Nancy Easterbrook, a dive pioneer who brought technical diving and the Kittiwake wreck to the Cayman Islands, passed away on 10 Oct.
Easterbrook, originally from Winnipeg, Canada, moved to Cayman with her two children, Brandee and Walker, in 1994 where she set up Divetech, a dive operation that went on to specialise in technical diving and the use of rebreathers, as well as freediving.
One of her dreams for the Cayman Islands was to bring a world-class dive wreck here, the culmination of which occurred on 5 Jan. 2011, after eight years of effort, when the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake was sunk off West Bay.
The five-deck, 251-foot-long, 2,200-ton Chanticleer-class ship, which is now one of the most popular dives in Grand Cayman, bears a plaque with her name. In its first year alone, more than 10,000 people dived the Kittiwake.
She received a special contribution award that year at the annual Stingray Tourism Awards ceremony, hosted by the Cayman Islands Tourism Association.
Speaking to the Compass in 2011, she described her first few years in Cayman and her subsequent work in establishing technical diving and breath-holding freediving here.
“My first venture was bare boat rental in the North Sound,” she said. “I spent months playing around on and under the water, the old B-52 wreck, Starfish Point, Stingray City, mapping out the reefs and the marinas. …
“When I got my watersports licence, I started Divetech, and brought in technical diving, which, at the time, people were not doing properly or safely. This was a way of trying to up the bar and keep it safe. And I also introduced freediving with world, national, local, amateur and professional competitions for whom we provided support and co-authored a series of training curriculums.”
The Kittiwake isn’t the only underwater structure that she leaves behind. Standing majestically by the reef in front of Lighthouse Point, which Nancy and her husband Jay built in 2009, is the 13-foot-tall Guardian of the Reef, a statue created by sculptor Simon Morris and commissioned by the Easterbrooks. It was sunk in 2014 to much fanfare and remains a must-have Instragram photo for divers visiting Cayman.
Morris said, “To celebrate Divetech’s 20th anniversary on April 12, 2014, Jay and Nancy sank my Guardian of the Reef at Lighthouse Point as an artificial reef and legacy for divers to visit for decades to come.
“Nancy promoted ocean conservation and arranged to donate one dollar from every dive on the Guardian towards ‘The West Bay Warriors’, an educational ocean conservation and awareness programme for local school children that works to promote, educate and action ocean and reef conservation.
“I was honoured to have my work selected for this project, and to call Nancy my friend. Her love and passion for the ocean were always obvious, and her contributions to the diving industry in Cayman and the world will never be forgotten. I am grateful to have known her.”
Inductions and awards
Easterbrook was inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame in 2012, and into the Cayman Islands-based International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame as a local honouree in 2015.
In 2014, she and Divetech received the Governor’s Corporate Conservation Award from then governor Helen Kilpatrick.
In 2018, she received a lifetime achievement award at the Cayman Islands Tourism Association’s annual Stingray Tourism Awards.
In a tribute on Facebook, Margo Peyton, Kids Sea Camp founder, and one of the people who nominated Easterbrook to be inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame, wrote, “As the founder and owner of Divetech – the first female-owned dive operation in the Cayman Islands – you shattered ceilings with grace and grit. You pioneered technical diving, rebreathers, and breath-hold free diving, co-authoring training manuals that set new standards.
“And who could forget your tireless work to bring the Kittiwake wreck to Grand Cayman? You fought for it, ensured it was sunk there, creating an underwater playground that draws divers from around the world.”
She added, “Nancy, you didn’t just dive – you dove into life with everything you had, always innovating, always pushing boundaries.”
Joanna Mikutowicz, the Cayman Islands Tourism Association director for watersports, who now owns Divetech, said, “Nancy’s determination and fierce advocacy for not only the watersports industry in the Cayman Islands but worldwide made her a true pioneer in the diving industry.
“She was more than a mentor to me – she was a constant source of strength, wisdom and encouragement. Her passion for the underwater world and her unwavering support not only shaped my career but also the person I am today.”
Contributions to technical diving research
In 2004, Easterbrook founded Inner Space, one of the first global rebreather events. The week-long annual programme, which continued until 2019, attracted closed circuit rebreather divers from around the world.
Rosemary ‘Roz’ Lunn, a senior diving standards inspector at the UK Ministry of Defence, who was inducted into International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame this year, described Easterbrook as a “force of nature”.
She noted that, during Inner Space weeks, Divetech hosted experts and educators, such as Neal Pollock and the team from Divers Alert Network, to enable research to be done into decompression stress, or the production of nitrogen bubbles in the blood, during tech dives. On tech dives, divers use a mix of gasses to dive much deeper and longer than they would while diving recreationally on air.
Lunn said at a time when tech diving was dominated by male divers, Easterbrook was diving deeper than most.
“We owe her a massive debt of gratitude because she broke the glass ceiling in tech diving for women divers, and created a facility – Divetech – that was accessible for all. Divetech was the place to train if you were serious about your tech diving,” she said.
And when many dive certification agencies and operators still considered nitrox (a mix with a higher concentration of oxygen than air) to be unsafe “voodoo gas”, Easterbrook and Divetech introduced nitrox to Grand Cayman, where it proved popular among divers. It’s now a standard, and safe, offering at nearly all dive operations.
Speaking with Lunn, who is also a journalist, for X-Ray magazine in 2013, Easterbrook explained why she set up Inner Space, saying, “I wanted to bring people together to learn what was happening with rebreathers, because I could see the technology was constantly evolving and getting better. We attracted 19 divers in the first year who were keen to learn more and move the industry forward.
“The aim of Inner Space is to share information, keep up with changes in the industry, and provide the ideal platform for people to meet like-minded divers and build relationships.”
In a statement to the Compass on Easterbrook’s passing, the Ministry of Tourism and the Department of Tourism described her as a dive industry pioneer and innovator, who was a “champion of establishing artificial reefs”, including the Kittiwake and the Guardian of the Reef.
They noted that outside of her professional achievements, “she was an incredible mentor to divers worldwide”.
“Nancy will be greatly missed and our thoughts are with her family, friends and everyone she impacted in the global dive industry,” the ministry and department said.
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