Our-World Underwater Scholarship

The Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society is a non-profit, educational organisation whose mission is to promote educational activities associated with the underwater world. It has offered scholarships for over 35 years. owuscholarship.org

FREEDIVING, PHOTOGRAPHY AND CAVE DIVING

Ihave had a busy started to 2022! I entered into the New

Year in the world’s deepest indoor and scuba diving pool at Deep Dive Dubai, trading my heavy dive equipment for the freedom provided by only a dive suit, a low-volume mask and long fins. I spent two weeks working on my breathhold techniques and finning techniques under the guidance of world champion freediver Nataliia Zharkova.

During my time at Deep Dive Dubai, I also had the opportunity to take my first rebreather try-dive supervised by Dirty Dozen Expeditions founder Aron Arngrimsson, and join Jesper Kjoller in the development of a new PADI Triox Specialty, allowing divers to immerse themselves deeper.

Afterwards it was time for a transatlantic flight to the Cayman Islands and straight into a two-week photography workshop led by award-winning photographer and marine biologist Alex Mustard. Based at Ocean Frontiers dive centre, the workshop included everything from the optimum positioning of strobes for wide-angle photography to the selection of subjects and the art of macrophotography.

After capturing countless images of marine life on the pristine reefs of the Cayman Islands, and feeling more confident than ever before with my camera equipment sponsored by Reef Photo & Video, and Nauticam, I then joined the expert photographers and film-makers behind Ocean Culture Life for an underwater storytelling workshop on the wrecks of Nassau, Bahamas. Working on shooting sequences for my end-of-year film to be screened in New York was nothing short of exciting. Together with HayleyJo Carr and Richard Carr from the Perry Institute of Marine Science and Stuart Cove’s Dive Centre, I then spent some very rewarding hours underwater working on coral restoration and cleaning coral trees that support the growth of endangered staghorn corals.

Following my passion for sharks and the true depth of what lies beneath the surface, I then conducted research work with sharks and the exploration of Bahamian caves on the island of Grand Bahama. I had the incredible opportunity to dive deeper into handling large groups of sharks from noone else but the shark listener and pioneering cave explorer Cristina Zenato herself. Donning chainmail during intimate encounters with Caribbean reef sharks and data collection using laser photogrammetry, I got to meet and study some of the individual sharks close to Cristina’s heart.

The chainmail was then swapped for cave diving helmets and sidemount kit and a very rewarding NSSCDS / TDI Apprentice Cave Diver certification at the end of long days of dive training amid the beautiful speleothems of local caves. Shortly after, I returned to the Maldives to conduct further research on anthropogenic injuries in tiger sharks and join the Manta Trust team on a scientific expedition to the Deep South for the study of oceanic manta rays through tagging, microbiome as well as biopsy sampling and photo identification.

My next adventures will be to obtain further technical dive qualifications, followed by the study of coral growth on Captain Kidd’s wreck in the Dominican Republic, and the excavation of a 17th century Spanish ship with Dr Sam Haskell. n

You can read more about Arzu’s diving experiences and the opportunities enabled by the OWUSS EU Rolex Scholarship on www.owusseurope.org and get to know her on www.arzucan-askin.com