While India has the benefit of having easy access to some of the world’s best diving (and a lot of it visa-free:  take that and stick it, VFS), what we lack is a community of divers – a place to connect with other divers, share dive stories, plan dive trips together and generally share the passion of diving with other people who won’t judge you for peeing in your wetsuit.   Simply put:  diving is more fun with friends.

And that simple fact led to the genesis of India Scuba Network, which – surprise, surprise – aims to be a resource to connect scuba divers in India (yeah, we aren’t winning prizes for creative naming):  a place to get scuba-related content, connect with other divers, get more info on diving destinations/dive centers and find dive buddies to go on trips with.    

We also offer carefully curated group dive trips to the top dive destinations in the world – and yes, while the phrase “carefully curated” is sadly abused these days, we do approach things a little differently:   we are dive professionals and not social media influencers, and out goal with these trips is to create trips that are as accessible to everyone as possible, and to use them as a way of building and strengthening the community of divers in India.   So to start with, our trips are priced sensibly with no excessive markups over what you’d pay if you booked it directly.   Second, because we know that everyone has different degree of skills and travel expectations, an experienced dive professional accompanyies all trips to provide an additional resource, both with trip logistics and also in-water supervision if required.     

In addition, for divers in India looking to book dive travel independently, we offer the best rates on independent dive trips as well, especially liveaboards.     Again, as with our group trips, our primary goal is to ensure diving becomes a lifestyle for as many people as possible.

So who is this “we”?       

India Scuba Network is the brainchild of Vandit Kalia, aka Vinnie – diving since 1991, Vinnie is one of India’s most experienced dive professionals – in addition to being trimix certified since the late 1990s, he’s been a dive professional since 2001 and an Instructor Trainer since 2008.     He spent the first decade of his diving journey exploring deep wrecks (dry suit, numb hands, the works) in the North Atlantic, including diving the Andrea Doria while working as a management consultant in Washington DC, Barcelona and Boston.     In 2003, he quit the corporate world and moved to the Andamans to start Diveindia, the pioneers of diving in the Andamans, where he and his team discovered all the top sites of the region, such as Johnny’s Gorge, Dixon’s Pinnacle and Jackson’s Bar (named after members of his team who were part of Diveindia from the early days), as well as the SS Inchkett, V16 and more.      

Vinnie sold Diveindia in 2022, and moved to Bangalore where he realised the need for a local community of divers, which led to the formation of Bangalore Scuba in partnership with Vidit Dawda.    Vidit had also quit a career in management consulting to become a dive professional in 2016, and had recently moved back to Bangalore as well after working in the Andamans for many years.    A very experienced instructor, Vidit still teaches classes for Bangalore Scuba in… well, Bangalore, and also leads dive trips across the world.    His super power is knowing the best place to get ice cream in the most remote dive destinations of the world, and also waving his hands in the water (IYKYK).