Dive Bermuda to host women's dive day

Women staff at an island dive shop are on a mission to create a sisterhood of ocean stewards.

Dive Bermuda will host its second Professional Association of Diving Instructors Women’s Dive Day next month in a bid to get more women interested in the sport.

Marlee Cram, senior dive instructor at Dive Bermuda, said: “Padi’s Women Dive Day is to build awareness and interest of the ocean so that the ladies meet and then fall in love with the underwater world.

“It’s also to help change the gender gap in a small way. It strengthens and supports the dive community.”

She added that they hoped to create “a bit of a diving sisterhood” and more “stewards of the ocean” by showing women what lies beneath the waves.

Ms Cram said: “It means you’ve got this greater awareness that you know what’s going on under there, you’ve seen it, you’ve seen how beautiful it is and hopefully that encourages you to pass it on.”

She added: “I would like to get more divers from Bermuda involved. The history of the wrecks around here, the coral wrecks, are absolutely stunning.”

Dive Bermuda, which has locations at the Fairmont Southampton and at Grotto Bay, will host a two-tank dive to a wreck and a reef on July 21 for certified divers and a discover scuba diving session for beginners.

Ms Cram said: “We’re going to have all-female dive instructors, guides and leads. So it’s just really making sure that the new divers coming in feel comfortable in the environment.

“We are also offering a significant discount to our lady divers to encourage and push the fact that we want you on the boat.”

Ms Cram said the event, which will be plastic-free, will also feature “girlie mocktails”, sweet snacks and dress up is encouraged.

“We’re also going to be having some goody bags and paparazzi, so one of our male dive instructors will be following us around and taking some cool snaps.”

Ms Cram said Dive Bermuda decided to host the event because half its staff is female, which she added was “quite unusual”.

She said: “I’ve been on dozens of dive trips and sometimes I’ve been the only female on that whole boat.

“Sometimes it can be a little bit intimidating when you’re getting into your wet suit and you’ve just got your bikini on, on a boat full of guys.

“We want to let the local ladies know that if they want to get into diving, we have a very female-friendly environment for them.”

“We want them to fall in love with the ocean. If that means that they get to go diving with a female instructor and that makes them feel more comfortable, then we’re ticking the boxes.”

Ms Cram said diving was a very male-dominated sport in the past because it revolved around divers who had trained in naval services.

She added: “But Padi made it more accessible to everybody and from then on we’ve had a lot of technological advances.”

Ms Cram said there was still a misrepresentation of women in the diving industry.

She added: “The women’s dive day helps to spread the word, garner more awareness that there are females in the dive industry and that it is actually changing.”

Ms Cram added that seeing women divers in the media, such as Ashlan Costeau who took part in a documentary in Bermuda to solve the mystery of the Roanoke wreck, had also helped.

She added: “It not only puts females on the map, but Bermuda for being the wreck capital of the world.”

• For more information, visit www.bermudascuba.com or e-mail info@bermudascuba.com

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