When he’s not arguing challenging legal cases, you can find top Bermuda lawyer Mark Diel ‘diving’ into his other passion.Mr Diel, a longtime scuba diver, and partner David Brown, CEO of Flagstone Re, bought Dive Bermuda this year, forming a new company, The Dive Shop Bermuda Ltd to do so.Dive Bermuda at the Fairmont Southampton beach, recently won the highest award for excellent reviews on the popular TripAdvisor.com web site, ranking #1 in Bermuda,In addition it’s voted #2 in the Caribbean/Atlantic for wreck diving by Scuba Diving Magazine.“This is very exciting for us as we are competing with worldwide destinations and clearly our staff are providing a world class service to our guests,” said Mr Diel, also a director with the firm of Marshall Diel & Myers .Mr Diel said they have implemented a number of new marketing initiatives, including rebranding the business and logo, an advert on the Bermuda channel, videos on youtube.com, and regular updates on Facebook and Twitter.Dive Bermuda/the Dive Shop also has launched a new-look web site at http://www.bermudascuba.com, designed by Bermuda internet Marketing, and featuring stunning underwater photos by Alan Marquardt and detailed information on Bermuda dive sites.“We now have the new stand up paddle boards down at the beach to add to our existing inventory of items to rent,” he said.They also offer free “try dives” where guests can put on the equipment and experience breathing underwater with close supervision of an instructor.Mr Diel had helped to run the business last year when the owner fell ill, eventually buying it out with partner Mr Brown earlier this year.“I have always loved diving and showing people what Bermuda’s marine world has to offer,” Mr Diel said.Mr Brown added: “We are a family of divers and my son Chris has been passionate about the sport since he was ten years old.“He has been working at Dive Bermuda for a couple of years and sees this as his long term career.“When the chance came to buy the assets of the business I was delighted to partner with Mark in establishing our new business.“I am a (relatively) silent partner in the business happy to leave the running of the business to the team until hopefully in the future Chris can take over.”The Dive Shop employs 10 people and is riding out the recession well, Mr Diel said.”We are at the moment doing as well as last year but it’s a risky business in that we are so dependent on the weather — for example last year with all those near misses from hurricanes it ruined our August,” Mr Diel said.“Our biggest source of divers has always been from the Fairmont hotels — but we are trying to expand that — for example we send our divemasters over to the Reefs Hotel twice a week to do guided beach snorkelling tours with the guests.“We offer this for free at both the hotel beaches and this is proving very popular, and is a good way for the guests to experience our marine environment in a safe way with someone there who is capable and knowledgeable.”He added: “We are in the process of working with another dive shop to produce a supplement on Bermuda diving for the November edition of Sport diver magazine — the largest publication in Europe.“And we are actively lobbying Government for representation in the upcoming dive convention in Birmingham in November, the second largest in the world!“And we are starting a program with high school students to train them up as divers and hopefully divemasters — its probably one of the most awesome summer jobs you can have!”Mr Diel noted that Dive Bermuda/Dive Shop is the only Instructor Development Centre in Bermuda, offering diving trips, snorkelling tours and Padi training courses, from beginner to instructor level.A popular offering is the $200 PADI Discover Scuba Diving course, which, if you are non-certified, gives you an option to dive after a session on the basic principles of diving.When mastered “you jump on our dive boat and participate in a shallow reef dive off the South Shore”, Mr Diel said.