With her high profile, Miranda Krestovnikoff was named a PADI AmbassaDiver 2021 – while nobody in the UK was diving because they were locked down. Tough challenge? One attraction is that it offers an excuse for ‘stress-free’ returns to favourite UK dive-sites, she tells STEVE WEINMAN – and also to get the family involved. 

Portrait by ADAM FRADGLELY

IHAVE TO ADMIT THAT I’m not a regular viewer of BBC’s The One Show, and I’m quite surprised to hear that it’s now been running for almost 15 years. Which is why I hadn’t realised that since the show started one of its regular reporters, Miranda Krestovnikoff, has filmed nearly 350 wildlife stories, many involving diving at sites all over the UK.

Add this to all the segments she filmed for the BBC’s Coast, which ran for 10 series and remains on repeat, and before that the two series of Wreck Detectives, plus many sundry projects, and by stealth she has become one of the UK divers with the broadest range of experiences. And she has never flagged in her enthusiastic advocacy of diving in home waters.

So it makes perfect sense that PADI should name Miranda as one of its 2021 international line-up of “AmbassaDivers”.

As we know, scuba-divers tend not to loom large on the public’s radar, so as it goes she is very hi-vis. But what exactly does an AmbassaDiver do?

“Wave the PADI flag wherever I go, I should think!” she says merrily as we chat over Zoom. “I want to tell everybody about how amazing the ocean is, and to increase awareness of the ocean environment and the threats it faces.

“But what I’d particularly like to do through having this role is inspire younger people to take up diving.

“There’s a real problem nowadays, especially in the UK, in that they’re just not taking up diving as a career. I see my two kids [Amelie is 15, Oliver just turned 12] and how much excitement and enjoyment they get out of diving.

“We need the next generation to be following in our footsteps, taking up this sport and falling in love with the oceans.”

And what Miranda is looking forward to is the opportunity to revisit favourite UK dive-sites but with a new approach.

“I’m hoping to generate some content for the YouTube channel, doing some of the dives that I filmed before for The One Show and Coast but in my own way.