PADI Diving Society News
Dive for Earth Day hailed a success
Dive for Earth day on 22 April was supported superbly by PADI Dive Centres and Resorts across the UK and Internationally. Here are just a few of the very positive stories which have flowed from this increasingly popular and well-supported event.
Island Divers, Isle of Wight.
Students, instructors, family and friends all descended onto Freshwater Bay for Dive for Earth Day to do a fancy dress beach clean-up and give something back to the bay where they dive, swim sunbathe and picnic. A range of rubbish was found with an alarming amount of tar covering everything. Among the debris removed were items washed up from a recent shipwreck which hit the coast of Dorset, large amounts of fishing line and hooks, bottles, cans and plastic bags. The day was a great success as many passers by stopped to talk to James Bond in his drysuit, a sailor and a strawberry anemone! Participants also took the opportunity to talk to passers by about Project AWARE and why they were there cleaning.
Divemaster, Katowice, Poland.
No strangers to organising cleanups, the team at Divemaster managed to attract a staggering 280 volunteers for their Dive for Earth Day clean-up! The large number of participants enabled the group to collect some 2,720kg of litter which filled 1,500 bags from five sites along a 55km stretch of coast and underwater. The strangest pieces of litter to be collected included a washing machine and a bath tub!
Desert Divers, Dahab, Egypt.
Desert Divers are regular cleanup organisers, and like to ensure that the local Bedouin community are just as much a part of their environmental activities as tourists. For the first time ever they had more locals taking part than foreigners at the event which took place at Masbat Bay; a clear message that the locals are realising how important their marine environment is. When it was all over, the local rubbish truck took the rubbish away for sorting and recycling. Some 200kg of rubbish was collected; not the biggest collection by Desert Divers but one of their most satisfying clean-ups! Tanis Newman of Desert Divers said: “The message is finally filtering through – the earth is worth caring for’.”
Camel Dive Club, Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.
Martin Baker, Course Director at Camel Dive Club organised a group of volunteers to clean up Ras Katy, a popular public beach near old Sharm. The volunteers which consisted of staff and guests collected around 70 bags of rubbish which had been thrown from the cliff top down to the beach. This rubbish blows into the sea and on to the reef. The beach clean-up marked the start of many others at Ras Katy, as the site was so full of debris it was impossible to take it all away in one day. Camel Dive Club are also looking at other ways to reduce the rubbish dumped by increasing the number of bins around Sharm. 
HEPCA and Llios Dive Club, Hurghada, Egypt.
HEPCA and guests and staff from Llios Dive Club used Dive for Earth Day as an opportunity to clean an underwater shark monument which was placed on the seabed as a symbol against the continuing threat of human civilisation on the oceans and their inhabitants. The monument was also placed to raise awareness of the importance of sharks to the marine ecosystem and their vulnerability. Equipped with strong brushes a group of divers descended to give the monument a good scrub; those involved were amazed at how desperately it needed cleaning after only half a year in the water.
