The scuba diving world has sadly said farewell to another technical diving pioneer with the passing of Nancy Easterbrook, founder of Grand Cayman dive centre Divetech.
Easterbrook, who started diving in 1973 and was originally from Winnipeg, Canada, moved to Grand Cayman with her children in 1994 and founded Divetech the same year.
She was influential in bringing technical diving, rebreather diving and freediving to the Cayman Islands, and wrote training manuals for freedivers.
In 2004, she founded Inner Space, a global week-long rebreather event which brought CCR divers to the Caymans each year until the forum closed in 2019.
The event would not only be a forum for rebreather divers but also, through the Divers Alert Network, a chance to research the effects of decompression in tech divers.
Easterbrook was also famous for her work sinking the USS Kittiwake as an artificial reef in the Cayman Islands in 2011, on of the Caribbean’s most popular wreck dives, and recognised as one of the best in the world.
She also installed the famous ‘Guardian of the Reef’ statue, with her husband Jay, at Lighthouse Point in 2015, following her retirement from Divetech in 2014.
Easterbrook was inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame in 2012 and the Cayman Islands’ International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame in 2015.
A spokesperson for the Cayman Islands’ Ministry of Tourism said that Easterbrook would be remembered as ‘an incredible mentor to divers worldwide.’
‘Nancy will be greatly missed,’ added the spokesperson,’ and our thoughts are with her family, friends, and everyone she impacted in the global dive industry.’
