Category Archive:
Posted by Submission on January 10, 2012 at 2:02 pm
PADI Instructor Jenny Ratcliffe gives her account of recent experiences as a dive volunteer in the Philippines:
“So how does a girl who didn’t do sciences at A ’ level or for a degree get a taste of real life, hands on marine biology and conservation work? Well, you volunteer! Not all ‘marine voluntourism’ experiences are equal, but when I found the Thresher Shark Research and Conservation Project (TSRCP) I knew it was perfect. I was going to be a Field Research Assistant! The programme is run in the Philippines from the tiny island of Malapascua, off northern Cebu. Formed by a group of UK based academics, led by Dr Simon Oliver, the project collects information about Thresher sharks and their behavioural interactions with sea mounts. Sea mounts across the world’s oceans are used by whales and shark species as navigational landmarks, migrational stopping points, and fish-rich feeding grounds. Whilst at these seamounts, many take advantage of a service that may not be available for hundreds of miles around, in the relative desert of the open ocean – being cleaned of parasites by the tiny ‘cleaner fish’, the Blue-Streaked Wrasse. Monad Shoal is famed as a seamount which is visited consistently by the shy and elusive Thresher Shark. So it looked like I was going to be seeing one or two then, as I was going to be out there for 5 weeks with the project…I couldn’t wait to get started!
When signing up for the project the team are very clear to emphasise that this is a science expedition, not a holiday! The ‘working week’ runs Monday-Friday and you’re up at 5am to get ready, load the boat and head out to Monad Shoal. Monad is a half hour boat ride out from Malapascua island, so the research boat stays out at the dive site all day. Great on the flat calm, sunny days but not so good when a storm suddenly picks up out at sea and you are soaked through, with nowhere to shelter from the wind and rain for the two hour surface interval! Although thankfully not too common, there were days when the weather made it unsafe to go out at all or boat problems prevented us going out, and there were days when ear infections and colds stopped one or more of the team from joining the days’ diving. There are three dives per day to 24m depth, with the first dive always used to deploy the video camera and measure horizontal visibility at the camera site, followed by shark interaction observations. The second dive is usually a transect survey and fish survey monitor and compare reef health and biodiversity over time at various sites around Monad Shoal; and on the third dive the video camera is retrieved and final in-water observations are made. Surface intervals are used for getting data on numbers of dive boats and divers, surface co
nditions, vertical visibility and current measurements, then eating and chilling. Diving a relatively deep site on air, day in day out, means that everyone takes dive safety very seriously. Every dive is a no-decompression dive and has a two hour surface interval, every dive has a series of safety stops in addition to the standard 3 minutes at 5m), drinking is discouraged during the week, and everyone has to have at least one ‘dry’ day at the weekend for off-gassing and recovery time.
Returning to the island in the afternoon, the boat is off-loaded, kit cleaned and then it’s either off to prepare or deliver a lesson on some aspect of marine biology, ecology and conservation which is given twice a week at the local high school to classes of around 50 children each, or it’s off to the office to download the day’s video footage and record any specific interactions captured on camera, and data entry from the day’s recording slates. If the video has captured a lot going on you can be staring at the screen right up until dinner time at 7.30pm! It’s all worth it though when a Thresher Shark suddenly glides into view and you get a close up of the shark circling around the cleaning station for up to 15 minutes at a time.
Thresher Sharks have always been a real favourite of mine – it’s just something about those ridiculously big soulful eyes and that long, graceful tail which is about the same length again as their bodies – much more ‘Bambi cute’ than ‘killer shark’! When you’re in the water and you realise that you have been graced with their presence you can’t help but feel completely awestruck. They’re there to get cleaned, and provided you keep low in the water, stay as still as possible and keep quiet they will do their best to ignore you. One tank-bang or erratic movement up into the water column and they’re gone – they are really seriously timid sharks! TSRCP do a rigorous in-water training programme with every volunteer to ensure that their diving skills and buoyancy are good enough to go to Monad. Unfortunately one of the down sides of diving with the TSRCP is that not every diver at Monad is so well trained, and you get to see the sad lengths that some dive businesses out there will go to in order to deliver that elusive Thresher Shark sighting to their diving guests. Although many of them talk the talk about the importance of good buoyancy and environmentally sound diving practice, once underwater it seems to be common practice for many of them to get their guests to kneel or even lie on the coral. So every single day there are boat loads of divers – we’ve seen up to 40 on a single dive – damaging the coral. There are vast swathes of coral rubble, where once there was healthy reef. It is hard to describe how frustrating it is to watch so many divers doing something they must all know is wrong when hovering just inches off the reef would achieve the same goal without the damage. What happened to the concept of divers and the dive industry as ambassadors and guardians of the oceans?!
