Orsane is a retail assistant at Decathlon in Marseille-Bonneveine and a Sub'Editor for the Subea brand. She is keen on scuba diving. Learn more about her…
I’m 24 years old. I've been diving for 20 years now. Both my parents are professional divers, so I started early. I’m currently completing my FFESSM MF1 certification, I'm also a professional diver. I’m a shareholder in a diving company called "Immadras", with two partners. Part of the company goal is devoted to recreational diving and training and part is for professional diving (underwater events, underwater archaeology etc.).
I joined the Decathlon team a year ago after leaving a CV at the store in Marseilles. Piérine, in charge of the "Water" section, had been looking for a person to develop the diving department, which had not had much of a presence in our Decathlon store until then. I now have a permanent contract and work 35 hours per week in this section, and I specialise in diving. My mission is to develop this department as much as possible, to make it known to our customers through ongoing partnerships and articles on our Facebook page, and to provide expert advice to each customer.
Scuba diving isn't just an activity where you have fun dipping into water, it's a state of mind that you develop and cultivate with years of practice. It would be like doing a kind of yoga: you have to be calm, relaxed and blend with the environment. You can enjoy superb landscapes, the kind that only initiates have a chance to see, but it's also and especially about moving in a world that is not our own. All of our senses are altered: the ear perceives new subtleties, the sight must adapt to the colours that are gradually absorbed by the depth… The biggest change is the feeling of total weightlessness: it's a feeling of well-being that you don't find anywhere else. The body is no longer important because it becomes weightless; it only enables us to move our own way in this new world. And inevitably, once you've had such feelings, you feel like sharing them with as many people as possible. Seeing newly initiated divers smile under water is the greatest joy I can imagine.
My most beautiful memory remains without any doubt a diving trip last year in Marseilles during the shooting of the movie “the Odyssey”. For this film, cameraman Roberto Rinaldi, wanted to recreate a series of images that would show underwater life back in the days of Cousteau. To get this done, we had to find a site that was particularly full of fish. So we went to Les Moyades, an emblematic site of the Riou archipelago. The weather wasn't great: the rough sea and strong current made us really doubt that we would succeed ... Yet, once under water, we were amazed. Hundreds of fish, hunting barracudas causing havoc every now and again within the schools of small fish, skipjacks passing beyond the drop-off like torpedoes, while groupers watched us with their usual bulging eyes. It was like being in a giant aquarium and it was officially my best dive. In the end, we had really chosen the best day and place!
Becoming a contributor/editor for the Subea brand means having the privilege of sharing experiences, ideas and feelings with other enthusiasts, and providing information about diving and our brand, which we're proud to say is becoming more and more technical. It also means diving with Subea in order to share our experiences with this brand new development with all divers and proving to as many people as possible that diving isn't just about brands like Mares, Aqualung or others, as I had long believed.