Sambalpur: A 12-year-old girl from Odisha’s Sambalpur has become the state’s youngest junior advanced open water scuba diver. Tisya Panigrahi dived to a depth of 70 feet in the Gulf of Oman on June 8, which is her birthday, and June 9 to achieve the feat.
Tisya attempted the feat on her birthday this year as she finally turned 12 years old, making her eligible for the Advanced Licence. She dived to a depth of 70 feet into the sea at the Martini Rock dive site on UAE’s east coast. She was accompanied by her father Priyadarshee Panigrahi, a certified scuba diver since 2012.
On completing five dives, the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) awarded her the Junior Advanced Open Water Scuba Diver licence on June 9. Tisya, who lives in Dubai, completed the course at Al Boom Diving, Al Aqah, Fujairah, UAE.
PADI is the world’s largest scuba diving training and certification organisation. Founded in 1966 in Illinois, US, it operates in 186 countries with more than 6,600 dive centres and resorts.
“It was my pleasure to see such a young child doing an advanced course. I was happy to teach her and she is a quick learner,” said Youssef Grouchi, an open water scuba diving instructor from Morocco who was Tisya’s instructor at Al Boom Diving.
Odisha’s pioneering scuba diver Sabir Bux also expressed joy at Tisya’s achievement.
Born to Priyadarshee from Sambalpur and Soumitri Nanda from Cuttack, Tisya is the granddaughter of late Sriballav Panigrahi and Sunanda Panigrahi. Sriballav Panigrahi was a leading political figure of his time. He was a Cabinet Minister in Odisha and also a three-time MP. Tisya is also the granddaughter of former MLA from Sambalpur, Dr Raseswari Panigrahi.
Tisya became Odisha’s youngest scuba diver in 2020 when she obtained her PADI Junior Open Water Scuba diver licence at age 10. Both father and daughter had captured the imagination of people when they dived 40 feet last year to wish people on ‘Nuakhai’ festival from the bottom of the sea.
