Blog/News

Oct 13
0

Dive Against Debris: Third Time’s a Charm

By | Blog

Guest Blog by Instructor, Eamonn Pickett

On September 26th we took a group out from Andy’s Scuba Diving in collaboration with Local Dive Thailand to do a Dive Against Debris at our beloved Racha Islands, just south of Phuket.

Our previous Dives Against Debris, at the Racha Islands, had been a success, from the perspective that we found very little debris.  In our previous blog posts on the subject, our Divemaster Spencer had theorized this was because of lack of tourism.  Previous experience had told us that the majority of the debris we would find here would be fishing gear, with some plastic bottles sprinkled in.  Nevertheless we got a great group of divers together with a diverse range of experience levels and hopped in at Rahca Noi’s Banana Bay focused on keeping our local divesites in top shape.

Why does it matter?

We should all be aware, that this point plastic waste in our oceans is a major problem.  Because these plastics take so long to degrade, they end up making their way into the food chain and can cause irreparable harm to marine animals and other animals that interact with the marine food chain, including humans.  A recent study from the University of Queensland found microplastics in 100% of the seafood that they had inspected.  This included fish, prawns, oysters and crabs.  We had hoped that we would find very little plastic, similar to our previous dive cleanup efforts, however this time was different.

A Change in the Pattern

I gave the briefing keeping in mind our past experiences at this divesite.  Keep good buoyancy, while cleaning up, don’t remove debris if it is minimally harmful to marine life or if it has already has marine life growing on it or laid eggs on it.

Setting up the equipment prior to the dive, I must admit that I felt silly, giving each dive team 2 bags.  I thought back to our previous Dives Against Debris and thought we would not fill all of these bags and would look pretty silly if we came up with a bunch of empty bags.

Boy was I wrong.  At just one divesite, within 30 minutes, everyone in the group, that’s 9 divers, with at least one bag each, had filled their bags with debris.  2 of the divers, myself included, had bags that were quite large, and once they were filled it looked like we were diving around with body pillows attached to our BCDs.

No Tourists, but Plenty of Debris

Previously we had come to the conclusion that the reason we had not found a lot of plastic consumer waste, was because there had been a lack of tourists in the area.  This is still the case.  Although, Phuket has been COVID-19 free for some time now, that does not mean that international tourism has returned.  There has been a small influx of domestic tourism, but realistically it has not been in high enough volumes to be noticeable.

However, this does not account for the difference between finding 64 plastic bottles at 3 divesites at our previous Dive Against Debris, and finding a whopping 152 bottles at one divesite on the 26th!

My Takeaway

Along with the alarmingly high numbers of plastic bottles removed, we also removed fishing nets, fishing lines with weights and hooks attached, 2 sandals (no they did not match), some pieces of cloth, along with various plastic fragments.  My big takeaway from this dive is that tourism is not solely responsible for the marine debris in our area.  As a community, we need to look at reducing our plastic consumption and be more active in our efforts to educate people here on the island.  As I sifted through the 2 large garbage bags full of debris, categorizing and recording, I couldn’t help but think that if I had brought this to a hotel or restaurant around our beautiful island that people would be appalled by what is finding its way into our picturesque oceans here in southern Thailand.

I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy around the world.  Remember that every little bit counts when it comes to battling plastic waste, whether it is in the ocean or on the street.  Support your local diveshop and have a wonderful week!

Sep 15
0

Introduction to Open Water Diver Learning

By | Blog

Complimentary Sample of the PADI Open Water Course theory

PADI's Open Water Diver e-learningPADI Introduction to Open Water Diver eLearning is sample of the PADI Open Water Diver eLearning product that allows potential new divers a chance to interact with the PADI Open Water  eLearning material prior to purchasing the course.

The best experience is to study online, however, if students find themselves without internet for periods (such as when commuting or traveling) or have inconsistent, poor internet services, they can download content to study offline via the PADI Training app.

The PADI Training app is available for Apple® iOS devices and Android™ devices. It’s best if devices are no more than three generations old. Content can be downloaded in sections for download convenience with a total file size of approximately 74 MB.

The sample product does not retain progress or provide credit towards Open Water eLearning and includes the following sections and subsections:

  • Open Water Diver Introduction
  • Underwater Ambassador
  • Breathing Underwater
  • Hand Signals

So if you’d like your free sample to check out PADI’s Open Water Course then drop us a message HERE with your Full Name, Date of Birth and Email address and we’ll deliver it straight to your inbox!  Simple 🙂

It’s a great way to introduce diving!