Having said that, this is not the only threat to Monad Shoal and its Thresher Sharks. As a site out to sea it is very hard for local marine patrols to effectively guard it, which puts it at continual threat from poor and unsustainable fishing practice. Bottom trawling using huge metal chain nets dragged across the bottom would devastate Monad Shoal, wiping out biodiversity and all recognisable features such as soft coral growths and sea fans which cleaner fish rely on to act as visible markers to attract Thresher Sharks to their cleaning stations. Even regular trawler nets that get snagged and abandoned on the site cause huge damage to vast areas of reef, entangling and drowning all kinds of marine life, and effectively smothering the coral to death under a layer of net and settling algae. Dynamite fishing remains a very common practice amongst local fisherman and the in-water booms and hisses of the explosions were a regular feature during the time I was there. This method of fishing also kills anything in its path, and the TSRCP team have come across dead reef fish littered across the sea bed at Monad. Fish that live near the bottom can still be found, but much of the water column at Monad Shoal is effectively devoid of life, other than the occasional jellyfish. Having dived just weeks earlier at another seamount, Malaysia’s Sipadan, which is utterly alive with trevally, barracuda, sharks, turtles, and all shapes, colours and sizes of reef fish, the contrast is a stark reminder of the importance and benefit of enforceable marine protection areas.
Another major risk to not only Monad Shoal but also a lot of the other sites around Malapascua is the plague of Crown of Thorns starfish, which eat coral. When reef health and fish biodiversity are as they should be, the starfish larvae are consumed and numbers are kept at manageable levels. However, in areas of reef stressed by over fishing the numbe
rs of Crown of Thorns starfish reproduce rapidly and numbers can rise unchecked. As they consume live coral at a rate far faster than coral can grow, in epidemic numbers they can destroy a reef at horrifying speed.
Working with the TSRCP I was fortunate enough to get actively involved in ridding the reefs at Monad and other local sites of both trawler nets and Crown of Thorns starfish (COTs), and those were some of the most special dives I took part in. Although I was out there to observe Thresher Sharks, to know that I was doing something to actively preserve their habitat felt like an incredible privilege. However it is really important that the local dive and fishing industries start to take more of a responsible, long-term approach to managing and preserving these key sites. If they don’t then there is a very real risk that neither of their businesses will be sustainable and that divers like us will lose this incredible opportunity to see these amazing creatures. It was heartening to hear that not long after I left, one of the dive centres, in response to the massive numbers of COTs around Malapascua dive sites had offered local fishermen 1 peso per COT (100 pesos is about £1.50). On the first day a staggering 15,000 COTs were brought in by the fishermen! Although the dive centre in question may well be starting to regret their generosity as the COTs continue to be bought to them, this is a really good example of the dive and fishing industries working together to their mutual benefit!
So there were highs and lows to the diving experiences, and as with all volunteering programmes it is up to you as the volunteer to make the most of every opportunity. By my last day I would have dived nearly 70 dives, seen more Thresher Sharks than I coul
d have hoped for, brought my diving and marine science skills on, and met a bunch of really wonderful people. There were challenges of course – you stay in the project house in the local community and eating and living is very simple, and the days are long. There were times when I could have cheerfully strangled the two cockerels that lived right outside my bedroom and started their crowing at 3am religiously! But the opportunity to live amongst the local community, to contribute to the education of the next generation of islanders and instil in them a sense of passion and responsibility for their ocean resources, to sit on a beautiful beach on a day off watching the local children playing in the water as the sun sets, and then go back a few hours later to sit with local friends round a camp fire drinking the local fire-water rum and chatting…what’s not to love?! And that’s without even mentioning the amazing Thresher Shark sightings!”
Share
Continue Reading
Posted by Submission on November 14, 2011 at 4:10 pm
Drum Roll please…The winner of the competition to take the best photo of Bruce is Matt Rober
ts and Zoe Portelli. Matt and Zoe win the epic prize of being allowed to pole feed the sharks at Alton Towers Sea Life Centre.
The competition was set in place by Lucy Handel, with the idea being to highlight the plight of sharks during European Shark Week and get people thinking about the importance of sharks. We all know that Bruce has now begun his own mission to get people shouting out for sharks but Matt and Zoe did a great job of photographing him during a day at the beach.
