By Our Correspondent
DUBAI/BHUBANESWAR: Dubai based Odia father-daughter Scuba diving duo Priyadarshee Panigrahi (47) and Tisya Panigrahi (12) have created a memorable moment.
Priyadarshee, who is a Certified Open Water Scuba Diver since 2012, dived 100 feet into the sea at Redang Island, Malaysia on 29th April. He successfully qualified for PADI’s Advanced Open Water Scuba Diver license on 30th April after completing 5 certified dives and finishing his knowledge reviews.
California, USA headquartered PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) is the world’s largest ocean exploration and diver organization, operating in 186 countries and territories, with a global network of more than 6,600 dive centers and resorts.
With this PADI Advanced Open Water Scuba diver certification, this father daughter duo is now qualified Advanced Scuba divers. It is believed that they are among the very few advanced father-daughter scuba diving duos in India.
Tisya became Odisha’s youngest scuba diver in 2020 (at the age of 10) and also Odisha’s youngest advanced diver in 2022, when she turned 12. Priyadarshee was an Open Water Scuba diver which allowed him to dive up to 18 meters only. Tisya’s feat inspired him, and he then went ahead to train and secure an Advanced Open Water license for himself. An advanced license now allows him to dive up to 30 meters (around 100 feet) depth.
Priyadarshee said ‘This Advanced Open Water Scuba diver license gives me joy. With this license I keep pace with my daughter’s diving qualifications and look forward to her turning 15, when we both can dive up to 100 feet together. The ease with which Tisya did her advanced course and the desire to keep up with her diving certification, in order to be able to dive together to the same depths, inspired me to go for this course and dive up to 100 feet in my certification dive’.
PADI Instructor and Malaysian Citizen, Mohamad Syafiq was Priyadarshee’s coach. Syafiq said’ Priyadarshee is a good student. He picked up the skills pretty fast. He learnt buoyancy control and hovering quite well. I hope this father-daughter duo inspire more people to learn diving and help conserve our marine life’.
The dive sites were off the Malaysian ssland of Redang, on the east coast of peninsular Malaysia in the South China sea. Redang is famous for its marine life, crystal clear waters and white sandy beaches. Redang offers 80% of species found in the ‘coral triangle’ (an area bounded by the Philippines, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea known to have the highest number of marine species in the world).
Bhubaneswar born Priyadarshee and Sambalpur born Tisya are Dubai based Odias. They have been in the news because of their scuba diving exploits like diving with sharks, sending underwater wishes on Nuakhai festival etc.
Tisya happens to be the granddaughter of former Minister and eminent Congress leader late Sriballav Panigrahi and educationist late Sunanda Panigrahi. Tisya is also the granddaughter of former MLA from Sambalpur, Dr. Raseswari Panigrahi.
