”! He’s been known to occasionally burst into song about marine animals, sometimes whilst still underwater and also does a great impression of a sea urchin.
Captain Jas
Diving Squad Ranger & Senior Writer
Aloha, I’m Jas. I crossed paths with Alex in the stunning Guanacaste region of Costa Rica. Since then, we’ve shared underwater adventures on three different continents, with plans to flood the rest in the near future.
My underwater spirit animal? The octopus! Those eight arms turn the ocean floor into their own playground. The way they engage with marine life, flora, and fauna fascinates me.
When I’m not jet-setting, I’m conquering the Corporate Office jungle. I enjoy hiking, mountains, mountain biking, pen-and-paper role-playing games, filming and editing clips, hitting the cinema, and, believe it or not, I’ve got a thing for Excel sheets. It’s a one-sided love affair, though.
Laura DeLaurii
Diving Squad Ranger & Senior Writer
Laura is a marine biologist and underwater photographer whose been an avid scuba diver since age 19.
She met Alex whilst scuba diving Panama in 2021. Since then she been an integral Diving Squad Ranger; venturing forth into various far-flung corners of the world to gather location guides, gear reviews and underwater photography for Diving Squad!
Laura has hundreds of dives under her belt but never ceases to be astonished by the marine ecosystems and landscapes that she sees…she would love to spend one day as her favourite marine animal: a Manta Ray.
When not doing marine biology stuff, traveling, diving or flexing her mad multi-lingual skills, Laura can usually be found outdoors or flipping into beast mode at the gym!
Simon Papalia
Diving Squad Ranger & Senior Writer
Simone has been addicted to travel since 2012; he worked as a dive instructor for 5 years in Australia and has also dived much of Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Dubai, Mexico and Central and South America.
When it come to diving, his passions are tech diving and big animals – especially whale-sharks and his spirit-animals: orcas (Simone is guide by a mystical spirit-Orca that glows blue…).
Simone met Alex at a party in Jaco, Costa Rica where after many beers they decided to drive Alex’s incredibly beaten up, 27 year old car (Senor. Carro) to Guanacaste the next day and spend a week searching for whales and manta rays around Playa del Coco.
They’ve been epic friends ever since, with Simone contributing diver-travel guides, gear reviews and underwater photography guides to Diving Squad. He and Alex are also working on a side-project – it’s gonna be big. Just ya’ll wait…
There’s another member of the team to still introduce. It’s you! If you have scuba diving experiences or original photos, videos or reviews of your own that you’d like to share, feel free to reach out and find out how you can become a member of the Diving Squad team.
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