When you watch Andre Miller’s “My PADI Story” video, you can’t help but be moved by his personal motivation and his vision for the future of ocean conservation. As you listen to his story, starting from when he was a small boy growing up on the island of Barbados to becoming a marine scientist, PADI Dive Center owner and Master Scuba Diver Trainer, and a passionate leader of the ocean conservation movement, his words sound and read like a poem:

My ocean is my life.

My ocean is also your ocean.

From the time I put on a mask

and went into the ocean,

my life changed forever.

We need to appreciate what’s here.

If you see what’s there,

we will protect it.

“It’s been a natural fit for me, being a PADI dive instructor and being a marine biologist,” Andre says. My PADI allows me to influence the next generation. It is one of the most gratifying parts of my job.”

Another natural fit for Andre was partnering with Christine Finney, also a marine biologist and PADI IDC Staff Instructor, in opening a conservation-minded dive operation on Grenada. “I got in to diving for the love of everything ocean related, from tides to tidal pools to biodiversity to all the beautiful surprises and seemingly never-ending opportunities to see or experience something new,” Christine says. “I got into teaching diving as a way to share this adventure with others.”

The Genesis for Barbados Blue and Eco Dive Grenada

I first met Andre and Christine in 2010, shortly after they became co-owners of Eco Dive Grenada in 2009, located at Coyaba Beach Resort. Before that, in 2005, they had opened Barbados Blue Watersports, located at the Hilton Barbados Resort on Needhams’s Point. When they were brand-new owners of Eco Dive, we walked along Grand Anse Beach, one of the prettiest beaches in the Caribbean, they were excited about getting started on achieving their dream—developing a dive business model that would successfully combine the wonder of ocean discovery while being environmentally responsible. They hoped to instill a passion for diving as well as a sense of responsibility for marine conservation in every diver that walked through their doors. In order to do that, they had to do more than talk about it. Fifteen years ago, they were among the first dive shop owners that put their words into action.

Reconnecting with them 15 years later, it is gratifying to hear about the successes—as well as the challenges—they’ve had. Today, Eco Dive is a full-service, PADI Five Star and PADI 100% AWARE Dive Center offering training in both English and French. The team offers daily dive trips, PADI dive training (up to Medic First Aid and Assistant Instructor), PADI Freediver training, snorkeling and freediving excursions, and watersports, including kayaks, standup paddleboards and more. The team can arrange for private boat charters, too, when you can visit another island, explore the Grenadines, have lunch on the island of Carriacou, access a secluded beach or have a dive or snorkel trip with only the members of your group. There are three full-time marine biologists on staff, and conservation plays a huge part in their mission to combine the teaching of diving with conservation education and constant evaluation, monitoring and protection of the island’s reefs and coastal ecosystems, including coral restoration and transplantation efforts.

Barbados Blue Watersports is also a PADI Five Star and PADI 100% AWARE Dive Center that offers training up to Medic First Aid and Divemaster, as well as PADI Freediver training. Guests can enjoy daily diving, snorkeling, Private charters are also a possibility—you can simply relax with a cocktail on a coastal boat tour or arrange for your group to have a private dive or snorkel excursion. There are two marine biologists on staff and the dive center is actively involved in a number of conservation and sustainable tourism endeavors, including coral reef restoration and transplantation. The on-staff marine biologists at both operations ensures that both Barbados Blue and Eco Dive Grenada are working to use real science to work with the local government and developers to mitigate negative impacts on the islands’ reefs and to educate the local community.

One of the unique specialty courses guests can take at both shops is PADI Coral Reef First Aid, where you’ll outplant corals to help reverse the loss of some of the most threatened species in the Caribbean. Other specialty courses offered include PADI AWARE Dive Against Debris, Underwater Photographer, Nitrox and Search and Recovery.

Two Beautiful Islands Perfect for Divers

If you’re seeing a thread that connects these two dive shops, it’s by design. Both Andre and Christine are committed to ensuring future generations will be able to enjoy the gifts of nature that both Grenada and Barbados possess. And the gifts that are found underwater are incredible.

You might know the Eastern Caribbean island of Barbados as Rihanna’s home, but the pride she has in the island is one shared by all Barbadians, including Andre. Known for its colorful culture, year-round sunny weather and beautiful beaches, Barbados is a beach lover’s paradise. “You can’t walk, run or drive very far before you hit the coastline and the ocean,” Andre says. The Barbados Blue Watersports team takes guests on daily reef, wreck, deep, drift, shallow and night dives on the Caribbean side of the island, and in the summer months when conditions are more favorable, to sites off the island’s Atlantic coast. The dive shop’s backyard house reef is the historic Carlisle Bay Marine Park. Here, divers can explore six shipwrecks, such as the Berwyn, which was deliberately scuttled by her crew more than 100 years ago, and the Cornwallis, a relic from World War II that’s in only 15 feet (4.5 meters) of water. A more recent addition is the Bajan Queen, where divers are usually surrounded by swirling schools of blackbar soldierfish.

About 25 years ago, Andre worked for the Barbados Coastal Zone Management Unit as its water quality point person, and in this role, he was the lead proponent behind the island’s dive site moorings program and the driving force behind the designation of Carlisle Bay as a marine park.

“The magic of Carlisle Bay is unmatched as an all-round site,” says Christine. “It’s accessible, has pretty, clear water, white sand, schools of fish, arguably too-friendly rays, turtles, tarpon, wreck penetration options, and beginner and advanced options. My second favorite site is Turtle Point, where turtles and eagle rays are often spotted.”

On Grenada, one of Christine’s favorite sites is Purple Rain Reef, “a beautiful drift dive, with deep-water sea fans, soft corals, hard corals and high diversity. You get 'rained' on by pretty schools of creole wrasse midwater. You may also see eagle rays, nurse sharks, rays, turtles, barracudas and lots of healthy reef diversity. All my favorite Grenada sites are biodiversity based, and I'm a coral geek, so I'm an easy sell on healthy reef areas.” The island is also famous among wreck divers as the home of M/V Bianca C, a 600-foot former passenger liner that's in between 100 and 165 feet of water.

No matter which island you visit, you will not only love the diving but you’ll also love Christine and Andre’s approach to doing everything they can to protect what they love. Their unofficial motto—“Two Islands — One Love”—has been the North Star for guiding their efforts for more than a quarter century. “We are not done,” says Christine. “It’s time to double down and get serious with ever-rising climate change threats and regional and global affronts on our reefs. Our oceans are many things—resilient, fragile, beautiful, terrifying, stunning, degraded, evolving, tenacious, stubborn—and we need to support more and shift our perspectives to be better neighbors. We can collectively do better.”

CONTACT

Barbados Blue Watersports

1-877-902-DIVE

[email protected]

divebarbadosblue.com

Eco Dive Grenada

877-877-2709

[email protected]

ecodiveandtrek.com