Patrick Bijsmans; the ‘warm weather diver’

Patrick had just returned from a two-week holiday when I spoke to him via Zoom. His destination? Dutch Caribbean island Curaçao.

“With the pandemic ongoing, the possibilities to travel were somewhat limited. We did not want to go anywhere where the situation was more critical than it was in the Netherlands. The plan was to go to Bonaire, but when the Dutch government marked Bonaire as an ‘orange area’, we went to Curaçao instead,” Patrick says.

Patrick is a spur-of-the-moment type of person when it comes to vacations. “My girlfriend and I don’t have a clear bucket list. We simply think of places we want to go on holiday and then book a flight. Sometimes only a couple of weeks in advance,” Patrick explains. While he’s been on holiday to colder wet destinations, like many people he loves warm and sunny places. Since he usually does not go on vacation during the summer months, warm and sunny destinations close to home are more limited. “That’s why we resort so often to traveling to far-away places.” But specific weather conditions play a role in the decision-making process: “You don’t want to be in the Caribbean during hurricane season, nor in South East Asia during monsoon season.”

Patrick is an active person. In his free time, he likes to go long-distance running or cycling. He is no different when he is on vacation, though his activity then shifts from land to water. “I like to dive. When I first started diving, it all felt a bit out-of-the-ordinary and scary, because you breathe through a hose and there’s a lot of pressure on your eardrums similar to when you are on a plane.” Despite his unease during his first diving lesson, he decided to continue and he grew to love it. He does claim to be what I call a ‘warm weather diver’. “When I come out of the sea or ocean, I want to be able to think ‘oh, it’s nice and warm’ instead of ‘it’s so cold I need to get out of my wet suit immediately’.” Patrick has dived in the most exotic places, from the Caribbean, to Africa, to South East Asia. He has also encountered exotic animals when diving, such as manta rays and sharks, but “their response when seeing a human is to swim away rather than to approach.”

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