When one thinks of America’s list of notable explorers and adventurers, it’s hard to put the face of an African American on that distinguished list. But there is one face that many in the diving world are quite familiar with and have felt his 2008 Sport Diver of the Year Award was well overdue. For almost 50 years, Dr. Jose Jones has turned the sport of diving into a charge of personal achievement and has succeeded in presenting a new face in the world of diving.

Establishing the Underwater Adventure Seekers (UAS) diving club in 1959 in Washington, D.C., Dr. Jones saw a need to provide the Black community, young and old, an opportunity to learn to dive. Having trained well over 2,000 individuals to dive and over 5,000 people to swim, without ever charging, Dr. Jones has introduced many Blacks to the sport of diving while promoting the basic skills of swimming, rescue and safety.

Back in the 1950’s when diving was rarely viewed as a recreational activity and mostly associated with naval activities and rescue measures …, Dr. Jose reached out to a core group of active swimmers and athletes to create an active diving community in the DC area. Within a decade the club grew tremendously in size and began traveling to international dive destinations including the South Pacific, Indonesia, Morocco, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and a host of others.

Since its inception the UAS has received a number of accreditations including noted oldest dive club in the country and placing first in the Scuba Rodeo Competition for five consecutive years. After receiving overwhelming responses from other black divers across the country, Dr. Jones modeled the UAS to create a larger and national organization called the National Association of Black Scuba Divers (NABS) which served as a platform to gain greater visibility and organize Black divers nationally. Dr. Jones felt it was necessary to establish a larger diving community and networking source for diving information and experiences. Today NABS has grown to a very distinguished and active dive club. With the belief that “good swimmers make good divers”, Dr. Jones has been credited with the emergence of 50 dive clubs in the United States and the world under NABS. NABS has fostered a social network of diving excursions to remote parts of the world to and hosts an annual summit at some of best dive locations.

Though NABS has blossomed into one of the greatest Black social and adventure networks in the world, it has made its share of noteworthy and historical accomplishments as well. In 1993, Dr. Jones led and expedition of divers from NABS to the Gulf of Mexico at New Ground Reef to place a 2,700 pound memorial plaque on the site of the slave ship Henrietta Marie. Most recently at the 2007 summit, NABS divers were trained as underwater archeologists to help search the Spanish slave ship, Guerrero which sank off the Florida Keys in 1827.

Dr. Jose Jones diving off Florida coast

Dr. Jones has taught over 2000 individuals and has recorded over 6000 dives for research, training, exploratory and archaeological purposes. Dr. Jones has received the Scuba Schools International (SSI) Platinum 5000 Award for logging over 5000 dives. Dr. Jones has won the mid-Atlantic Scuba Diving Championship and the mid-Atlantic Spearfishing Championship twice. Dr. Jones is not only a trailblazer in the sport of diving, but excelled in martial arts as the 1972 U.S. Heavyweight Tae Kwon Do Champion. Dr. Jones is truly an adventurer and pioneer in the sport of diving and science of underwater exploration.

For more information about Dr. Jose Jones and the National Association of Black Scuba Divers, visit nabsdivers.org.