To truly make your dive buddy smile this Christmas, take inspiration from these top ten ideas. I believe that the perfect gift should either inspire or be useful but can also be a reflection of you and your buddy’s journeys!
1. Mini Dive Helmet - This old-fashioned deep sea diving helmet has a pencil sharpener incorporated into the base. Buy Now!
2. Scratcher Map – Available in either Australia or Global. This map is like a giant scratchie, and using a coin you rub out every area you have ever visited, revealing the colour beneath. Perfect for well travelled divers and adventurers alike. Buy Now!
3. Pendant – Everyone has a favourite sea creature, and while this may not be for totemistic reasons, some divers may simply feel a connection with a particular playful animal, actively seek it out for their ‘to see’ list, or just feel that sense of joy when they see one in the wild. I have a seal totem, and my friend bought it for me at a second hand shop. It gets me through the cool winter months. Other animals include the manta ray Buy Now! and the sand dollar Buy Now!
4. Wind Gauge/Anemometer – The first thing I do every morning is put the kettle on and check the weather conditions. I do this by standing on the verandah barefoot in my oversized t-shirt, feeling the breeze/or lack of breeze on my skin and looking up at a crude ribbon tied to a stick on my next door neighbours garage roof. This particular one however, is a lot more upmarket. Buy Now!
5. Manatee (dugong) Tea Infuser – He just looks so happy bobbing around in your cuppa! Buy now!
6. Personalised Shadow Box – This gift is easy to make and will have special meaning to any dive buddy. Click here for a step by step guide.
7. Dive Essentials Kit – Even though dive essentials kits are available commercially, it can still be more appropriate to make one. This way you can include personalised objects like your buddies favourite lollies, and humourous objects like an anti-wetsuit peeing device (a cork). Click here to get ideas for yours.
8. Journal – Imagine this journal, salt-sprayed and peeling, riddled with dive logs, GPS marks and wreck discoveries, sitting on a desk in a cabin on a vessel on the ocean. Now imagine the look on your buddy’s face this Christmas. Buy Now!
9. Subscription to a Magazine – The gift that keeps on giving! I buy dive magazines, or any magazine usually if I happen to be in the newsagents with a spare ten bucks. And I always enjoy that new ink smell, the stories, photography and inspiration, despite not buying it religiously. So if I were to receive one monthly, with no obvious effort on my part, well you can imagine!
10. Shark USB - I don’t know why but this appeals. Buy Now!
