Two underwater Guinness World Records (GWR) have been set by scuba divers in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands as part of a drive to promote the Indian union territory as a diving-tourism destination.
The “Tallest Human Stack Underwater” record was achieved on 3 May, the day after the “Largest National Flag Unfurled Underwater”, with both records ratified on the spot by a GWR adjudicator.
The stack consisted of 14 scuba divers standing on each others’ shoulders to form a 22.3m-high tower that held steady for three minutes. The feat was carried out at the Lighthouse dive-site on Swaraj Dweep (formerly Havelock Island) in the eastern Bay of Bengal, surpassing a target height of 10m.
The flag display in the shallows at Radhanagar Beach was carried out by more than 200 scuba divers who succeeded in unfurling and displaying India’s national flag beneath the surface.
The 60 x 40m flag, about the size of half a football pitch, was deployed by a dive-team assembled from the Andaman & Nicobar Police, forest department, Indian Navy, Coast Guard and private dive operators, with some divers as young as 14 given the chance to participate.
The team had the task or anchoring the sections of the flag evenly to resist the drag of the current while maintaining neutral buoyancy.
The A&N Island’s lieutenant-governor Devendra Kumar Joshi took part in both dives, and senior government officials were in attendance at the event.
There are 836 islands in the Andaman & Nicobar group, though only 31 are inhabited. Geographically closer to Thailand, the archipelago is regarded as among the few parts of India to offer scuba diving of a quality likely to attract international divers, with sites around Swaraj Dweep featuring hard and soft corals, reef fish and occasional pelagic sightings.
The broader region offers encounters with sharks and rays, turtles and macro life, with warm water, relatively uncrowded sites and a combination of beginner-friendly reef-diving and more advanced drift and deeper dives. The November-April seasonal window is generally preferred for optimal visibility and calmer seas.
