2010
Blue Immersion was founded in 2010 by a French-Tunisian Freediver Akim Adhari. Very limited in budget, he started teaching all courses by himself, doing some marketing early morning before diving and late evening after training. The freediving center was located in a resort called Good Time Adventure. Akim worked really hard and made Freediving a fast growing activity in Koh Tao. End of 2012 he decide to sale the company to Flo a good friend of him to move on with his dream. In Tunisia he bought a boat and sailed around the Mediterranean sea to teach Spearfishing and Freediving.
2012
End of 2012 Flo became the owner and manager of Blue Immersion.Before being a professional Freediver, Flo was a optometrist working in France and Australia. In 2010 he thought that the city life was to superficial and depressing so he decided to quite everything to explore the seas which have always been mysterious, fascinating and scary for him. He became a scuba diving instructor, then a technical diver and finally a freediving Instructor. In 2013 he started to show interest in freediving competitions where he is known as a up and coming star. Florian can now hold his breath for 9 minutes and freedive to 85 meters. He spend most of his time training and teaching advanced, master and instructor courses in Blue Immersion. Flo’s coaching skills are highly spoken off by his freediving students. From the first moment he became the manager of the diving school, he believed in Thailand’s high potential for freediving courses and fun trips. He renovated Blue Immersion. The center became much bigger and started to offer new services such as intense master course, freediving specialties, freediving trips, food and accommodation services.
2013
As the school grew bigger, it needed more Freedive professionals to run it and to increase the quality of our services higher and higher. End of 2013 Blue Immersion welcomed two new owners, Lotta Ericson and Linda Paganelli. Lotta is a former static apnea World Champion. In 2007, she surpassed all her competitor with a 7min+ breath hold. She also competed in depth disciplines and dynamic apnea reaching 71 meters and 167meters. Lotta stopped competing years ago when she realised she was happier sharing her skills and knowledge to others than training hard to freedive a couple meters deeper or longer. She trained over 300 new freediving instructors and have co-written the freediving manuals of AIDA and SSI. Lotta also became the course director of ssi Freediving education system. All instructors who want to become an ssi freediving trainer in the world must go to her seminar. She also have co-writen new freediving specialities, which are available in most ssi freediving center around the world. At Blue Immersion she makes sure that all our Instructors have high teaching abilities and knowledge. You will be surprised how much our instructors know about Freediving and how well the theory sessions of each course is conducted. Thanks to our ssi Queen of Freediving!
2013
Linda started freediving in late 2002. During her first competition in 2015 she broke 3 national depth records. Linda became SSI instructor trainer in 2010 and certified over 200 new free diving instructors. She is also a judge for freediving competitions and have judged 3 world championships and few world record attempts. In 2012 she passed the 80 meters mark in constant weight, and setting 3 new national records in Variable Weight (100m), Constant Weight (82m) and Free Immersion (70m). Linda have been teaching and training free diving for over 15 years and she has contribute to the development of the sport by co-written the SSI freediving manuals. At Blue Immersion she taught all our instructors the most efficient techniques to perform in Freediving. If you join the training of our instructors you will be amazed by their freediving abilities. Linda always share her knowledge efficiently to our students and instructors for the safest and fastest results in the sport. Linda and her father Francesco Paganelli designed and built our Freediving boat. A platform with engine, perfect for our activities. Blue Immersion boat takes our freedivers from shore to dive sites without transfer to a small boat which increased the training time in open water and allow our students to grow stronger.
2014
Jin started Freediving with Blue Immersion years ago. He started with our Zero to Hero training program and worked hard for the last 5 years. When he started freediving, Jin didn’t even know how to swim. He proved that this sport can be learn by everyone. In April 2013 he got his first National record in Constant weight using bi fins with 61m. A year later another Korean National record with 71m this time using a monofin. Jin is teaching level 3,master and instructor courses in Blue Immersion. He is focusing on teaching and sharing his freediving knowledge and skills to whoever motivated to learn and work hard, rather than pushing himself in competition. Jin is well known for his efficiency at work. His students learn to freedive fast and vigorously with discipline. His humour is also great. End of 2014 he became the fourth and proud owner of Blue Immersion. Flo,Linda,Lotta and Jin are currently running the school along with their talented Freediving Instructors. We are very professional but we also know how to make it fun!
NOW
Blue Immersion is now run by those four Freediving Trainers and Athletes. Our dive center quickly became well known as one of the most successful Freediving school in the world with 1000 students every year. We made hundreds are SSI Freediving Instructors who are now working in the same industry and making a living off their passion. We trained few Athletes who are now some of the best freedivers in competitions. The first thing you will notice at Blue Immersion is how we are passionated and obsessed with this sport! Blue immersion is well known worldwide to deliver high quality freediving courses. The smart structure of our training allow students to perform well very fast and very fast. The freediving training always start with some theory as we believe the more you understand the science of freediving, the faster you will achieve results. Pool training is the second part of each freediving course. Working on swimming techniques, getting use to the long freediving fins, practicing ears equalisation and more… The final part of each freediving course is the depth training. You will surprise how easy 10,20,30,40 meters freedive is when you have the knowledge and the right preparation.
