About Your Hosts
Dive In is your favourite all-about diving podcast based in Halifax, Canada.
Each week, your experienced hosts explore diving around the world with a touch of East Coast
warmth and humour.
Justin Miller
Chief Podcast Officer
Justin is General Manager at Torpedo Rays Scuba and a PADI Master Instructor. Growing up in a desert Justin developed an interest in diving despite the local green low vis lake just outside of his hometown, Las Vegas. After learning to dive in 2005 he quickly decided he wanted to teach SCUBA diving, and became an Instructor in 2008. Later he moved to his current residence in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2012.
He spent his weekends for many years taking divers on tours through Southern California's amazing kelp forests, diving with the behemoth giant sea bass, and teaching courses in Lake Mead. He’s been on well over a 1000 dives, taught hundreds of people to SCUBA dive, and led dive tours all over the world. “Teaching in Las Vegas was neat. I taught everyone from moms, dads and kids, to rock stars, and Cirque performers. You never knew who you’d meet next.”
When diving on SCUBA Justin prefers to dive sidemount, although he has recently been doing more freediving and has become an Advanced Freediver. “I love the challenge of it, the peace and tranquility underwater. It's my zen place. It's like nothing else.”
April Weickert
VP of Internet Connectivity
April is a PADI Instructor and staff member at Torpedo Rays. She really can say that scuba diving is in her blood. She was swimming before she could walk and is the third generation in her family to turn her passion for all things aquatic toward the frigid underwater world of the Atlantic, and her family owns a local dive shop, Torpedo Ray’s Scuba. April is a seasoned cold water diver, but she’s been known to venture into warm water on her travels exploring the world. One thing’s for sure, you’ll never find her calling a dive on account of it being too cold! She’s the first person to rave about the beautiful diving Atlantic Canada has to offer!
April was a competitive athlete, playing soccer, ringette, and slalom ski racing before dedicating herself to diving. She founded and runs the first and only all female dive club in Nova Scotia, the SeaFoxes. Focusing on women in diving, she strives to grow the female presence in the dive community, and it’s worked! The Sea Foxes are growing everyday and poised to be one of the most sought after clubs around. As a member of the Nova Scotia Underwater Council she volunteers her time to promoting diving, and also is an active organizer of Project Aware Dive Against Debris dives to build awareness about sustainable dive practices and ocean conservation.
A recent graduate with a degree in Business Administration, it’s just a matter of time before she’s leading her own shop and developing new divers. April says “under the sea is truly my happy place!” Her love and passion for diving is obvious and contagious!
Amit Parasram
VP Tec Ops
Amit is a passionate Sidemount and Technical diver, PADI Instructor, and aspiring Cave diver. He was born in sunny Trinidad and Tobago, immigrating to Canada when he was 10, and has called Nova Scotia home since then. His love for the water started at beaches like Maracas Bay in Trinidad and the iconic Pigeon Point Beach in Tobago. His respect for the natural world was nurtured by an addiction to nature documentaries, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, National Geographic, and parents who fed his thirst for understanding the interdependence of these complex systems.
Always interested in diving, it wasn’t until he was an adult that Amit was able to afford entry into the sport. Since then he’s passionately pursued advancing his skills, striving to improve and make up for lost time! You can usually find Amit negotiating a way to go for a dive, or finding ways to turn a dive chat into a sidemount chat. When he’s not diving he enjoys spending time with his wife Heather and daughter Aurora. He looks forward to passing on his passion for the ocean and diving to Aurora and is actively plotting his retirement to settle back to a place with beaches like home...and perhaps the odd cave to explore.
Nic Winkler
VP of Ocean Exploration
Nicolas has spent most of his life in the ocean and is an aquanaut, explorer, marine biologist, social scientist, conservationist, underwater photographer and filmmaker.
First certified as a scuba diver, he prefers to explore the world beneath the thin blue line without bubbles, whether it’s as Mixed Gas Closed Circuit Rebreather diver or while freediving. He has conducted thousands of dives spanning more than two decades with experience in both warm and cold-water environments. Nicolas is also a multi-record holding freediver for the small Caribbean island of Grenada.
Over the years, Nicolas has applied his diving skills to conduct field surveys and research, support conservation efforts, film documentary footage and photograph those that inhabit and utilize our oceans. Today, Nicolas is forever exploring the ocean issues, camera in hand.