Petra Hermes is the founder and owner of Fly & Sea Dive Adventures, a boutique-style travel agency specialising in scuba diving. Fly & Sea is celebrating their 25th anniversary this year. Passionate about life and exploring the world, she is blessed with adventure travel and scuba diving, which is more than just a hobby.
Every year my parents would pack up their four kids and go on a road trip. Growing up in Germany, with other countries nearby, it meant going to different countries. I grew up having the excitement of exploring new places instilled in me. The summer jobs I took as a teenager funded my desire to travel. When I immigrated to Canada in my twenties, it is no wonder that I looked for an opportunity to make a living of it. I spent the first years exploring N. America (mostly the West) with groups from Germany. Being a tour guide for Christian groups exploring our amazing National parks was very rewarding, but soon wasn’t enough to sustain a business.
Thus Fly & Sea Dive Adventures was born on May 1, 1997. We converted a local travel agency into Canada’s leading dive travel company. And yes – I learned to dive for business reasons. What an amazing combination: exploring the underwater world, about 70% of our planet, while also adding my passion for travel.
To this day, I LOVE exploring new destinations, discovering new foods, hearing foreign languages, and just experiencing different cultures. While my friends think I have already been to many places, there are still more on my list. Several are scuba diving places – and I always combine these with adventure travel. How about diving the Galapagos Islands and hiking the Inka Trail in Peru?
One top bucket list item is to explore Israel. While I have dived the Red Sea many times and have already been to my namesake city Petra in Jordan, I have yet to experience Israel. As a woman of faith, this would be amazing for me. Everything I read in the Bible would just come to life!
My faith has been an important part of my business: from ethical business practices to how I relate to my employees – and most recently, continuing to give me hope and peace that even during a pandemic, we will be fine. Being in business now for 25 years makes me very grateful: first to God for sustaining us, and then to my exceptional employees (current and past) and, of course, our clients all across N. America.
And while our job is mainly a desk job (nope, we don’t get to travel all the time), I still get a thrill out of creating unforgettable experiences for our clients and then hearing their stories and seeing their pictures or videos when they come back from an awe-inspiring trip.
Connect with Petra:
www.flyandsea.com
Instagram: @flyandseadive
Facebook: Fly and Sea Dive Adventures
