ABOUT US

Introduction

We are located on the island of Ustica, 36 marine miles north from Palermo (1h 15’ by hydrofoil).
Ustica is an island mainly visited for scuba diving: it is a marine protect area since 30 years, and famous for diving among barracudas, groupers and amberjacks.

For better description of the island and our location, you will want to visit our website, of course.
At the moment, the only link available is www.palermodiving.com which is the website of our PADI Resort Training Centre in Palermo. Our main website is under maintenance www.marenostrumdiving.com and our promo site www.usticadiving.com is renewing as well. Sorry for the inconvenience, you can check them out later on.

Our clients are mainly Italians, but we also have other Europeans divers, of which mostly French.  

Logistics

We offer scuba diving tours through single-dive excursions or by full-day diving formula.
We own two VTR boats and a Rubber Inflatable Boat and use them depending on the season, the amount of divers or specific requests.
The dive centre is located with a little office and storehouse not too far from the marina and at the feet of the village centre, where we have a reception and dry equipment storage, as the great part of the activities is spent on the boats.
Equipment rinsing and drying takes place on the boat or at the dock, where we have a reserved water tab.
We do not refill the tanks; we get them from the refilling station that is at the dock.

The company

Owners: Tatiana and Danilo. We are the front-line players in the team. 
Danilo is responsible for the technical management of the dive centre. He gives practical instructions and rides the boat, cooks on board (if covid-19 makes that possible) and dives seldom.  Speaks little English but enough to get along.
I (Tatiana) am responsible of administrative management, booking system and dive training of clients, as well as the personnel manager and PR for clients. I also dive as dive guide or instructor for specific courses, and ride the boat if needed. 
We are aiming to be an environment-friendly company, in our daily habits, on board, with our divers, at our homes. We need co-workers with the same “green” (#thinkgreenliveblue) attitude.

Our lifestyle

We are team workers and we intend sharing workload within the team. Our priority is to arrange a safe and comfortable environment for our divers, but we care a lot about each co-worker’s wellness. This is expressed in keeping things in order, being punctual, clean, inclined to calm attitude and gentleness. We are not anxiogenous nor love to breathe down your neck, as we expect collaboration on your own initiative.
We strictly respect dive standards, but we are careful on how to communicate and encourage divers to respect them as well, according to common sense and safety priorities. And we want all our co-operators to be a role model in this.

Management & Joint-venture

In 2019 we have merged into our management another dive centre, once our competitor, which owns a resort where their clients lodge: PROFONDO BLU DIVING (& RESORT) www.ustica-diving.it .
Two of our team members will be designed to be specifically in charge of the clients of the Profondo Blu Diving Boat, as well as to take care of the divers lodging in the resort (it is a bit far from embarking dock and dive centre) in order to maintain PR, manage their planning and give assistance, as they are usually not comfortable to come to the dive centre.
Occasionally we arrange, at dinner time or aperitif, some entertaining dive promo-programs in order to eventually collect enrolment to our week activities outside of basic dive packages (for instance night dives, speciality courses, snorkelling excursions for the last day pre-flight, etc.) I usually take care of arranging the promo programs so it is not totally on instructors’ shoulders. But we want to involve other team members if they have specific skills or titles.

Our mission

“One Fin-shot Beyond”

 Mare Nostrum Diving specialises in creating memorable dive vacation in one of the most precious islands of Italy. Our Aim is to create an experience that takes our guests One Fin-Shot Beyond in every sense: beyond the everyday, beyond their confines and hopefully beyond their dreams.
We understand that what makes a dive unforgettable is different for every one of us. But whatever a good memory means to each of us, and whether you’re seven or seventy, we would love to help people create their own One Fin-shot Beyond adventure, that perfect dive experience that meets their expectations, and little bit more.
And while we try our best around here to be the ONE and the only place they will ever need for their life-changing dive adventure, we know that we’re just one of the many places where they can satisfy their pleasure of scuba diving. Although, we are concerned to be unique in our genre.
Of course, no dive experience – however exiting it can be - should ever mean compromising safety and we want our guests to be confident they are in safe hands with Mare Nostrum Diving.  We are expert divers and know how to ensure them to enjoy their dive excursions safely using experienced guides, functional gear and accurate operating procedures.
Whether there is a beginner or an expert, a photographer or a wanderer, a muck-diver or fish-chaser, we want our team to always go One Fin-Shot Beyond to ensure they get the experience of a lifetime.
We try - every season – to set up a team made of local based expert guides, dive instructors and first experience professionals, different in age, gender and origin.
We also have co-operating partners to ensure extra-dive arrangements, in order to provide our clients with the first-hand expert advice they need to plan their perfect trip. When they decide to book it with us, the trip will be arranged by our partner Tour Operator so they know they’re financially safe and properly protected.
An important part of our approach to all our divers is that we care for our crew, for the local environment and care for the community in which we are located.
We do not run our business because we ourselves want to dive (and get paid to dive).  Of course we love scuba diving, we started in 1994 and we have never done other kind of job that hasn’t have to do with the ocean – but we are client-centred not self-focused.
It is very important that our crew share our vision, while having its own dreams, goals and expectations.
Few months are a very little time to build up a solid cooperation and make any kind of long-term plans, carrier projects or investment, but whatever the duration of cooperation, we believe it must be true, trustful and mutually beneficial.
We all work to earn money, because we need it, but we did not set up our company in order to earn big money as priority. Incomes are a mean, not the goal. Our life itself while working is satisfying enough to make us happy and to enjoy life as we like it.
Our co-workers do not need to have our same goal but should share our vision about life priorities to go well along.

Environment

It is not put at the end because less important. In the past 10 years, we have developed a stronger environmental awareness in our operations so we need our co-operators willing to accomplish the mission to share it with our customers, to be actors with us in citizen science programs and to be available for voluntary activities about sea conservation.
We are part of different projects about climate change and monitoring biodiversity in the Med, so our team must be on the front line with us in this.