Two divers. One life underwater.

Mariana Uriel founded The Black Anchor Scuba Diving & Snorkeling in 2013 in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico — the first woman in Puerto Rico to establish a dive center on her own. An SSI Open Water Instructor, she built the center on a simple idea: change how diving is seen on the island and make it a sport accessible to everyone.

What began with Mariana leading small groups on diving and snorkeling adventures has grown into a full SSI Instructor Training Center on PR-107 in Aguadilla — a well-respected name known for its commitment to safety, its work with the community, environmental conservation and genuinely good service. The staff of instructors bring over 40 years of combined experience, and the center runs on MARES equipment, with its own MARES repair center.

The Black Anchor teaches the whole SSI pathway, from entry level to professional: Basic Diver and Open Water Diver for first-timers, Advanced and Rescue for divers building confidence, and Divemaster, Assistant Instructor, Instructor Training and Specialty Instructor Seminars for those going pro. They also run Extended Range (XR) programs, ecology and emergency training, plus mermaid and swim programs.

Out of the water they're just as active — guided shore, boat and wreck dives, snorkeling tours and marine life ID programs around Aguadilla and Crash Boat Beach, plus air, nitrox and oxygen fills for divers passing through. Mariana and her team teach in English and Spanish, and the door is open seven days a week. "Let's Dive!"

Vicente is from Spain and has lived in the Mexican Caribbean since 2000. He was certified as a diver in 1990 on Mallorca, and knew from the start where he was headed: instructor with CMAS in 1994, then SSI in 1996 and PADI in 1999. In 2000 he moved to Mexico to become a cave diver, planning to stay a single year to gain experience — he fell deeply in love with the Mexican caves instead, and never left.

He became a Full Cave Instructor in 2008 and a Full Cave Instructor Trainer in 2017, and has logged more than 10,000 cave dives. He also loves teaching sidemount, hypoxic trimix, and DPV cave and tech DPV courses, and is a CCR cave diver on the Kiss Sidewinder, AP Inspiration Vision 2020 and ISC Megalodon.

Exploration is his other passion. He has discovered, explored and mapped more than 60 new caves across the Yucatán Peninsula, placing over 40 km of new line in tunnels no one had seen before. Among his finds is a human skeleton belonging to the first inhabitants of the Americas, dated at 13,000 years and currently under investigation, along with Maya skeletons and the remains of extinct animals — one of which turned out to be new to science: a new species and a new genus. That sparked a lasting interest in science, and he now collaborates with archaeological projects, reporting his findings and contributing to photogrammetry, mapping and the collection of archaeological and paleontological evidence.

Today he teaches and forms the next generation of cave and technical instructors across four agencies: SDI-TDI, IANTD, XR SSI and RAZOR with Gosidemount.

Born to the Ocean was founded by Borja García and Andrea Curci — an SSI instructor and professional underwater photographer with experience in technical and cave diving, and an SSI Divemaster with a special passion for macro photography and the small creatures of the ocean. Between them they have logged close to 5,000 dives in places like the Maldives, Honduras, Bali, Spain, Mexico and Portugal, and have certified more than 600 divers, from Open Water through Divemaster.

The project came from a real need to do things differently: to connect people with the ocean through the local culture of each place, respect for nature, and the experience of those who live the sea every day. That became the three values behind everything they do — Dive, Travel, Protect.

Their dive trips are deliberately small, with groups of no more than 12 people, so every destination gets close guidance and a more conscious pace. Destinations are chosen for their marine biodiversity, their landscapes, their photographic possibilities and their local culture — and the trips go beyond diving, connecting you with the nature, culture and people of each place.

Underwater photography runs through it all. Through their Underwater Photography Academy and on-trip workshops they teach lighting, composition and editing — not just how to use a camera underwater, but how to develop your own way of seeing. They also back marine conservation projects, because the more you know the ocean, the more you want to protect it.

Mako Dive Co. was founded in early 2025 by Cayla and Nick as the first SSI Freediving Center in Puerto Rico. Based in Aguadilla, they started the center to bring more awareness of freediving to the local community and to encourage safe training for everyone who dives on a single breath.

Their teaching centres on understanding how the body functions underwater and on proper safety precautions — the foundation of the whole freediving journey. They offer SSI freediving certifications, workshops, training sessions, boat excursions and retreats, taking divers from their very first breath-hold to deeper, more advanced training.

It's more than a physical skill for them. Freediving is a chance to challenge yourself mentally and build confidence in your own abilities, and they meet every student where they are — whether you're already confident in the water or only just opening up to the idea of being underwater.

"Helping others achieve their greatest potential underwater" is how they put it, and the whole team is built around it: every student is valued, and the door is open to anyone curious about the journey.