From Smethwick to stingrays

"Everyone experiences life-changing moments, after which nothing will ever be quite the same again. One of mine happened at Smethwick swimming baths, where I learned to dive.

"So with a tank full of air strapped to my back I can now explore the world's oceans. Well, little bits of them anyway.

"A new world has opened up; one I first glimpsed courtesy of Jacques Cousteau and his team on the telly of the 1970s. Now I can experience the underworld wonders first-hand. And what wonders they are.

"I've been been face to jaws with reef sharks in the Caribbean, gazed with awe at the graceful beauty of a stingray in the Indian Ocean and watched scallops dancing across a wreck off the west coast of Scotland.

"But it all started in Smethwick, which is just about as far away from the sea as you can get in this small island of ours.

"Maybe it's because we're an island that so many people are fascinated with what lies below the surface of the sea that surrounds us.

"It's a fascination that prompts normally sane people to abandon their nearest and dearest at weekends to spend hours bobbing around in boats for what seems like a few brief moments under the waves.

"But it's one that binds people together in a camaraderie of adventure, exploration and concern - an essentially 20th Century concern for the way in which we treat the world's oceans as a dumping ground and the adverse effect this is having on the eco system.

See? There I go. 'Eco system'. Life will never be the same again.