|
Whether it was working as an under-water carpenter or later as an officer on ocean-going ships, the early days of Veljko Pesakovic’s career meshed nicely with his passion for scuba diving.
Growing up in the former Yugoslavia, Veljko constructed boxes into which cement would be poured to anchor docks and attached them to the pylons at the bottom of the harbour.
The docks were to accommodate smaller 150-foot vessels that that would ferry 80 to 100 passengers between the islands and the mainland. As such, the harbours were not deep. He was usually working about 30 feet below the surface. He also dove to clean the bottoms of ships using the harbour.
For a young recreational diver looking for every opportunity to pursue his sport, getting paid to do it was a bonus. Veljko recalls the pay breakdown as split evenly in three ways – to the diver, the diving club and for operating expenses. It wasn’t a career job but it was a nice bonus for the young naval academy student.
Later, he would cruise the world as an officer on ships, where downtime in ports such as Durban in South Africa, Newcastle, Australia, or on the island of Mauritius would put him in prime diving locales. There, warmer water temperatures would mean that the spectacular aquatic life that divers enjoy exploring would be in much shallower depths. As well as being much more accessible, the added bonus was that the diver could spend more time in the zone of the colourful plants and fish before his air supply ran too low to safely continue the dive. He rented equipment from diving clubs in the ports and went on their organized dives.
For Veljko, who now lives in Montreal, Canada, it was an idyllic time in his life that reinforced his passion for diving – particularly in warm water seas such as the Indian Ocean.
Still, his favourite diving spot was the Adriatic Sea, bordering his homeland in the former Yugoslavia. Reflecting back at that time, he says: “I was spoiled.”
Kathy for www.kirkscubagear.com
|
