Ehsan Niroomand Joins Planet Scuba India As Dive Instructor
Ehsan Niroomand has joined Planet Scuba India as a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor and Assistant Manager of the upcoming Mumbai dive center this month. Originally from Pune and a swimmer all his life, Ehsan has mastered many skills over the years. He was certified as a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor in Malaysia early this year. With 4 years of experience in the Dive Industry, Ehsan has dived in some of the best dive locations in the world, including Sipadan and Mabul Islands. He has more than 800 dives to his credit. His deepest dive has been 57 meters.
With a Bachelors of Arts in History and having dabbled with Hotel Management and Interior design, Scuba Diving was the only logical career choice for Ehsan ever since his father threw him in a lake when he was 6 months old. Directed by his sense of adventure and love for the ocean, he headed to the the pearly sands of the Perhentian Islands where he began his journey underwater. Ehsan has chosen to preach Scuba in India and is working on a platform that takes the intrepid few to exotic dive destinations worldwide.
His qualifications include:
- Open Water Scuba Instructor
- EFR Instructor
- Care for Children Instructor
- Enriched Air Instructor
- AWARE Coral Reef Conservation Specialty Instructor
- Project Aware Instructor
- Peak Performance Buoyancy Instructor
This appointment comes close at the heels of the appointment of Suzanne Coombs as the IDC Staff Instructor for Planet Scuba India’s Andaman Diving Academy. This bodes well for the aspiring dive enthusiasts in the country as they now have a chance to train under two of the most accomplished dive instructors in the industry.
Discover Scuba Diving @ Bangalore!
After missing out last weekend due to unforeseen circumstances, we are bringing the DSD sessions back this coming weekend. Bangalore can now continue to experience the thrill of diving underwater right here in town. The sessions start this Saturday, August 6, at the St. Josephs Indian high School pool at 10:00 AM, and bookings are now open! Check out the pretty little graphic below, and contact us for confirmation of your booking. Let’s go dive!
Upcoming Dive Trips, Meet & Greets
Well, this is certainly an exciting time here at Planet Scuba India!
Manta Ray Feeding Frenzy @ Hanifaru Bay
We have two fantastic dive trips planned in August-September this year, and the response has been overwhelming! We announced a liveaboard trip to Maldives last month, starting from August 7, and within a month, all 22 seats were booked! So vehement was the response, that we were almost forced into planning a second liveaboard to Hanifaru Bay! The second trip is starting from the 22nd of August, and goes on till the 28th. Seats are still open for this trip and you can email Mark for more details like pricing and prerequisites. He’ll be more than happy to help you out with the planning of the trip.
Incidentally, this is the last time the Maldives government is allowing liveaboards and active diving in Hanifaru Bay for fear of the delicate balance being upset. It’s the feeding season for the Manta Rays and you don’t want to miss this feature!
Pigeon island, Trincomalee
We also have a dive trip planned to Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, starting from the 30th of August. This is not a liveaboard, but rather an all expense paid 5-day dive trip to one of the most pristine dive spots in the world. Some of the world’s best wreck diving happens in these waters, and you get to be a part of this amazing experience. Again, Mark’s the guy for you to get in touch with for more information on this.
In other news, we are thrilled to play host to Mr. Hans Ullrich, the PADI regional manager South Asia, who is visiting Bangalore this week! We are planning a meet & greet party for him, to give him a chance to meet and interact with divers and dive enthusiasts in the city. It’s a BYOB thing, and you are invited! Yes, you guessed it. Email Mark for more info!
Images Courtesy: National Geographic
Suzanne Michelle Coombs Appointed As IDC Staff Instructor
We are proud to announce that we have appointed Suzanne Michelle Coombs as the primary Staff Instructor for our dive centers in Bangalore and Andaman Islands. Suzy Coombs has the distinction of being one of the deepest woman divers in the world, when she dived to a depth of 500 feet (152.4 meters) off the coast of Sweden. This announcement comes as good news to all Indian dive enthusiasts, as they now have a chance to learn and train with one of the most accomplished divers in the world.
