Elena & Daniel met in September 2014, on a boat in The Azores (Portugal), just prior to going diving with blue sharks. She was there learning about shark diving thanks to the Rolex Scholarship while he was taking pictures for an underwater photography assignment for DivePhotoGuide. After a few days of thrilling ocean adventures, in this amazing dive destination, they got to meet each other better and fell in love! In addition, they realized they were both enthusiastic about the idea of starting a diveshop specialized in shark diving somewhere in the world.

Elena’s dream was to contribute toward shark conservation using ecotourism in her homeland, Venezuela, but unfortunately, the crisis the country has been facing for the last decades makes it almost impossible to start a new touristic venture there. Daniel, being passionate, and having years of experience in the industry of construction, was more attracted to the challenge of starting a business from scratch in a foreign land. They both started dreaming and planning all the details before even knowing where they were going to end up! So, next, they decided to travel the world together and look for a new location to develop their idea. They continued learning everything they could about diving and shark ecotourism from the best (and the worst! haha) in the industry.

In December 2016, after traveling for two years and going through ups and downs, they visited the island of Sint Maarten, in the Dutch Caribbean. This island has everything they were looking for! Lots of sharks, nice reefs, tourists all year round, authorities who care about the environment, and of course, it is a delightful place to live and start a family one day.

They planned to move for good to Sint Maarten in September 2017, but sadly this was exactly just before an extremely powerful and catastrophic hurricane (Irma) impacted the island, which suffered significant damage. They decided to wait a while and finally moved to the island five months after the hurricane. Since then, they have been preparing to open their dream dive shop with the help of many loved ones. Their plan was to open in March 2020 but then COVID-19 started… Finally, in September 2020 they managed to start, and together with Adrian, their diver in training, they have been exploring and taking guests and friends diving in Sint Maarten. The plan is to continue working hard and hopefully, SXM Divers will stay afloat for many more years to come! :)