Eco Day Clean Up on Koh Tao with IDC and Divemaster candidates from Sairee Cottage Diving and Roctopus Dive centers – It’s all about working together!
Sairee Cottage Diving, together with Roctopus dive center, had a successful Eco Conversation day on Koh Tao, Thailand. In support of both ProjectAWARE and Mission Deep Blue, the two dive centers spearheaded three Eco Day projects on the island so far. With a lot of Dive Instructors and Divemasters on Koh Tao we tackled a beach clean up, Coral Watch survey, and a reef clean up. Koh Tao, which means Turtle Island in Thai, is home to some of the most vibrant marine life in Thailand. As divers we believe we have an obligation to keep our oceans clean from plastics and other waste. The teams consisted of IDC and MSDT candidates, Dive Instructors, and many other divers who have a passion for ECO Conservation on Koh Tao.
Eco Day – Successful Reef Clean Up
Project AWARE is a nonprofit organization that works with millions of volunteer scuba divers around the globe to mobilize efforts in beach and reef cleaning, coral monitoring, and other eco conservation activities. In 2011, Project AWARE turned its focus on actively removing marine debris that encourages divers to remove trash from waterways globally.
Both dive centers were split into three teams. Beach cleanup had several members walk along Sairee Beach picking up plastic bottles, straws, bags, and other waste that is detrimental to marine and local life on the island. They used eco friendly waste bags while sporting their green Eco Day T-shirts that created a buzz about eco conservation among the locals and tourists on the island. The second group worked with Coral Watch, a global system to monitor coral reefs by recording coral bleaching in the area. The Coral Health Chart was used in order to record the health of the coral in Hin Wong Bay. This chart is widely used by dive centers, scientists, school groups, and tourists globally to help scientists in their research on global patterns. The final part of the eco conservation day was the reef clean up. Both Sairee Cottage Diving and Roctopus divers split into teams and cleaned Hin Wong Bay. We used mesh bags to collect trash. Debris we found included tires, a spear gun, hundreds of plastic bags, bottles, even high heels! Some divers got to see a turtle on their eco day clean up dive!
By the end of the day Sairee Cottage Diving and Roctopus dive center had collected several dozen garbage bags. We left Koh Tao looking better than ever and celebrated with a dip in the pool. To find out more on eco conservation on Koh Tao, please visit Sairee Cottage Diving or Roctopus dive center.
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