Dive against debris

Even though it is not something I enjoy doing, coming home to a freshly cleaned house brings a sense of satisfaction. Usually you can’t blame anyone else that the ones living with you for messing up the place, but how would you feel if everyday people were unloading trash in your living room?

Today is cleaning day, and I set my alarm early on a Saturday for it. But even if I won’t be cleaning my flat, I can still say that, in a way, I’m going to clean up my home. I’m joining a small group of volunteers to take part of a Dive Against Debris. Let’s call it a fun dive with a purpose. Most of the time, divers sign up to be guided to be best spots, to see the most astonishing marine life, and like any other entertainment we expect the best of it.

Being a scuba diver give you the keys for a world unaccessible to most of us poor bipeds, and because it is hidden to most of us, it is also much easier to ignore the negative impact that we, humans, can have on it. Each year, ten of thousands of marine animals and seabirds die because of those debris, and tons of micro plastics are ingested by fishes or other sea creatures — and yes, without a doubt in your plate too….

Picking up any piece of debris found of the shore or the beach is a great step, and can easily be done by anyone. But using our diving skills allow us to reach the bottom of the ocean and collect anything that could pollute, harm or destroy this ecosystem.

It is 8am when we meet at the dive center, quickly, the conversation starts, and we share our reasons to be here, our level of implications, our level of diving experience… The group is almost complete, but the chatters will have to wait, first we need to prep our gear : mask, snorkel, wetsuit, BCD, regulator, boots, fins, gloves, nets. Each divers is responsible for his gear that he/she sort in a crate. Before loading them in the back of the ute (most people would call it a pick up truck, but Australian loves to give nicknames to things), we need to get the freshly filled cylinders.

The late comer is finally here, we can finally head to the diving site : Camp Cove. This is a nice little beach at tip of the eastern suburbs, protected from the waves, with a stunning view on the CBD. It is still relatively early when we park the car, it is already 30 degrees, and after a quick brief on the beach, now starts the hardest part of diving : gearing up. Assembling our breathing equipment with the tank, crawling in the tight 7mm wetsuit, fasten the weight belt, putting on the BCD and walking to the beach. But this would have been too easy… Why not adding to the equation an angry lady, threatening us to call the police for using a part of her sidewalk to unload our gear. Follows a long heated conversation — heated because of her agressive behaviour, but mostly because we were already wearing our wetsuits, and those are as good for protecting us from cold water as for acting like an oven in the sun. We quickly get our stuff to clear the access to the driveway (which, by the look of it hasn’t seen a car for as long as she hasn’t seen her 20’s) and head to the water while the dive master moves the car. After a few trip to the can to unload the last bits, we are finally ready to go.

The amount of preparation, constraints, gear, and safety checks involved around scuba diving can seem like a deal breaker, but it is conversely proportional to the level of freedom you can feel as soon as you are fully submerged. Our weight vanishes as a cool trickle of water run down our back, the sigh of relief is contagious.

After a few more mishaps delaying the start of the session : one of the diver damaged the valve of her cylinder, or another one was struggling with orientation and swimming technique, we can finally deflate our BCD and go down.

The reef is home to a lot of see creatures : smooth flutemouths, stingrays, fan belly leatherjackets, brush tail toadfish, pyjama squids, sea urchins, seahorses, etc… but also of lots of sea debris. The calm water, the surrounding nature and its point of view make the beauty of Camp Cove, but this is also its curse as lots of boats, from small sailboats to big yachts anchor in the shallow waters to spend good time, or even party. And lots of their wine or beer bottles and other items more or less accidentally fall overboard, and end up on the sandy floor or stuck in the reef.

I am pleasantly surprised to not find too much plastic or masks in the water. After a few minutes my net was already half full of glass bottles. Some seems to have just been thrown in, some have already attracted some forms of life and therefore, it would be more detrimental to bring them back with us. I can see more bottles, that I’d like to take away, but it becomes harder to control my buoyancy with a few pounds of glass bottles hanging in the net. This is an important aspect of diving, to stay in control of our movement but also to not risk to harm the reef. Carrying those extra pounds is making me unbalanced, but also prevents me from getting too close to the rocks without risking to cause some damages. We are getting close to an hour under water, this was the maximum time that we set ourselves, and it is time to get back to the surface.

After a quick swim, we are back to the shore. We remove our fins, and it is time to stand up, and with this comes that very strange sensations of feeling your weight again, as if somebody just switched on the gravity. We remove our gear, load it up in the Toyota and head back to the center to sort our catch. The goal to the Dives Against Debris, on top of removing rubbish from the ocean, is to collect data. This allows the foundation to see the evolution of the situation, track the origin of the debris, and take action to reduce them.

Once all the gear unloaded, rinsed and sorted, we all gather around a BBQ, we are joined by another group of divers who just finished their open water course. We share our experience, invite the freshly certified divers to join on the next one. This is just a nice community, where most people aren’t treating the ocean like a product they can consume, but like a privilege they need to protect. We are all coming with different background, different skills and diving experience, and organising an event like this has its share of obstacles, logistical, human and technicals, but by giving a bit of our time, we can make a difference.

But remember that the best way to recycle waste is to not create them in the first place.