Mark became especially interested in dolphins after an extraordinary experience that started one night on a lonely stretch of desert coastline in the Red Sea. There he was fortunate enough to spend many hours in the company of a wild dolphin and became fascinated with these incredible creatures.

He has been a diver since he was eighteen, when he started as a hobby while with the British military. When he was 23 he left the services to open a diving centre in Paphos, Cyprus.

He lived abroad for eighteen years and during that time travelled to many countries, training scuba instructors, conducting technical diver training and working on diving related projects. These varied from photo shoots of sharks, running private courses for Arab sheikhs, and leading a four month award winning expedition to east Africa.

In 1996, he was appointed a vice president with PADI (the Professional Association of Diving Instructors) and moved back to the UK to work in their PADI Europe, Middle East and Africa office in Bristol. He is also board member of the major marine charity: Project AWARE.

He has spent a great deal of his life on or in the sea and as a keen photographer has his underwater photographs published many times. In addition to diving frequently, his other main hobby is sailing cruising yachts, and is also an RYA sailing instructor.

During his life he has been fortunate to have had many encounters with dolphins and has had the chance to study them in detail. He is a qualified Marine Mammal Medic with BDMLR.