What makes scuba diving so fascinating for you?
The marine life is very interesting, I feel. And that I can go diving to places never seen by anyone before. Explore new places, and look for animals never seen by anyone "in situ". Of course I make photos every dive, so you can say I collect new species like anyone else collect stamps. That’s a very interesting hobby that gives me a lot.

How did you get interested into diving?
When I was a boy in the early 60'ties I was looking at a friend of my parents who dived. Every summer we stayed at Egeroy lighthouse (where he was working) I say him entering the water and disappeared. Very fascinating, very exiting. I have also all my life been interesting in the life, and to combine diving and looking at the marine life made me start diving.

For our future marine-biologists:

What advices do you have?
My advice is to take the time. Don’t ever swim 2 meter above the seabed in 2 knots speed. You don’t see much more than big fishes. Use the time, look very well after the small things. Nudybranches are my personal favourite, and most of them are not bigger than 1-3 cm.

What makes Norway so interesting for scuba diving?
Norway is the best place in Europe to go diving. The visibility is much of the time very good, like now in the winter when we have approx. 40 meter viz. There is much to see underwater and over water in Norway. Its changing a lot from the exposed areas in the open sea to the protected areas in the fjords where you can find deep water animals coming up to shallow water in the night. Sognefjord is the world longest fjord (220 km) and more than 1300 meter deep, and only a couple of kilometres wide. And for those interesting in shipwrecks we have thousands only from the 2.nd world war. So everybody have possibility to find something to look at.

How much money do you have to spend for the equipment?
This is very difficult to answer as I have dived for 28 years. But maybe 20.000 Euro for the diving gear, and 40.000 Euro for the camera-gear (at least). My hobby makes diving and photo free for me , as I’m selling pictures. So now it does not matter that much longer.

What was the most exiting dive you ever made?
That much have been when I as person number two (my brother beat me with 1 hour) came down to a coldwater coral reef in Norway. These reefs (Lophelia pertusa)live all over the globe. Mostly from 200 to 2500 meters, but in Norway we have special conditions making this reef coming up to 40 meter. The first dive was made at a reef at 55 meter. Very, very exciting to see a hard coral reef in dark, cold water.

You have published several books & could you please give us a short introduction.
Yes, I have publishes books. The main book is called "Dyreliv i havet - norsk marin fauna" (look at www.marinbi.com). I have just finished the 3. edition of it that will be out in March this year. Its 608 pages with 1200 colour photos telling a lot about what to find in the North Sea. The book starts with sponges and end with more than 110 different species of fish. Now it’s sold in 14.000 copies in Norway, and that is very good since we just are 4.3 million people. I’m also working now together with Prof. Bjorn Gulliksen on a book about the marine life in Spitzbergen. This fascinating part of Norway is very interesting. This book will also tell about the life on land, and have a part telling about the differences about Antarctic and Arctic with photos above and underwater from the Antarctic. Finally I’m working on a small pocketbook about fishes caught for eating in Norway. The good thing about this is that I have the technology and scanners/PC to make the book complete for printing. So I have complete control over it. This is the way to do it when making books. Nobody telling you what to do, or not to do. And I can use the photos that I want.

Is there an English or German version in view?
I’m working to get an English version first. If there was a publisher in Germany or UK that could take both, this would have been the best. But it seems that nobody takes the chance for it. They think the book is too big. But in Norway now it’s this book they use in the schools, this book the divers use, and this book people interested in the sea buy. So I really hope a publisher in Germany or UK will publish it.

Contact: Erling Svensen