If you haven’t heard already from all our excited social media posts, earlier this month Divetech’s own Jo Mikutowicz was officially inducted into the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame! The International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame (or ISDHF for short) awarded Jo as one of 2024’s Local Honorees, in recognition of all her years of hard work, dedication, and passion in the dive industry.
The ISDHF was founded in 2000 in part by the Cayman Islands Ministry of Tourism. The organization was established to promote the history and development of scuba diving, and celebrates individuals who have made significant contributions to the world of scuba diving. Past inductees and honorees include powerhouses of the dive industry, like Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Dr. Sylvia Earle, Bob Soto, Paul Humann, and the original founder of Divetech, Nancy Easterbrook. You can find a list of past inductees and honorees here.
Every year the ISDHF holds an induction ceremony, usually in the Cayman Islands. This year the event was hosted here at the swanky new Hotel Indigo in Seven Mile Beach. To help celebrate her incredible achievement, Jo was joined by family, friends, mentors….and all her dive staff! That’s right folks, we all traded in our flip flops and board shorts for heels and bowties (and plenty of pink) to help Jo celebrate her incredible achievement.
The event was truly an amazing experience, and I feel lucky to have been able to attend. We all love the world of scuba diving - that’s why we’re here - and it was surreal to be in a beautiful banquet hall surrounded by divers who are a pretty big deal in the industry. Also in attendance that night were PADI CEOs Drew Richardson and Kristin Valette-Wirth, Dan Orr the former president and CEO of DAN, Suzy Soto and her family, the ISDHF Board of Directors, and many many more. It was both humbling and inspiring to see so much dive history together in one room.
The ceremony kicked off with some great speeches and presentations. The theme of the night was age in diving, and many of the speeches focused on making sure the older generations share their passion with the younger generations to continue spreading the love of scuba diving and the ocean. Another highlight of the night for us hangry dive staff was the food! The Indigo staff really went all out for that evening’s dinner, presenting delicious meals and fancy desserts, and plenty of wine! I’m definitely still dreaming of that mushroom soup.
Divetech was well-represented on the stage that night - our very own staff member Kameron D’Hue was the Master of Ceremony! Kam is no stranger to the ISDHF - he was first honored at the ISDHF in 2019 as that year’s Bob Soto scholarship award winner. Bob Soto opened up the first Caribbean dive shop in the 1950s right here in the Cayman Islands, and this scholarship is given to deserving local Caymanians to support them as they start their career in scuba diving. Kam was also awarded at the 2023 ISDHF as an Emerging Honoree, and now in 2024 was back on stage as host! Kam was professional, well spoken, and well dressed in pink as he stood on stage, and had the honor of introducing Jo for her award.
Jo first came to the Cayman Islands as a kid in the 90’s, and took her first dive lessons here. She became a dive instructor in 2005, and returned to Cayman in 2012 before taking over as owner of Divetech in 2016. She is passionate about all things diving - including captaining dive boats and guiding dives, working on numerous underwater conservation projects, training and promoting local Caymanians in the industry, and not to mention running one of the Cayman Island’s most popular dive operations. She’s also heavily involved in the local community, working with different programs to promote diving, conservation, and tourism in Cayman. And if that wasn’t enough, over the last 8 years her annual Women’s Dive Day event has raised an unbelievable $50,000 for the Cayman Islands Breast Cancer Foundation! Jo is also well-known for her love of pink and flamingos, as well as supporting women in diving. If you’d like to know more about Jo and her incredible accomplishments, check out this interview we did with her here.
After receiving her award, Jo gave a beautiful and heartfelt speech (printed on pink paper with a pink staple of course!). She thanked her family, her mentors, her partner Todd, her staff, and the many local institutions here on Cayman she is a part of. As Jo so eloquently said in her speech:
It is an honor to share this magical country with the rest of the world, to have the ability to raise money for local charities, and to encourage young people to dive and to start a career in the watersports industry. It is a job and a privilege I do not take lightly and I plan on continuing to do it for many years to come with passion, grace, enthusiasm…and a lot of pinkness.
Alongside Jo, the other 2024 Local Honorees were Captain Ertis Ebanks, Barbara Macdowell, and Emerging Honoree Andrew Ebanks. The 2024 International Inductees were Claudio Guardabassi (Brazil), Margo Peyton (USA), Enric Sala (Spain), and John Thet (Singapore).
Overall, the evening was an incredible experience and something I won’t soon forget. All of us here at Divetech are so happy to be a part of Jo’s incredible team, and we are so proud of her for being forever enshrined in the International Scuba Diving Hall of FAME!! Way to go Jo!
