Chad and Jessica Hanjora stand in BluWave Divers with their dog. (COURTESY OF THE HANJORA FAMILY)
Chad Hanjora and his wife Jessica Hanjora opened BluWave Divers this May to bring their passion for the water to Orlando.
BluWave Divers is stationed in College Park at 3465 Edgewater Drive, and Chad Hanjora said his goal is to share his love of the ocean and the beauty of diving with others. Hanjora said that when he became dive certified at 27 years old, he quit his job and moved to the Florida Keys.
“I’m a water baby,” Hanjora said. “I quit my job within months, and I just moved down to the Keys and became an instructor.”
After he moved to the Florida Keys, he moved to Hawaii and then back to the Florida Keys, doing guided dives and instructions. After he met his future wife, he got married and then moved back to Central Florida to open BluWave Divers.
“Twelve years in the making,” Hanjora said. “There’s a lot of travel, a lot of classes, a lot of learning and a lot of failures that got me here.”
The Hanjoras chose this location because they are close to Central Florida springs, and also, the store has a 10-feet-deep dive pool in the back of their shop.
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“This is awesome,” Hanjora said. “You have no idea how many dive shops tried to get this place, because of that right there.”
While the community is small, Hanjora said the whole dive community in Orlando seemed to show up for him and his wife since they bought the shop.
“So, less than 1% of Earth’s population is a diver,” Chad Hanjora said. “Even less than that actually continually dive.”
Hanjora said that despite this, the community has been coming through, and customers are coming through, including dive instructors stepping up and offering their expertise. BluWave Divers offers dive certification classes from open water to cave diving and dive trips.
“The dive community is a different kind of community,” Hanjora said. “It’s like everyone is rallied around us.”