But who is behind this blog? About Corinne Bourbeillon

  Between Two Journeys

I am Corinne Bourbeillon and you are here on my personal blog, a diving blog called Bubbles Underwater & Beyond. I put online my underwater photos and videos, I tell my adventures under the surface of the ocean. I hope to make divers (but also people who never put their head under water) aware of the beauty and fragility of marine life, so little known...

Bubbles Underwater & Beyond in a Nutshell
Start of the blog : 2006
Author: Corinne Bourbeillon
Subject: scuba diving and travel
Contact: corinne@petitesbullesdailleurs.fr

1. Who I am in "real life"

I live in Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) in Brittany, where I am a journalist for Ouest-France. I am currently working at the digital evening editionone of the newspaper's internet services. Before that, I also worked for various magazines and publishing houses in Paris. I have also been literary translator (English → French).

When I'm not working, I take pictures underwater... Some colleagues have nicknamed me "the Palm Coco" or, more elegantly, "the naiad". It is this double passion for diving and underwater photography that I share here.

Bubbles Underwater & Beyond is my personal websiteI have a small piece of web that I cultivate for pleasure, in all independence, on my free time. What I publish here has most of the time nothing to do with my "real job" and my "real life" of every day. Note that I look much better in the water than in the office...

2. How I became a dive blogger

I started publishing my first blog posts in 2006, as a holiday hobbyto give news to my family and friends, during my travels and dives at the end of the world. Over the years, this blog has become my logbook, and its audience has grown beyond the private circle and has taken an incredible size!

I keep this blog for fun, I don't make a living with it. However, it has become a kind of "showcase" of my underwater adventures, which is why I am regularly solicited by the media, books and magazines, for reports and underwater photos, in addition to the newspaper Ouest-France for which I work.

Not a little proud... My photo of a freediver facing the mantas of Komodo in Indonesia (above left) has been published in this National Geographic book, entitled 100 Dives of A Lifetime (2019).

Above: in 4 columns on the front page in Ouest-FranceOn June 8, 2022, for the World Ocean Day, one of my pictures, taken in the "blue mangrove" of Raja Ampat. The occasion to evoke in an article the work of the association The Sea People.

3. My experience as a diver (with bubbles and sometimes without)

I have been scuba diving (with a tank) for more than twenty years. I made my very first bubbles underwater during a vacation in Thailand... A revelation. Every time I go back under the surface, I feel the same immense and intense happiness!

To date, I have more than 1,000 scuba dives and my level is that of a PA40 (autonomous diver to a depth of 40 meters). I did my recreational diving training a little bit with the FFESSM and a lot with PADI up to the Rescue Diver level with the Deep Diver + Enriched Air Diver (Nitrox) specialties. On the professional level I am a holder of a Certificate of Aptitude for Hyperbaric Activities (CAH) Class 1 mention B (to 30 meters deep). I have also learned a little bit about freediving (level AIDA 2).

I am a great chiller and prefer warm intertropical seas to cool Breton waters... But in 2020 (thank you Covid), I got into wetsuits, which inspired me to go back and explore the sea bed in France near my home. Long live the little bubbles here!!! 😂 Quite a change of atmosphere from the Indo-Pacific archipelagos (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines), in the heart of the fabulous Coral Trianglewhere I had the chance to dive often.

4. My passion, underwater photography

The beauty of the aquatic world never ceases to amaze me and underwater photography has become my great passion. I started in 2005, as a self-taught, during my trips as a backpacker in Southeast Asia, equipped at the time with a basic digital compact camera.

In 2010, I switched to DSLR, with the Canon Eos 7D which I take underwater in an appropriate waterproof housing. It now accompanies me on all my dives! I also talk about it here on my other website:

→ About Corinne Bourbeillon, underwater photographer

5. Protecting the ocean

I strive to encourage as responsible a practice of scuba diving as possible. I have been diving regularly for a long time, and I tell myself that I am lucky to have been able to observe so many species in their natural environment... This may not be the case for the next generations, who may only see coral and live fish. than in an aquarium.

I am already seeing the impact of overfishing, pollution and climate changeThe impact on fish density and coral ecosystems has changed in only a few years. The impact of tourism, too...

More to read → Diving and protecting the ocean

This brings me back to my own contradictions. I am much more aware than I used to be of the huge carbon footprint of my air travel. Today, after years of travel, I'm questioning myself, a little helped by the Covid pandemicI'm not sure if I'll be able to do it again, but I'm sure I'll be able to do it in France, and I'm sure I'll be able to do it again. I will certainly not take the plane as often as before. On this topic, I refer you to this very complete post published by Louise Ascher, diving instructor and author of the blog SeaWonderfulwhich is in line with my concerns: Traveling to dive, or how to destroy what we all want to preserve

6. Travelling solo

When I travel, I love to go alone, it's really freedom. Those who have never tried it before don't realize it, but a solo trip is rarely synonymous with loneliness. You never meet as many people as when you are unaccompanied. This is even more true when you practice an activity like diving, which allows you to "socialize" easily around a common passion. I have already talked about it at length in this post → Travelling solo.

I like my independence and the internet makes it easy. If I don't travel anymore in "backpacking" mode like when I was 20 years old, I still organize most of my small diving expeditions by myself, without necessarily going through an agency or a tour operator. In general, a few e-mails are enough to book my accommodations and dives. And then, preparing a trip is already traveling...

7. A bubble of freedom and escape

This blog is my bubble of freedom, my bubble of escape!  I feed it on my free time, without constraint, according to my inspiration, my desires, my destinations... I enjoy telling here my escapades for scuba diving, live or recorded. To discuss with those of you who leave me a comment. But I can go long periods without publishing anything too, and the site continues to live its life!

As I often published articles between two tripsEven under the Breton drizzle, some people mistook me for a full-time globe-trotting diver. I confess, I would have loved to be able to travel all the time, but quietly, staying for a long time in some places, without going back and forth by plane at the beginning and at the end of the vacations, and without a huge carbon footprint...

8. Photos and copyright

Unless otherwise stated, I am the author of the photos published on Bubbles Underwater & Beyond. These images are not free of rights and it is forbidden to use them without my consent.

I generally authorize the use of one image for a mention or a short quoteI will use the photos as long as my name, Corinne Bourbeillon, appears as a credit, with a link to the source. For any other request of use of photos, do not hesitate to contact me!

→ Contact page

  Between Two Journeys