This 11-year-old broke a world scuba diving record

By Adam Dutton and Kieran Williams via SWNS

An 11-year-old schoolboy has smashed a world scuba diving record - despite living almost 100 miles from the sea.

Ethan Evans is the youngest person ever to complete 130 dives before the age of 12, beating the previous record of 102.

He reaches depths up to 30m (98ft) on each dive and regularly swims alongside tiger sharks and deadly giant manta rays.

The fearless youngster, from Worcester, began diving when he was nine and became open-water certified just a year later.

Despite living 80 miles from the sea, Ethan took up the sport with the help of his dad Paul, 49, who is a trained scuba instructor.

Every summer they travel to the Maldives where they explore the Indian Ocean and rack up Ethan's dive count.

The current scuba record for children under 12 is 102 dives but Ethan beat the record on July 23.

Now he's aiming to log an unbeatable 150 dives before his 12th birthday in April next year.

Ethan's mum Aimee Ford said he often has spare oxygen left due to how calm he is on dives, often coming back with more than most adults.

The 42-year-old Zumba instructor said: “He’s 11. At that age they’re only really supposed to go 10 or 12 metres but he’s so advanced he can go much further.

"There’s no sort of hardline rules. They tend to gauge how good you are in the water by the amount of oxygen left in your tank.

“He’s gone down 30m before. That’s where you see the best stuff. He’s not satisfied with the little fish.

“His dad used to be a dive guide but he now runs his own businesses in Dubai.

“We as a family loved the Middle East and we would be over there. Ethan did his first dive at nine and a half and totally fell in love with it.

“Now he goes off spending summers and weekends off with his dad diving.”

The mum-of-two added: "Ethan's dad worked as a diver and has taken all of our kids diving.

"When Ethan turned to he could get an open water certification so he could start diving without an instructor.

"After Ethan got his certification they saw the record and decided he wanted to break it."

Aimee says Ethan wants to become a diving guide when he’s older and hopes to help clean up the ocean.

She said: “The dives vary in time, some can be 30 minutes, some can be 45 minutes, some can be an hour.

"They’ve just moved to a different island where they have seven-meter tiger sharks around him.

"You can come up at any time you want, because he has so much oxygen left he can stay down there longer.

“He’s just completed his 130th dive. The previous record was 102. His plan is to come home with 150 dives by the end of August.

"His words were 'I’m going to set the record so high so that no one can beat it'.

“He’s got his heart set on beating it. He turns 12 in April so he’s got plenty of time to do it.

"He loves it, he's extremely confident and really calm in the water even when he's swimming with manta rays and all kinds of sharks.

"Experts judge how confident a diver is by how much oxygen is still in the tanks when you come back up. It shows how well you control your breathing.

"Ethan often comes back up with more than most adults."

On Ethan and dad Paul's ocean cleanups, Aimee said: "They go out and search for metal and plastics in the ocean that shouldn't be there.

"I have a video of Ethan holding this massive metal pole underwater.

"He loves the clean-up dives because he wants to protect the ocean and thinks that is is an important thing to do.

"He is very much someone who likes to protect the oceans. He will walk along the beach and pick up the rubbish."

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