Originally from France, Denis got introduced to SCUBA diving in 1988 when he arrived in Bermuda. That was the birth of a passion. As a Dive Master graduation gift a couple of friends took him to a cavern dive, and he knew right away that that was his future. He was aware that they had broken all the cave diving rules. Before he entered another cave, he waited until 1994 for an opportunity to go to Florida and take a cave diving class with his mentor Tom Mount. Back to Bermuda, he became an active member of the “Bermuda Cave Diving Association” with whom he explored and mapped more than 20 cave system.
In 1998 he moved to the Dominican Republic to pursue his passion of cave exploration and to start his own dive center “Golden Arrow Technical Diving Center”.
Denis is also a coofounder and president of the NGO “Fundacion Espeleobuceo Hispaniola” with wich he published the book “Las Cuevas Sumergidas de República Dominicana’, among other achivements.
Since 2015 Denis is part of the Board of directors of “Fundación Reef Check en República Dominicana” an ONG working to protect tropical coral reefs through education, research and conservation.
After becoming an IANTD Open Water Diver in January 2010, Stephan, a telecommunications engineer and language teacher, gradually let go of his other jobs in order to dedicate his time and energy to full time diving. After reaching his goals of IANTD Divemaster and Technical Cave Diver in summer 2011, he went on to becoming an instructor and has been working full time as such ever since.
Stephan speaks fluently German, Danish, English, and Spanish, and he gets by in a few more. Ha has made over 2500 dives, of which about 700 have been in caves while the rest covers most Dominican reef and wreck dive spots.
He is a PADI and IANTD certified diving instructor, as well as gas blender and diving equipment technician. His favorite dives are the technical ones, be it in caves, or be it deep technical Trimix diving. He loves good food and playing with language.