Izzy began her working career in the yachting industy in the early 1980s working as stewardess, chef, deckhand and divemaster in the Med, Caribbean and Red Sea until the late 1980s when she became land based in South Africa working as a scuba diving instructress. This led to another idyllic job teaching diving in the Seychelles for 18 months. In the 1990s Izzy returned to her native England for some punishment and qualified as a veterinary nurse working for a number of veterinary practices in various parts of the country. During this time she completed a BSc in Biology at Sussex University before coming to the south of France in 2003 to her true calling at Blue Water.