Bruce had joined in the fun at the Trefor Pier Beach Clean Up and Matt and Zoe managed to take some cool shots of him relaxing and enjoying the occasional ice cream. Can you spot Bruce?
Well done both of you on your joint entry, we hope that you enjoy your time at Shark Bait Reef with Lucy and we expect a blog about how good it was.
Well done to everyone who entered the competition, Lucy certainly didn’t have an easy decision so thanks for your hard work!
Share
Continue Reading
Posted by Submission on November 7, 2011 at 2:46 pm
Last Sunday was the final opportunity for divers to take Bruce the shark in for a dive in order to take photo’s for the shark feeding competition. Lucy from the Sea Life centre had very kindly donated Bruce for the competition and it was Sue and Andy who had decided to go for a dive with him for their chance to win. According to the both of them, they accidentally lost Bruce and had searched for him but given up hope and exited the water to face the music. Even Dean from Aqualung/ Apeks got involved in a Search and Recovery dive to try and find the poor lost blighter but to no avail and so we left the dive site wondering what would become of Bruce.
So, I have since then got over the grief of losing Bruce until today when I received a rather strange ‘Friend Request’ on facebook from none other than Bruce Sharkey! I immediately made friends with Bruce, fearing that he had been kidnapped and was being held hostage. I even received a phone call from a friend of mine in the police force who offered to start an investigation into the kidnap and extortion of Bruce Sharkey, however I soon realised that Bruce has gone of his own free will. Here’s the message that I received;
“Hi Katy. I was so traumatized by all the information I found out about my cousins out in “The Ocean” during European Shark week that I decided to make it my personal mission to visit as many governments and parliaments around the world as I can and present to each of them a campaign against shark finning. I’m kind of hoping some sympathetic divers might help me on my way. Sue didn’t really lose me at Capernwray – she agreed to let me go free so I could embark on my mission in the brotherhood of sharks (so I don’t think you should be mad at her in at all!). Now I know how keen you are to raise awareness about the evils of finning too – so maybe you could help me by spreading the word. My first mission is to be rescued by a sympathetic diver from Capernwray. And on successful completion of this first task I shall be travelling south to cross the channel (via Westminster) to start my mission. So watch this space.”
So, this blog is an appeal to help Bruce Sharkey in his quest to petition as many Countries as possible. So check out his facebook page and follow his adventures (or even take him away with you!) Let’s get Bruce Sharkey campaigning! This is the beginning of an amazing adventure.
Good Luck Bruce Sharkey….
Share
Continue Reading
Posted by Submission on October 31, 2011 at 5:28 pm
We now have the latest Christmas Body Shop catalogues in the Dive Centre with loads of great Christmas gift ideas and luxuriou
s products for you to pamper yourself with whilst getting ready for the festive season.
You may wonder why we’ve got these in the Dive Centre but Zoe one of our latest PADI Open Water Divers is a Body Shop agent has very kindly offered to donate 10% of each order to Project AWARE. So when you’re next in the Dive Centre, check out the brochures and treat yourself and your family to some lush products whilst donating at the same time! Double bonus…
Share
Continue Reading
Posted by Submission on October 17, 2011 at 9:03 am
Let’s talk about sharks. Do you love them? Are you fascinated by these majestic creatures? Do you want to do something to stop them from becoming extinct? If yes, then this week is your opportunity to ‘Shout Out for Sharks’. Here in Stoke on Trent we need to shout louder and prouder to be in with a chance of people listening to the plight of our beloved underwater idol.
So here’s what you can do. Firstly, sign the shark petition by ‘pushing the button’ on our homepage and then share this link with all of your friends so that they push the button too. Secondly, tell all of your friends and family why you love sharks so much and encourage them to learn more. Thirdly, whilst your in the Dive Centre this week checking out the super sale, why not give a small donation, fill out one of our sharks and we’ll put it up on the shark shout out wall. By the end of the week, we hope to fill the whole wall. Every little bit helps and every extra shark s
upporter is a winner.
If you want to organise your own activity then let me know or you could volunteer to collect petition signatures in your nearest town or take Bruce for a dive this week to get your competition entry in!
Share
Continue Reading
Posted by Submission on September 7, 2011 at 1:54 pm
Last Sunday Sub-Mission Dive Club members descended upon Trefor Beach to get stuck in with a beach and underwater cleanup. Unfortunately the poor weather and bad visibility put pay to us succeeding in collecting rubbish from underwater. Despite not being able to dive, everyone remained cheerful and determined to put their best effort into making a difference on the beach.
