About Us
Vectis Diving Services and Training Ltd (Vectis Diving) is focussed on expeditionary and scientific diving.
There are three strands to our activities: Dive School, Dive Community/Club and Commercial Diving
The underpinning philosophy behind what the company does is that mankind is responsible for the stewardship of the oceans. This isn’t a new idea, its been around formally since the book of Genesis was written. It’s just that mankind needs to be constantly reminded of this fact and do something about it which is a challenge when most people do not dive and so for whom the underwater realm is out of sight and out of mind.
Therefore, in all we do with recognise that as divers we have the privilege of seeing the underwater world and therefore have some responsibility to act as its stewards.
The company was founded in the midst of a global pandemic and a climate crisis but also at a time when there has never been so much interest in the oceans and the blue economy.
There is much work to do to continue exploring and protecting our oceans so whether you are a volunteer diver or a client with commercial scientific diving need we want to help you contribute to that endeavour.
Services
1. DIVE SCHOOL
We aim to provide a personalised service, delivering tailored training to help boost your rec/tec sport diving career progression and give you the competence and confidence to dive safely in challenging UK waters. We also run instructor training courses and bootcamps.
We are a BSAC Centre of Excellence, No. D0949 and also a Technical Centre for entry level Rebreather training (MOD 1).
We offer a full range of BSAC Courses but focus on courses that produce a rounded Expeditionary minded diver capable of diving around the British Isles (and by implication, anywhere else in the world).
Don’t worry if you have trained with other training agencies before (e.g,, PADI, SDI, RAID, TDI, IANTD, CMAS etc.). We can build on that training so you can do as many or few BSAC courses as you develop your own diving skills.
Like you, the founder has undertaken courses with different organisations over his career and learnt from all of them.
2. DIVE COMMUNITY / CLUB
The best and cheapest way to go diving is with a community of fellow divers.
The club welcomes divers from all agencies, whether or not you have trained with the school.
Vectis Underwater Explorers is a fully fledged club (BSAC Branch No. 1010) that is managed by Vectis Diving on behalf of its members.
The club naturally aims to enable you to put those expeditionary diving skills you have learnt into practice to good use.
We organise dives to not only around the Isle of Wight where we are based but the British Isles in general.
We have ongoing opportunities to support volunteer diving projects to suit your interest whether that is seabed restoration or wreck heritage.
We have also been known to stray abroad to both warmer and colder seas.
3. COMMERCIAL DIVING
We have experience in supporting marine renewable energy projects, seabed restoration projects including inspection of Advanced Mooring Systems (AMS) of course seagrass and native oyster surveys and wreck surveys.
The nature of many of the projects we’re involved with means that there is an engineering element which is provided by sister company, Vectis Sustainable Engineering Ltd – Engineering a sustainable future
We principally operate in accordance with HSE ACOP L107 for Scientific and Archaeological diving projects
and utilise Full Face Masks with surface to diver voice communications where appropriate.
company history
Vectis Diving Service and Training Ltd (Vectis Diving) was founded as Vectis Expeditions Ltd during the COVID pandemic, recently changing its name to reflect the nature and direction of the business. Its founder Andrew Hunt is a First Class Diver and National Instructor and a qualified advanced mixed gas rebreather diver with over 35 years diving experience, predominantly around the British Isles. He also holds a HSE Professional Scuba Qualification.
Andrew has been a member of the British Sub Aqua Club (BSAC) the Governing Body for the sport of diving in the UK system he learnt to dive as a student and has served on the National Diving Committee for over twenty years as Expeditions Officer, First Class Diver Chief Examiner and then Expeditions Officer again. He co-authored the BSAC Expeditions Manual and is passionate about classic UK expeditionary diving, which at its best is a fusion of recreational and technical diving techniques in some stunning places around our coastline.
He is a Fellow of the Society of Underwater Technology and a Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers having also a career in subsea engineering, ironically involved in the design of remotely operated systems that by their nature design divers out of the system. That said there is a place and a need for both the volunteer and professional diver in a world coming to terms with trying to reverse decades of wide spread damage to the seabed and oceans.
He founded the citizen science project BSAC Operation Oyster which aims to seek out remnant native oyster populations and feed data back into national databases for the scientific community to use. He also founded Plant and Oyster which seeks along with project partners to restore native oyster populations to pre-industrial levels but on an industrial scale, a task which fuses his engineering and diving skillsets.
Since its incorporation Vectis Diving has trained numerous volunteer divers with underwater surveyor skills so they can support their local projects, organised club diving trips to some memorable places around the UK providing expeditionary diving experience for a new generation of sport divers, run instructor a boot camps to train the next generation of club diving instructors and supported high profile seagrass and native oyster restoration projects.
Vectis Expeditions Ltd was renamed to Vectis Diving Services and Training Ltd in May 2026 to reflect the growing needs of clients, particularly those requiring cost effective professional diving support where HSE Professional Scuba techniques are adequate..
Photographs and Images on this website are taken from the Founder’s own collection or
with the kind permission of The British Sub Aqua Club, Heriot Watt University,
Bob Anderson of Halton Dive Charters, Richard Booth of Tyneside 114 Sub Aqua Club, Peter Allison
