• The mission of the Open Waters Program is to expand the sport and industry of scuba diving to people with disabilities.

  Open Waters is designed to:

  • Provide information, technical assistance, and peer support on accessible scuba diving.
  • Assist people at all levels of scuba diving: divers, non-divers, certifying agencies, instructors, equipment manufacturers, retailers, and dive tour operators.
  • Improve the awareness, knowledge and developmental skills that people with disabilities need to participate in scuba diving.
  • Identify sources of adaptive scuba diving equipment.
  • Help consumers with disabilities understand the benefits of scuba diving as a means to improve overall physical health and well-being as well as explore an alternative environment.
  • Work with the scuba industry to improve certification standards to mainstream people with disabilities into the scuba community.
  • Educate the scuba community on how to teach people with disabilities to scuba dive through workshops.

Since 1978, Alpha One, a Center for Independent Living, has enabled thousands of people with disabilities to live more fully and more independently in all aspects of their lives. Few Centers for Independent Living in the United States or other public or private agencies in Maine offer Alpha One's variety and depth of independent living services: information and referral, outreach, advocacy, one-to-one and group peer support, consumer-directed personal assistance services, assistive technology financing, access design, resume workshops, and independent living skills instruction. Alpha One's adapted driver assessment and education service, the only one of its kind in Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont, enables people to learn to drive using adaptive equipment. Alpha One Medical, Alpha One's wholly-owned subsidiary, is a durable medical equipment sales and service company with locations in South Portland, and Lewiston, Maine.