In my early teens I suffered a skin diving accident in Yacht Clube da Bahia caused by a breath-holding blackout; I was found unconscious at the bottom and was rescued by my great friend Romano Allegro. I was hospitalized and remained in coma for about 3 hours. After that, I didn't give up my interest in the underwater environment. I started scuba diving in 1980 while living in the Caribbean - in the then "unknown" island of Bonaire - with Captain Don, the pioneer of Coral Reef Conservation, who had opened the very first dive operation in the whole region. One year later I moved to the Middle East and therefore no more diving for a long time. In 1996 I was invited to join the Explorers Club for professional reasons, but only rediscovered scuba diving in 2003 after a 22-year layoff, when I then decided to get re-certified in Brazil and started logging my dives from zero, with so many novelties like BCDs and pressure gauges. At the present my highest certifications are TDI Decompression Procedures and PADI MSD (specialties: Nitrox, Deep, Wreck, UW Photography, UW Naturalist, Fish ID, Coral ID Distinctive, Whale Shark Distinctive).

My diving trips are neither the resort type nor the luxury liveaboard type of travel. For instance, diving in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, which offer some of the best diving in the world, cost me US$15 per dive including gear rental, whereas a dive package would have cost me at least five times as much. When I travel by air, it is mostly redeeming free frequent mileage points or with internet based budget airlines. Traveling overland, it is hitchhiking, taking local slow buses, collective taxis (in Mozambique they squeeze 26 people inside a kombi when it's legal to carry a maximum of 14 people), cargo trucks, canoes, etc. All this is very cheap and extremely rewarding at the end. Staying in hostels (clean with private rooms), guesthouses and homestays sometimes costing as little as US$3 to US$20 per night and eating only once per day doesn't break the bank. All this is done easily when traveling very light (my usual 8 Kg of luggage), and after careful planning. Trust me...I've been to over 200 countries doing exactly as I say