Saturday the 21st of July it was PADI women’s day! We celebrated this by organising a special dive day for women. PADI women’s day is a yearly event organised by PADI and it’s registered dive centres. The event is mainly to encourage the female dive community, a few years ago 90% of the divers where men, nowadays about 1 out of 3 certifications are gained by women but we want to make this become equal!
Besides PADI women’s day is there to support the female dive community, the event is there as well to make new friends and connect with people who share the interest in diving
The dive spot Tulamben is famous about it’s ‘Porters’. These porters are mainly women who work as dive equipment carriers in order to earn money. As you can imagine, dive equipment is very heavy, an average scuba tank weights around 15kg (35 pounds!) All dive centres who dive in Tulamben pay these porters in exchange for carrying the dive equipment from the busses to the dive spots at the beach.
Some of these porter women are carrying dive equipment for more than 15 years, without knowing how spectacular the underwater world is and why everyone is doing scuba diving! Since PADI women’s day is there to celebrate the female dive community it seemed us a good idea to let these porter women and some of their family members experience the thing they never did, SCUBA DIVING!
The girls were first a bit nervous but once they went into the water they enjoyed every second of it! They told us that they are willing to do it more than once!
