Ulrik

Learning Engineering

In addition to my role as CEO for Area9 Mastery Diving Research Center and my training as a physician, I’m a passionate diver, dive instructor, GUE diver, and underwater photographer. My entire family shares this love for the ocean—my wife, Christina, is also a dive instructor, technical diver, and GUE diver. Both of our daughters, Caroline and Elisabeth, are Dive Masters with hundreds of dives each, having joined us on dive boats since a young age.

I firmly believe in learning through practical experience and problem-solving. When we began developing the adaptive platform Area9 Rhapsode™ in 2018, I sought a project I was passionate about to serve as a testing ground. With a fascination for parrotfish after years of diving in the Caribbean, we started creating a fish recognition program focused on this species. Over the past five years, my wife and daughters have joined in, and we’ve since expanded the program to include species from the Indo-Pacific and both coasts of Latin and North America.

In 2021, we acquired two properties in Bonaire, Barcadera 1 and Barcadera 2, establishing a research center with high-end diving operations. I now dive using a JJ rebreather with Shearwater computers, combining my explorations and photography with CCR training. My camera setup has recently shifted to the Canon R5 with Ikelite DS-230 flashes, an unbeatable upgrade for capturing the underwater world’s intricate beauty.