by Jonathan Anderson
My exposure to Scuba Diving was a most delightful experience.
As a senior member of my unit, I seized the opportunity to participate in the Scuba Diving Programme offered the Cayman Islands Scout Association which was one of the Movement’s premier activities. My training was facilitated by Dive Tech at Cobalt Coast in West Bay and lasted for several weeks. On success completion of the training course I was awarded PADI certification.
The PADI open water diving course is a highly acclaimed certification for divers around the wold which a group of other Scouts and I had the opportunity to undergo. The course was very fulfilled and informative as we were all trained in the theory of diving and water dynamics which we all then had the opportunity to put into practice in every session which eventually led up to a 100m dive for 45 minutes.
On this dive we moved to Lighthouse point dive resort which is a beautiful dive spot and a very desirable spot for divers in the Cayman Islands as well as the rest of the world. Most of the dive was spent travelling outward off of the coast toward the main drop point where we got to swim with ‘The Guardian of the Reef’ which is an underwater statue of a mermaid guardian by the reef off the coast. The reef here is one that is overflowing with life and diversity, and is easily one of the largest ecosystems in the Cayman Islands which was amazing to experience as it allowed us to see first-hand how well our ocean is doing ecologically as well as what kind of impact we have on it.
The PADI course is one that I would recommend strongly to anyone wanting to attain a diving license, however I also believe it is very useful for absolutely anyone who has the access because it teaches you not only how to dive but also a bit about marine ecology and how we can learn room the environment and the ocean to better protect it… the ocean is after all our biggest source of life, it would be silly to ignore its beauty.