My Day

RIANNE SMITH , The Stone House B&B and Aquaventures dive school, Co Cork

RIANNE SMITH, The Stone House B&B and Aquaventures dive school, Co Cork

I'M UP every morning at 7am. The first thing I do is bake bread, usually four kinds. I'm a food faddie, and I don't eat wheat or dairy, so I make my own with spelt flour. It takes about an hour, and I serve it up warm to guests at our B&B. They love it.

My husband and I visited Baltimore as divers in 1996 and loved it so much that we sold our London flat and moved to open a dive school.

The local auctioneer thought the owners of the Stone House B&B might want to sell. They did. We bought it and have run it since, setting up the Aquaventures dive school on the same land.

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Guests come for breakfast between 8am and 9am. We offer them nine options, including four kinds of fish - we are in Baltimore, after all. I also do veggie and vegan options. A room is a room, so we have to offer something extra to get people to come back. With us it's breakfasts.

Once that's finished, and the rooms are cleaned out, it's down to the dive centre, about 20 paces away. I check all the log books and qualifications and sort out which boat divers will go out on and what equipment they need to rent.

Then I drive to the quay. It's only 500 metres away but too far to carry gear. We have two boats, a nine-foot rigid inflatable that I run for half-day dives and a 12.5m hard boat that my husband takes for full-day trips for more experienced divers.

My favourite spot to take people to is Fastnet. It is mesmerising. It takes about an hour to get there, and on the way, particularly in summer, you're pretty sure to see whales and dolphins.

The waters are very nutrient-rich around Fastnet, so the diving is spectacular. The rock soars up from a depth of about 50m and, because it is pollution-free, it is teeming with life.

We get back three hours later, and guests go to get lunch in the village while I fly back up to the B&B to oversee cleaning work, refill tanks, check the shop is okay and grab a sandwich. Then it's back out for the afternoon's dive, which finishes by 6pm.

Once that's done we have to wash and dry all the kit, refill the tanks and clean out the changing rooms.

I'll probably scoot into town then - Skibbereen is 15 minutes' drive away - to do some food shopping, so it's any time between 8pm and 10pm before I have dinner. After that it's administration before setting the breakfast table for next day.

Twice a week I teach bridge and set dancing - even though I'm Dutch. I'll be in bed by midnight and asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. Then it's time to get up and bake bread again.

It's a very physical life, but I'm fit and healthy and I love it. I worked for years in an office as a translator. Now I'm out on a boat surrounded by nature and 12 happy-faced divers. What's not to love?