Tina O'Connell, Instructor, President & Founder at Scuba Lessons Inc.
Instructor Certifications: NAUI Open Water Scuba Instructor, SSI Open Water Scuba Instructor, PADI Divemaster DSD, DAN Instructor, SSI Night Diving and Limited Visibility Specialty Instructor, SSI Wreck Diving Specialty Instructor, Stress & Rescue Specialty Instructor, Science of Diving Specialty Instructor, Perfect Buoyancy Specialty Instructor, Deep Diving Specialty Instructor, Search & Recovery Specialty Instructor, Enriched Air Nitrox Specialty Instructor, React Right Instructor of CPR, First Aid, O2, and AED and other certifications.
Tina started diving at only 9 years old. She could swim before she could walk. Tina had a love for all things water as a baby she played with manatees and dolphins in the canals behind her house. As a young girl and as a teen she volunteered at the Clearwater Marine Science Center scrubbing algae off the manatee tanks for years. She loved every minute of it and that is what began the greatest adventure of her life. That adventure, to become a scuba instructor took years of internships, hard work, excellent training and instructors who cared about how good a trainer she would be. Although Tina's underwater training started many years ago and she will never stop and there is always more to learn. In fact, Tina is currently is prepping for a course director program with SSI and expected to complete this program by early 2017.
Tina's real passion is in underwater conservation efforts. Most of her efforts are done to achieve her diving sustainability mission. She firmly believes that we should leave this world, including her ocean better than we found it, and cleaner than we found it for out grandchildren and great grandchildren and their great grandchildren. Never do we want our children to have to see a shark in a museum, right? Over 90% of the worlds shark species are in great decline and many species of sharks are critically endangered while still being unprotected, over fished and killed off by bad fishing practices.