Dive Pirates Prepare for Second 2015 Voyage with 8 Divers with Disabilities to Cayman Brac

Dive Pirates June 17, 2015, Cayman Brac, Dive Pirates

After a successful inaugural trip, from Utila, Honduras to the Laguna Beach Resort with two recipients and one returning recipient, Dive Pirates 2.0 is setting a course to Cayman Brac and the Brac Reef Beach Resort. It will be the second of four trips this year, “Conquering New Territory.”

This year’s recipients include Retired Gunnery Sgt. Ryan Rivera, USMC. Rivera served more than 8 years as a Marine, with many deployments. On a mission to search out sites where US troops were being ambushed, he and his team suffered the same fate. However, his quick thinking and leadership gave his team a fighting chance, all returning back alive. Ryan suffered a gunshot wound to the neck, causing a spinal cord injury causing incomplete quadriplegia.

Rivera will join three other injured veterans and four other recipients, including a teenager, with disabilities. In fact, the teenager’s wish is to scuba dive with her family in the Caribbean after losing her leg to aggressive cancer.

Make-A-Wish®

We were surprised when Make-A-Wish® Georgia contacted us. They wanted to find a way to grant the child’s request, using a group of people familiar with diving with adaptive diving,” said Susan DeVore, Executive Director of the Dive Pirates Foundation. “It adds to our growing community, having such a diverse group of age, life experience, abilities. Many of our recipients have told us one of the strongest virtues of our crew is the richness in diversity. We have an uncontrollable urge to have fun and support each other. The more the merrier. “

Returning recipients Retired Captain Marlene Krpata and Retired Corporal Sean Barr, USMC, Retired Sgt. Nathan Gonzalez, USMC, along with Dive Pirate Board Member Dr. Mark Frederickson makes for a total of 13 disabled divers on the trip, accompanied by Classified Buddies, instructors and other friends and family that will once again fill the whole resort for a week of diving and pirate skullduggery that is sure to be a life-altering adventure. Follow the fun next week on the Dive Pirates Facebook page.

Dive Pirates

A group of volunteers that believes in supporting our community with our passion for scuba diving. A 501 c 3 not-for-profit public charity. Dive Pirates supports, trains, equips, and provides dive travel to individuals with disabilities through Classified Scuba Diving Based on camaraderie, compassion, freedom to dive, and the Code of Conduct. Dive Pirates will support, train, equip, and provide dive travel to individuals with disabilities through Classified Scuba Diving. The foundation will create a community of Disabled Divers that will dive and travel in the mainstream world of Scuba Diving through education and overcoming obstacles.