Splitting into groups the 22 of us (and a multitude of dogs) covered both sections of beach at Trefor as well as some of the land leading to the pier and the car park. The weather did actually pick up a bit and we managed to collect loads of rubbish, have a barbeque and a great day at the beach! It was even better when the ice cream van turned up to our delight!
Here is some of the debris that we managed to collect:
- 4 flip flops
- 1 frying pan
- 1 MASSIVE tractor tyre
- 25 plastic bags
- 39 bin bags
- 49 cigarette filters
- 78 bundles of fishing line
- 8 fishing hooks
- 90 food wrappers
Not only did we pick up rubbish off the beach but we I have also logged the data with the Marine Conservation Society. Looking very briefly over the details of what was collected and comparing it to last Septembers data, I can certainly see that the beach was cleaner this time. There were less cigarette filters, plastic bags and less tin cans this time, however, we did find lots of fishing debris and a dead dog fish as well as something that we couldn’t identify.
In total there was about 84kg of trash. Well done everyone who did an excellent job of cleaning Trefor beach! Great effort.
Share
Continue Reading
Posted by Submission on August 13, 2011 at 8:17 am
As you know I’m an incredibly positive person, however I am even more enthused this week and excited for the future of diving and conservation. Amid the turmoil that the UK has been thrown into with riots, looting and lawlessness I have managed to find a mass of reasons for encouragement in my aim to do some good for the environment. It seems everywhere I look on facebook there’s another campaign to save sharks, companies are getting in on the green movement and it’s just brilliant. Beach clean ups are being organised everywhere by so many different groups of people.
This time last year, we were struggling to get more than a handful of people interested in conservation and there were few organisations, celebrities, groups making head way. What a difference 12 months makes. This week we have watched Hugh Fearnly Whittingstall generate a huge victory for fish discards and Monty Halls involved in whale and dolphin conservation in Ireland, I’ve counted a whopping 380 signatures that you collected for endangered sharks being considered at the next CITES meeting and Sir Richard Branson has been swimming with Whale Sharks to raise awareness of shark finning.
It’s not just about celebrities though, you are getting stuck in too. I get loads of text messages when diving or marine conservation is in the press, you send me emails with links to newspaper articles, my friends tweet me and send facebook links and do you think it annoys me? Absolutely not! I love getting ranting messages about environmental issues that bother you, let’s do something about it. I couldn’t be happier that you are all thinking so much about conservation, even those of you who are hard core non marine lovers send me the odd sly message or donate to our shark charities; awesome!
Don’t misinterpret what I’m saying here, there is still a massive, massive amount of work to do. Hugh hasn’t changed anything yet, sharks are on the brink of extinction, pollution is killing our marine life but there seems to be a true ‘movement’ of people who are showing their passion and getting involved. So keep caring, keep sending me the links that I can forward to other people, keep signing petitions, give me feedback on what you think we can do next.
Check out Monty’s Halls Irish Escape on Thursday nights at 9pm on BBC2 as well as Ocean Giants this sunday at 9pm.
Thanks everyone! Don’t let the rioters ruin your week, if they do destroy the country, we can always retreat into the sea…we’re Scuba Divers!
Share
Continue Reading
Posted by Submission on August 12, 2011 at 10:58 am
Our second Dive for Debris and Beach Clean for 2011 up is taking place on Saturday 24th September at Trearddur Bay in Anglesey.
We will spend the day cleaning up the small bay in front of the dive shop, where we will also be diving from. Again, we will be aiming to pick up as much litter from in the water as possible, with all of the data being collected and given to Project AWARE and the Marine Conservation Society.
We will be arranging a BBQ on the beach for you after all of your hard work and for those who want to stay over, we will be camping just up the road at Bagnol Camp Site. On the Sunday we will arranging another day of diving at a local dive site to be confirmed.
Last year at Trearrdur bay we collected 74 kg of rubbish which included:
- 243 Lengths of fishing line
- 232 Food wrappers / containers
- 94 Glass Bottles
- 105 Lengths of rope
- 134 Cigarette stubs
- 1 Firework
- 1 Nappy
- 1 Plastic Bucket
We need you! Your participation is crucial so why not come along, spend the weekend on the beach with us and your diving buddies and have a great time whilst helping the environment?
Email Katy@divecourses.co.uk to confirm your attendance. Family and friends are welcome.
