We chat to Kids Sea Camp founder Margo Peyton, who is in on a mission to introduce more of the ‘next generation' into the joys of Scuba diving and the marine world
Photographs by Margo Peyton
Q: As we normally do with these question-and-answer sessions, how did you first get started in diving?
My life has always been about family. I am Portuguese and grew up on a three-mile-long sandbar extending into the Atlantic Ocean off the East Coast of Cape Cod MA. Provincetown MA. My dad was a giant bluefin tuna fisherman as a hobbyist.
Our family business was home heating, and my brother Jon and I grew up on the ocean. My dad and mom loved the ocean. Dad was a scuba diver from the 1950s and mom was a swimmer and water skier.
Our childhood was grey seals, loggerhead turtles, blue sharks, basking sharks, great white, orca, humpbacks, blue whales, and pods and schools in the thousands of dolphin, bass, bluefin tuna, and dogfish.
My parents taught us to respect the ocean and to love it. I often had the privilege with my mom and brother Jon of being one of dad’s boat mates when he would harpoon giant bluefin.
We spent Sundays out at Race Point and would shuffle our feet in the sand for clams and dive for lobster that later were cooked in sunset clambake on the beach at night.
Dad would sit me in a tidal pool with his scuba tank and custom-poured lead weights laid over me with a weight belt, He had a handmade single glass mask. He would leave me in the tidal pool breathing underwater like the little diver I wanted to be, with his pegged-clawed lobster catch, clams and corn on the cob soaking for dinner.
My mom hovered above, making sure to see bubbles. Dad gave me my first set of Dacor scuba gear for Christmas in 1988, and I was certified at East Coast Divers in 1989.
Q: What is it about teaching – in particular, instructing young people – that still fires up your enthusiasm?
Teaching was not something I really thought about doing. I’m not a patient person (Scorpio). I really had not planned on having kids, as travel and diving were my passion in life. I graduated from college with a degree in Travel and Tourism.
One thing I have learned is life plans you -you don’t plan life. Robbie was born in the Cayman Islands in 1994, and Jen came along in 1996. Two of the best unplanned parts of my life, next to marrying Tom Peyton.
When you have children, you learn organically to teach and to be patient. As a parent, you want to have faith and trust in the people that you entrust your kids with.
Most parents should want anyone teaching their kids to have experience, professional knowledge, and love what they do. That was the expectation I had for the instructors I was planning on leaving my kids with at Kids Sea Camp.
So, I had no choice but to expect nothing less from myself. It was impossible to manage the quality of kidfriendly instructors I wanted and needed for Kids Sea Camp without being one myself. I loved teaching kids, I loved diving with kids, and I loved being able to travel and dive with my own children.
I was inducted into the Woman Diver Hall of Fame in 2009, and PADI sponsored me to go to the next level and become a PADI Dive Instructor. My kids were excited and my husband very supportive, and I have enjoyed every moment of it.
Becoming an instructor has been rewarding and inspiring and has allowed me to contribute to now almost 8,000 certified youth divers, 50+ Divemasters, 30+ instructors and countless SASY and SEALs.
What keeps me fired up is the lives I have the honour and privilege to enrich, the trust and friendships I have gained from not only moms, dads, and grandparents, but also the incredibly hard-working and devoted team of instructors I have both learned from and taught around the world.
Q: Kids Sea Camp is dedicated to introducing young people, from really young kids who are snorkelling and SASY, through those doing Bubblemaker and SEAL Team, and on to teenagers doing their Junior qualifications – as well as their parents – to the joys of diving. What are your reasons for wanting to get more young people involved with diving?
Many people have said throughout history that oceans divide us, but as a scuba diver, oceans connect us. We have a brother and sisterhood that is unbreakable. Regardless of race, religion, or political views, we all have a passion for the ocean, and that brings us together.
We are all buddies. Kids are sponges and they love learning about the ocean and critters -and they care. They want to explore and experience the world. Scuba travel is a necessity – it’s a living classroom. The world is in their hands going forward and they inherit our destruction, garbage, pollution, and exploitation.
If there is one thing adults hear, it’s the voices of their children and grandchildren. By teaching this generation about the need to love our underwater world, and teaching them about thinking locally and acting globally, we can and will change the world.
Each year it’s always the kids who get their parents using cloth bags, cutting plastic, and being more responsible and sustainable when choosing products and seafood at the grocery store.
t’s the children who share the octopus story and the dolphin tails. Scuba diving is a real-time experience, it is zero-gravity, meeting alien life forms, and discovering a new world that is real.
Parents want to unplug and reconnect to their children and what I provide on a family dive vacation does just that. I see the effects of my work with 350 families every year. They arrive stressed, uptight, grumpy and locked into their phones, and they leave hugging and laughing and feeling hopeful.
Q: Kids Sea Camp is a real family affair, with your husband Tom at the helm alongside you and your children involved from a very young age. You have also got dive team members who started out as youngsters who joined you on family trips with their parents. What difference does it make having this at the heart of the business?
One thing Tom and I can see we have successfully built is a legacy company. Watching young children aged eightplus grow up coming to Kids Sea Camp and now bringing their own husbands, wives and kids with grandparents is humbling.
Tom and I are now empty nesters and our kids are beginning the journey of starting their own families. So cultivating a dive team from prior generations of campers is pretty cool.
Our son Robbie is an instructor and sales in the office. Woody Tinsley is a father of six and a Hartford CT Police officer and he contributes four to five weeks a year to teaching and inspiring kids as a PADI instructor.
My wonderful husband at 59 just became a PADI DM this summer. Many of our travel team of instructors are KSC campers. It’s awesome!
Tom and I have created Empty Nester Travels now, because 23 years of parents who are now also empty nesters love travelling with us and trust us.
So we do the Red Sea, Africa, Arenui and photo trips with them. We mentor high schools and collect kids with internships and we have a full travel reservations department-Family Dive Adventures -for all those families that want individual trips.
Kids Sea Camp grew with our kids and we offer many college-accredited courses and specialty courses like Coral Restoration, Wreck Diving, Photography, Shark Awareness, Zombie Apocalypse Diver, Sea Signs, Rescue and pro courses too.
Not just for kids, but for so many adults that want to learn to dive or reactivate.
We have our own Kids Sea Camp Specialty, which teaches parents how to dive with their kids and as a family and to be better buddies underwater.
It’s a complete circle of life. Young parents and new families come every year with their kids aged four to 15 ready for SASY and SEALs and Junior Open Water, Junior Advanced, Junior Rescue and Junior Divemaster. There is plenty of time to dive together as a family and plenty of time for kids to learn and grow with other kids.
It does not matter if you’re SSI, PADI, NAUI or TDI. Everyone can dive and enjoy being a family at Kids Sea Camp.
CUSTOMER TESTIMONIAL
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This article was originally published in Scuba Diver UK #79
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