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Emanuela Bertoni
Born near Milan, Italy, Emanuela has always been active in sports of
one sort or another, mostly outdoors. She began with swimming, skating
and competitive skiing, also taking her first scuba diving course
in 1990 at the age of 11 with FIPS in Italy. FIPS’ teaching style was
very much like the military, so it was a difficult and exciting
introduction to the underwater world. Currently her sporting loves are
cave diving, especially exploration and deep technical cave dives, rock
climbing, which she has done in several US and Italian locations, and
martial arts, which she practices close to her home in Tulum.
Prior to devoting her professional life to cave diving, Emanuela had a
highly varied and successful career as a chef and culinary consultant.
She graduated from the culinary school in Milan at the age of 18 and
worked briefly at her parent’s restaurant, “Ristorante Bertoni” in
Lonate Pozzolo before moving to Florida and working in her uncle’s
restaurant, “Bertoni’s of St. Petersburg”. After these initial
experiences, Emanuela climbed the culinary ladder in multiple
prestigious restaurants in locations around the world, including Milan,
London, Cannes, Athens and ultimately managing the opening of an
Italian restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel in the Maldives.
In 2004, Emanuela began her technical diving career in Italy, diving in
Lake Maggiore and the Mediterranean sea. In 2005, she discovered cave
diving, becoming instantly hooked and deciding to build a career around
it. She moved to Mexico with her husband and business partner
Adam Korytko and they began building ‘Cave Heaven’, a business
dedicated to cave diving training, guiding and equipment. They began as
open water instructors and cavern guides, building experience and
income. They eventually did their NSS-CDS IDC and began an
apprenticeship with the cave diving instructors in the Riviera Maya and
Florida. After teaching through the NSS-CDS for some time, they became
attracted to the high quality training, inclusive philosophy and DIR
mentality of UTD, completing their crossover in 2010. Emanuela remains
dedicated to UTD and contributes regularly to its courses and training
standards particularly in the sidemount area. All the while Emanuela
has been actively exploring the local Mexican caves. Emanuela has well
over 3000 cave dives at this point in numerous systems in Mexico and
Florida.
Recently, Emanuela has made a commitment to expand her horizons
completing several dives in the ‘Pit’ cave in Mexico, an extremely deep
and difficult system. This culminated in a spectacular 8.5 hour dive in
the pit in mid-May. She has also committed to make the transition to
CCR, completing her UTD mCCR1 course in late May. She continues to push
herself in the diving world with several deep dives projects in the
works.
Instructor Ratings
UTD (Unified Team Diving) Cave Diver instructor
UTD Scooter Cave instructor
UTD Advanced Side Mount cave instructor
UTD Cave Gold (Stage) instructor
UTD Overhead Protocols instructor
UTD Essentials Instructor (of Rec, Tech and Overhead)
UTD Rec 1, 2, 3 instructor
UTD Nitrox instructor
NSS-CDS Full cave instructor
Emergency First Response Instructor
Diver Ratings
UTD Trimix diver
UTD mCCR diver
NSS-CDS DPV diver
NSS-CDS Stage diver
NSS-CDS Sidemount diver
NSS-CDS Abe Davis Safe Cave Diving Award recipient
APSA official cavern and cave guide of Yucatan
DAN Oxygen Provider
Exploration Projects
Team: Emanuela Bertoni, Adam Korytko
Cenote Divino (Puerto A. area, 2007, surveyed passages 330 mt/1082 ft,
max depth 25.6 mt/84 ft, 1 cenote)
Sistema Ixchel (Puerto A. area, 2008,surveyed passages 1887 mt/6192 ft,
max depth 20.4 mt/67 ft, 3 cenotes connected)
Sistema K'u Pix (Puerto A. area, 2009, 459 mt/1506 ft, max depth 5.8
mt/19 ft, 3 cenotes connected)
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