 🤙🤙🤙

Aug 31
0

Dive Against Debris – Racha Islands, Phuket

By | Blog

Ocean Cleanup Phuket

Guest Blog by Divemaster, Spencer Edgerton-Smith AKA thedivedaddy

Project Aware Dive Against Debris Day Phuket

The Dive Daddy

Part 1 Racha Yai

@andyscubadivingphuket and I organised a Dive Against Debris #diveagainstdebris trip to Racha Yai in collaboration with @localdivethailand on board MV Kebsup on the 14th July.

Here are a few of my thoughts from the day to put some context to our cleanup experience..

Overall our day was really positive in the fact we collected a tiny amount of single use plastic, none of which were bottles or shopping bags etc. No domestic litter like food wrappers/containers or medical/personal hygiene products.  Our biggest haul was old fishing lines with hooks and sinkers with the odd battery and plastic pipe thrown in for good measure.  Hardly any of the fishing line was new so we really didn’t find much in the way of recent human waste. Very positive.

There are a few conclusions that we can draw from Dive Against Debris day’s limited waste collection based on current global circumstances, our past experiences diving the site and diving other sites near by.

Covid 19 – Thailand has had a tourism freeze for the last 4 months due to the global pandemic plus in the early stages of the pandemic all dive centres/tourist agency were closed and boats were docked.  Only recently have we seen limited boat traffic going out to established dive sites with heavily reduced diver numbers.

Less boats = less people = less waste. A very simplistic view.

Dive centre environmental awareness – dive centres on Phuket are, on the whole, active advocates of clean oceans and the work of @padiaware so very popular dive sites tend to be relatively waste free with yearly Dive Against Debris days and dive instructors/guides picking up trash as they go along, in turn encouraging customers to do the same.

Awareness + advocacy x action = less waste

Location and currents – the dive site that we conducted our survey, Racha Yai Bay 1/Homerun Reef, is on the east side of Racha Yai Island.

The Racha Yai east side dive sites tend to be sloping beach to open ocean sites with no natural catch points to hold debris coming from the mainland and nearby countries whereas Racha Noi, the southern most island, catches the currents from Indonesia and Malaysia and holds a lot of debris in its rocky bays.

Currents + topography = less waste

Once tourism kicks back in and more boats start going out to Racha Yai we’ll do another survey in the same spots to compare results and see if the pandemic was a major contributing factor.

We are also planning a #diveagainstdebris day to Racha Noi where we’ve recently seen high volumes of debris so let’s see what results we get from there.

Thanks to the team for their hard work and dedication. Your efforts were greatly appreciated.

Thedivedaddy

#thedivedaddy #projectaware #diveagainstdebris #oceancleanup #lessplastic

thedivedaddy

Dive Against Debris Part 2 Racha Noi

@andyscubadivingphuket organised a second #diveagainstdebris trip in collaboration with @localdivethailand on board MV Kebsup.

Racha-Noi-Ocean-Cleanup

Racha Noi Debris Collection

This time we hit Banana Bay at Racha Noi. We knew from recent diving trips that Racha Noi collects more debris in its rocky bays than Racha Yai and on those trips there was certainly more evidence of plastic waste on the seabed and amongst the reef.

Our #diveagainstdebris crew comprised 4 buddy teams of two divers armed with large mesh debris bags and hip collection bags to maximise our cleanup potential.

We headed into the shallows and spread out. It didn’t take long to pick out the number one item on our debris list, a plastic drinks bottle.

It takes a fair amount of time, temperature and tide action for floating plastic bottles to erode, take on sand and other heavier particles and sink to the sea floor where they are then constantly turned over by the tides and gradually buried in the sand.

Plastic Bottle Waste

The majority of the 64 bottles we collected underwater appeared to have been in the sand for a relatively long time. In the shallows, half buried and covered in silt the bottles aren’t in the usual diving areas and easily missed if anyone happens to go that shallow.

Fishing rope, netting and line were our second biggest underwater find. Although our recorded numbers were low, 38 individual pieces, the lengths and thickness of rope and netting we collected were a lot more substantial in mass.

Again the majority of rope, netting and line had been on the seabed for long enough to be half buried in the sand and covered in silt.

Other less substantial finds included drinks cans, glass bottles, plastic cups, food wrappers and a pair of swimming trunks (they didn’t fit me 😉