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British Virgin Islands - 2023, Session 1

Meet the Staff of Aloha

Location: West End, Tortola

Today’s the day!!
The day we have all been waiting for has finally arrived! Summer is here. We are so excited about the three-week-long adventure that is about to begin. For the past two weeks, the entire ActionQuest staff has worked tirelessly to prepare the fleet for the upcoming session.
Our home for the next few weeks, the good ship Aloha, has been stuffed to the gills with food, water, and fuel in preparation for our student’s arrival. We’re keen to start teaching diving and sailing to our 12 shipmates who will be participating in the Neptune program. We cannot express how stoked we are to sail away on our next adventure with a whole new group of incredible students!

Cate - Skipper, Dive Instructor, and Medic.
Known to her students as CiCi, she joined the AQ team in 2021 after sailing across the Atlantic ocean in a 44ft yacht. She’s no stranger to the water, having first tried sailing aged three weeks old, and hasn’t looked back. Since then, she has sailed over 10,000 nautical miles and worked in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and the UK. CiCi also started scuba diving at a young age, getting her open water aged 11 and then 14 years later becoming a scuba instructor in Thailand, where she participated in a coral conservation program. She is now a Master Scuba Diver Trainer and can teach eleven specialty certifications. CiCi is passionate about marine conservation, and when she isn’t on the water, she enjoys skiing, snowboarding, hiking, horse riding, and cooking.

Katie Griesbach - Dive Instructor
Katie grew up in a town just outside of Toronto, and even though the nearest saltwater was hundreds of miles away, she developed a love for the ocean at a very young age on family trips. Katie’s love for the sea grew when she joined AQ as a shipmate in 2018, where she took her first-ever breath underwater and has been hooked ever since. Katie then returned for an additional summer at AQ and two trips with Seamester. When not in or on the ocean, she spends her winters in Canada as a snowboard instructor and recently moved back home from living in Whistler, BC. Katie is ecstatic to return for her second year working at AQ this summer as a dive instructor and is excited to be a part of a memorable summer for her shipmates.

Jacob Dankewich - Dive Instructor

Jacob is excited to share his love of diving and the ocean this summer with ActionQuest! Jacob grew up on a small diving island in Honduras, where he lives and works as a Scuba instructor. The son of Irish and Canadian ex-pat parents, he grew up experiencing a unique blend of cultures. Jacob started scuba diving at the age of 7, started solo traveling at 15, and has been to many different countries but always came back to scuba and the ocean. He has spent the last few years traveling around Central America and Australia, surfing and diving.