Meet Indian expat girls in Dubai making waves as youngest female scuba divers

Dubai: A trio of young Dubai-based students is making a splash in the world of scuba diving, defying age barriers and inspiring a new generation of underwater explorers.

Indian expat sisters Sreshta and Sloka Chandrra, along with compatriot student Tisya Panigrahi, have become role models in the UAE’s diving community, achieving rare certifications and record-breaking milestones before even turning 16.

Sreshta Chandrra, a 10-year-old Year 5 student at GEMS Metropole School in Dubai, recently became one of the youngest certified scuba divers in the UAE so for in 2025. Children under 10 are not qualified to be certified scuba divers.

Sreshta’s achievement followed an intense training programme at a diving centre in Dubai, which included both theory and open-sea dives in Jumeirah.

The little girl says her journey was inspired by her older sister Sloka, 13, who started learning diving first. Subsequently, their father Satish Chandran also joined them, with all three of them receiving their PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) certifications together.

“I feel amazing because I finished the course and got my certification. I’m so happy to dive with my sister. It is so much fun,” said an excited Sreshta.

Together, the Chandrra sisters have become the first sibling duo in the UAE to earn their PADI certifications, said their parents Satish Chandran and Saranya Satish.

“To see them both dive together breaking barriers and become certified is a dream come true. We got to know about Sreshta becoming the youngest to get the certificate only later,” they added.

Looking ahead, the sisters have set her sights on even bigger diving dreams. “I want to dive with sharks in the Red Sea and explore the stunning coral reefs in the Philippines,” Shreshta said with an eager grin.

Meanwhile, Tisya Panigrahi, a Grade 9 student at Raffles World Academy in Dubai, marked her 15^th birthday on June 8 by diving to a depth of 100 feet (30m) at the Garden of Eden dive site in Oman’s stunning Daymaniyat Islands, a perfect achievement to mark the World Oceans Day as well.

Tisya had become a PADI-certified scuba diver at the age of 10 in 2020. She was the youngest from her native state of Odisha, India, to achieve that milestone and now to hit the new depth on her 15th birthday, said her father and dive buddy Priyadarshee Panigrahi.

“She is one of the youngest Indian divers globally to do so at 15. It is a big coincidence that she was born on World Ocean Day and God has blessed her to dive,” he said.

Together, they formed one of the rare father-daughter pairs to complete such a dive on a milestone birthday.

The dive was supported by diving centres in Dubai and Oman, and overseen by Nasser Al-Khanjary, an Omani master instructor.

During the dive, the ardent advocates for marine conservation captured the occasion’s emotional and symbolic weight: Tisya held two placards reading “On my 15th birthday” and “At 100 feet”, while her father held one declaring “World Oceans Day.”

Tisya said “I had been eagerly waiting to turn 15 years old so that I could start diving up to 30 metres and attain this personal milestone. I am incredibly happy that this milestone dive happened on World Oceans Day”.

Known for breaking age-related barriers in diving and having explored underwater worlds in the Maldives, Jordan, Seychelles, and the UAE with her father, she added: “We divers are the spokespersons for the Oceans as we see marine life from very close quarters, and I hope, through our diving stories and videos, more people are inspired to participate in ocean conservation efforts.”