By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: Dubai-based Odia scuba diver Priyadarshee Panigrahi has achieved a remarkable milestone by completing his 75th scuba dive at the Madu Faru – Guraidhoo Corner dive site, near Guraidhoo Island in Maldives on March 22, 2025.
Descending to an impressive depth of 100 feet, on this dive, Priyadarshee solidified his status as one of Odisha’s most accomplished recreational divers. In addition to this, he did a few other dives and now he has 77 dives under his belt. It is interesting to note that till date, Priyadarshee has cumulatively spent more than 52 hours underwater, while pursuing scuba diving.
Reflecting on his 75th dive, Priyadarshee expressed his excitement and gratitude: “Scuba diving has been an incredible journey for me. Every dive is a new adventure and magnificent marine organisms and beautiful corals drive my passion. This milestone in the Maldives will always be special as it was a really deep and challenging dive. We experienced underwater currents and navigated through them’.
He also added ‘Diving has become an addiction and I find myself constantly drawn to new underwater experiences. In many ways, Tisya, my elder daughter has been a major inspiration in my journey. Watching her earn certifications with such ease and setting records at a young age pushed me to challenge myself. I wouldn’t have pursued my advanced certification if not for her diving achievements—it was her passion that encouraged me to take my own skills to the next level’.
Accompanying him on this milestone dive was Maldivian diving instructor Neya Niyaf who praised Priyadarshee’s skills. “It was great to be part of Mr. Panigrahi’s milestone dive. He is a good diver and despite the dive being a challenging one—easily reaching depths of 100 feet and encountering currents—I hardly had to intervene,” said Neya.
Priyadarshee, who heads the MENA operations of a large Indian FMCG multi national company, is the son of late Sriballav Panigrahi, former Minister and Parliamentarian from Odisha. He took up scuba diving at the age of 37 (In 2012) and has since explored dive sites across the world. He has dived in around 12 countries, across the continents of Asia, Africa and Europe. In April 2023, he earned his Advanced Open Water Scuba Diver certification in Malaysia by diving to 100 feet.
He is also the father of a celebrated young scuba diver from Odisha, Sambalpur born Tisya Panigrahi. Tisya, who is also based in Dubai and is now 14 years old, made history in 2020 as Odisha’s youngest scuba diver at the age of 10 and later became Odisha’s youngest Junior Advanced Open Water Scuba Diver in 2022 after diving to 70 feet on her 12th Birthday.
Inspired by Tisya, Priyadarshee got his Advanced Open Water Scuba diver license in 2023. He and Tisya are widely regarded as one of the very few father-daughter duos from India to have both earned Advanced Open Water Scuba Diver certifications, making their shared passion for diving even more remarkable.
The father-daughter duo has undertaken several extraordinary dives together, including diving with sharks & a night dive with manta rays in the Maldives and an exploration of a sunken Hercules C-130 aircraft in Jordan’s Red Sea. In addition to this, they made an appeal for ocean conservation from the bottom of the sea, in Maldives, while the COP28 Climate Conference was happening in Dubai in 2023.