Share
Continue Reading
Posted by Submission on August 8, 2011 at 4:11 pm
Sub-Mission Dive Club member and part of the Conservation Team, Matt Roberts recently completed the Torbay Half Marathon in aid of Project AWARE. He did an awesome job of raising money (over £650!), awareness and finishing the race with a more then decent time! Here is his account of the whole experience:
“What a day, full of excitement, adrenaline and nerves, underlined by a sombre feeling of how much more still needs to be done.
From the day I signed up my knees have been noticeably shaky, but knowing that what I was training for is such a great cause it made every step an enjoyable one. Since taking the plunge and opting to stretch myself to do this, I felt a strong sense of accomplishment, even though this was the very beginning.
Between training and resting I found time to collect a sponsor or two. At first, I received somewhat mystified looks when I proceeded to explain that the run was in aid of the marine environment. However these looks soon changed to astounding generosity that I was not quite prepared for. Once people found out what kind of activities we undertake, the initial hopeful request of sponsorship flared into exchanges of childhood memories of seaside holidays and an a apparent lost love of the oceans. It soon became apparent that a large percentage of people I spoke to really care for the oceans. Unfortunately most believed that the oceans are blooming with fish stocks and remain almost unaffected by our actions. Sadly we know that this is not the case, so it became a great opportunity to spread the word and get more people involved.
Although I’m a relatively active person, running this kind of distance is entirely new to me. It took a lot of time, discipline and countless blisters before I was fully prepared. When race day finally arrived I couldn’t of asked for better conditions, the great British summer had not let me down, dull and overcast with a chance of rain, perfect. Thankfully the ocean repaid my efforts with a much needed cooling breeze as I ran along the coast, gazing out across the reason I was there.
1 Hour 37 minutes and 54 seconds, gives you quiet a long time to think. Many things crossed my mind and but there was one thing that really hit home while I was watching the waves, and It’s that there is still time. Still time for us to educate and protect, still time for us to change our ways and become more considerate, and that there is still time for our oceans…. but how much, that I couldn’t figure out.
I really enjoyed the whole experience and hope that more and more people become aware and are able to get involved. I’d like to thank project AWARE for the work they undertake and issues that they tackle. I would also truly like to thank everyone that has sponsored me, I’ve been overwhelmed with the amount of support that I have received.”
Well Done Matt!
Share
Continue Reading
Posted by Submission on August 8, 2011 at 1:50 pm
We need you!
Our first Dive for Debris and Beach Clean Up for 2011 is taking place on Sunday 28th August at Trefor Pier in Wales. We will be conducting dives under the pier to collect rubbish and litter to not only clean up the area but also to collect the data. All volunteers will also be asked to help with a shore line clean up for the same purposes.
All of the rubbish will be disposed of but more importantly the data collected will be given to Project AWARE and the Marine Conservation Society. We’ll meet and start at 10.00am on the beach.
We know it’s not the ideal way to spend your sunday but look at it this way, you get to help the environment, get in the water for a pretty decent dive, have a laugh on the beach and finish up with a BBQ to congratulate all of your hard work!
There is also the option and possibility to camp or stay over on the Saturday and Sunday nights at the nearby Aberafon campsite, with more diving available on Bank Holiday Monday at a local dive site to be confirmed.
Share
Continue Reading
PADI Instructor Jenny Ratcliffe gives her account of recent experiences as a dive volunteer in the Philippines:
nditions, vertical visibility and current measurements, then eating and chilling. Diving a relatively deep site on air, day in day out, means that everyone takes dive safety very seriously. Every dive is a no-decompression dive and has a two hour surface interval, every dive has a series of safety stops in addition to the standard 3 minutes at 5m), drinking is discouraged during the week, and everyone has to have at least one ‘dry’ day at the weekend for off-gassing and recovery time.
rs of Crown of Thorns starfish reproduce rapidly and numbers can rise unchecked. As they consume live coral at a rate far faster than coral can grow, in epidemic numbers they can destroy a reef at horrifying speed.
d have hoped for, brought my diving and marine science skills on, and met a bunch of really wonderful people. There were challenges of course – you stay in the project house in the local community and eating and living is very simple, and the days are long. There were times when I could have cheerfully strangled the two cockerels that lived right outside my bedroom and started their crowing at 3am religiously! But the opportunity to live amongst the local community, to contribute to the education of the next generation of islanders and instil in them a sense of passion and responsibility for their ocean resources, to sit on a beautiful beach on a day off watching the local children playing in the water as the sun sets, and then go back a few hours later to sit with local friends round a camp fire drinking the local fire-water rum and chatting…what’s not to love?! And that’s without even mentioning the amazing Thresher Shark sightings!”