Suzy Coombs, the new staff instructor at Planet Scuba India
Planet Scuba India Pvt Ltd has been providing scuba diving training and dive holidays around the world for the past three years. We are India’s first inland dive center based in Bangalore and we have expended our operations to Andaman Islands with the Andaman Diving Academy based in Port Blair.
Suzy Coombs started her diving as a BSAC diver (British Sub Aqua Club) in England when she was 18 and quickly became an Instructor with her local club. Her passion for diving led her to decide, at the age of 20, that she would like to dive outside the UK. She got involved in a research project in Tanzania where she had her first warm water dive.
Since then, she has converted to a PADI IDC Staff Instructor and DSAT Tec Trimix Instructor which allows her to teach new instructors and undertake technical dives. She has worked with several different dive centers in several different countries, mainly Egypt. She has moved to India to spread awareness about scuba diving in India, a country whose coastlines have the richest marine life and has yet to be explored.
Mining to blame for islands to sink beneath waves
Two small islands in South Asia’s first marine biosphere reserve have sunk into the sea primarily as a result of coral reef mining, experts say.
The islets were in a group in the Gulf of Mannar, between India and Sri Lanka.
The Indo-Pacific region is considered to contain some of the world’s richest marine biological resources.
The group’s 21 islands and islets are protected as part of the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park, covering an area of nearly 560 sq km (216 sq miles).
Fishermen had indiscriminately and illegally mined invaluable coral reefs around the islets of Poomarichan and Villanguchalli for many decades, said S Balaji, chief conservator of forests and wildlife for that region of Tamil Nadu state.
“The absence of any regulations prior to 2002 led to illegal mining of the coral reefs, which came to an end when environmental protection laws were enacted,” he told the BBC Tamil Service.
Mr Balaji said rising sea level as a result of global warming was also a factor behind the islands’ submergence.
But this was questioned by Simon Holgate from the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool, UK, who said observations showed that the sea level in the region had been rising slower than the global average.
“I think that global sea level rise had little impact on the disappearance of these islands and it must be due to other reasons, possibly the mining of coral reefs,” Dr Holgate told BBC News.
Though these islets were only 3-5m (10-15 ft) above sea level, their submergence sounded an alarm bell about the danger many more small islands faced in the long run, according to Mr Balaji, who is also director of the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve Trust (GOMBRT).
The Gulf of Mannar was chosen as a biosphere reserve by the Indian government in 1989 because of its biological and ecological uniqueness, and the distinctive socio-economic and cultural profile shaped by its geography.
Most of the 21 islands are uninhabited, and the corals were mined for use as a binding material in the construction industry, as they were rich in calcium carbonate.
Rich biodiversity
The biosphere reserve is a storehouse of about 3,600 species of marine flora and fauna.
Many more wait to be studied, said Deepak Samuel, marine biologist and project associate with the Energy and Environment Unit of the UN Development Programme (UNDP). 
“The Gulf of Mannar is a unique reserve with ecosystems like coral reefs, mangroves and seagrass,” Mr Samuel said.
“It is a nursery for shell and fin fishes, which means the entire breeding and juvenile raising takes places in these three ecosystems.”
More than 300,000 fishermen depend on the Gulf of Mannar for their livelihood. It is also the dwelling place for many endemic species, notably the dugong or “sea cow”.
Studies have proved that this gulf is home to 117 species of corals belonging to 37 genera, and 13 out of the 14 species of seagrasses in Indian seas.
The area has also been famous for pearl harvesting for over 2,000 years.
According to marine biologists, a quarter of the 2,000-plus fin fish species in Indian waters are in this gulf, making it one of the region’s most diverse fish habitats.
Most of the islands are uninhabited, and rise just a few metres above sea level
