About the Editor

Jon Martin is the webmaster and editor-in-chief for this blog.

Photo of Jon Martin Doing What he Loves to Do, Scuba Diving.

This time somewhere off the Great Barrier Reef in the Coral Sea.

Background

Jon was born in Eastbourne in 1967, though it looked a lot different way back then ;-) ~ also attending local schools including Tollgate Junior and Bishop Bell, before doing ‘A’ Levels at local Colleges.

Jon worked for East Sussex County Council for a few years before leaving Eastbourne to pursue his career in IT and business consultancy. Though he often popped back for a beer or four with his mates at the weekend.

In 1994, Jon formed his own IT, Business and Project Management Consultancy company, and during one of his assignments in London in 1995 met Carole, his partner, and now fiancee.

Although based primarily in London, Jon bought a house in the South Harbour area of his native Eastbourne in 2000, and planned one day to return to a slightly quieter pace of life, with a chance to breathe in fresh sea air, instead of the heavy polluted London smog.

Carole and Jon moved permanently to Eastbourne in 2005, and have lended their support to the necessary campaigns of the Residents Association, as well as enjoying the community spirit, the marina lifestyle, and being so close to Mother Nature in her various guises.

Scuba Diving

Although a lot of this blog covers the marina lifestyle and natural history, a particular emphasis is on the marine environment, and particularly that found under the water.

This comes from Jon’s passion for scuba diving. He’d always been fascinated by the television documentaries of Jacques Cousteau in the ’70s but it wasn’t until he snorkelled for the first time on the Greek island of Rhodes in 1994 that he realised that interacting with marine creatures in their own habitats was a real possibilty.

However, it wasn’t until 1999 that he actually did an introductory Open Water Scuba Diver course from the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI).

Jon’s life changed from this point, as he’s tried to dive wherever and whenever the time allowed (which wasn’t easy when trying to run his own business).

Since his first tentative breaths in the Sovereign Centre’s swimming pool, he’s gone on to log over 100 dives, in a variety of exotic locations, including St Lucia, Antigua, Florida, Bahamas, the Red Sea, as well as Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. He’s also dived in some seemingly non-exotic, but equally fascinating places, such as various locations around the UK, including Soverign Harbour’s North Marina.

Keep reading the posts on this blog, and you’ll see how interesting this part of the world can be for marine life and nautical history.

Jon’s a member of Eastbourne’s premier PADI dive club, and the British Society of Underwater Photographers. His diving ambitions for 2007 are to complete his DiveMaster rating, as well as complete the training necessary with the Nautical Archaeological Society (NAS) to work on the Resolution wreck site in Pevensey Bay, and conduct marine life surveys for SeaSearch.

I really hope you enjoy reading about my exploits and discovering what’s happening on, around and in the marina, as much as I will in sharing them with you…

Wishing you health, success and happiness in everything you do,