ABOUT DEEP FATHOMS

In 1985 Bill Nadeau started as a crew and dive team member on Australia's first live-aboard dive charter, Mike Ball's MV Watersport running diving operations to the outer Great Barrier Reef. A year later after returning to Canada he worked as a commercial diver installing marine railways whilst building a dive business running boat charters out of Bala, Ontario. From this small dive shop his operations also included commercial diving services and facilitating unique excursions to deep wrecks and wall dives beyond the recreational diving limits. Having discovered a community keen on the more adventurous and exploratory level of diving, Bill re-branded his technical diving charter company and began doing business as Serious Divers Only (S.D.O.).

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Bill ran this operation, while attending the University of Guelph studying environmental sciences and coastal geomorphology, focusing on ecology management. With an avid interest in deep shipwrecks, mixed gas and cave diving he found a way to apply the unique approaches to extended range diving to marine research endeavours. After graduating from university he applied these skills to commercial applications, public safety diving, research diving and other aspects of ocean science.

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His company expanded taking him across Canada and around the world teaching all levels of diving, operating charter vessels and engaging in a variety of underwater research projects. A contract to manage the Sealand Oceanarium brought Bill to the west coast of Canada where his approach to extended range diving operations gained popularity. The business expanded further as Technical Diving became a mainstream endeavour. Bill found himself part of the pioneering efforts to introduce that realm of diving by not only franchising IANTD (International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers), the first technical dive training program in Canada, but developing manuals and standards for a number of training agencies. With the expansion in 1997 which included staffing crew on dive charters and live-aboards, developing extended range training programs, assisting in film and research projects and conducting environmental assessments, Bill found it necessary  to again re-brand his company, and S.D.O. evolved into DeepFathoms.

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Throughout this journey Bill's passion to explore facilitated many opportunities to explore above and below the ocean's  surface on both sides of the hemisphere. What came naturally was the evolution of an operation inevitably dedicated to aquatic exploration, specifically marine and diving sciences. DeepFathoms is the prodigy of those endeavours.

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Today DeepFathoms is proud to offer programs involving a variety of diver and instructor programs to individuals looking to develop not just their personal abilities, but excel as leaders in diving sciences.