Julia here. You've heard Helene's take on the Purple thing, now here's mine.
When we were looking for a name, Helene said she had always wanted to call her dive centre Purple Turtle because of a bar in Honduras. The name was familiar to me too, for a bar, but for a very different place. My mate Ester used to work in a bar called Purple Turtle in Islington back in my London days. The Purple Turtle attracted a bizarre mix of rockabilly aficionados, metallers, Angel punters and us lot, mostly because we all love(d) Ester and she always gave us free drinks. Clearly, Purple Turtle didn’t rhyme with diving and tropical Penida for me.
We decided to look for another name, and look we did, but to no avail. I had it in my head it should be called ‘Submersive Elements’ (thanks Mark for this one) or ‘Scuba Freaks’ but these both didn’t seem to cut it, too complicated, too similar to other dive centre names, too this or too that.
I had lunch with my mate Simon, who is not only a great diver and a wonderful writer but also good friend, and he loved the name Purple Turtle. He said it was easy to remember, fun, easy to ‘brand’ and a little Psychedelic (which pleased me); and he knows a thing or two about diving, so I listened to his advice.
Purple Turtle was back on.
I tried it on my French mates. Realised it was a complete mouthful for a Frenchie with way too many harsh French Rs. We had to make it shorter and simpler. Purple Dive Penida it became.
Then I went diving in Penida a few days later and looked closely at the reef, the predominant colour in Penida reefs is purple, believe me or not (if you don’t, you’ll have to come and disprove me in person, with photos to boot).
I was starting to feel convinced our psychedelic seas of Deep Purple ( pun intended, though it won’t be on the playlist) may just work out, as ‘Purple Dive, Purple Diiiiive’ to the theme tune of Purple Rain looped in my head ( might make it to the playlist).
What finally convinced me was when my friend Sarah sent me a video of the sea at sunset, an incredible purple sea of awesome beauty. Purple Dive would be those psychedelic purple moments on the purple reefs and with a purple cocktail at sunset, as the shades of pink and violet coloured the sky and ocean purple.
SO here we are, Purple people.
I don’t actually own anything purple for diving or otherwise, but Helene likes giving me small gifts - she’s lovely like that - and she has started my violet collection with a purple mask strap. I’ve still got a long way to go to catch up with her attire (mask, wetsuits, rashy, tank bangers and writing on her overly long freedive fins), but it’s a start. You can come check out my mask strap and the psychedelic reefs and sea next time you come over!
P.S. The Indonesians still struggle with it a bit; so, you’ll need to pronounce it ‘poorrrpal daeeve’ for anyone to know what you’re talking about. This might come in useful at some point so keep this in mind.
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