We were happy to once again to participate in Bonaire Dive Week this year, which took place from May 17-24, 2017.
We hosted four very enthusiastic divers for a clean-up dive at our Adopted Dive Site – Te Amo Beach. We are very fortunate that this site is generally very clean – like most of the sites outside of the Bonaire Harbour. However, Te Amo is a very popular beach for fishing from shore or having a family BBQ so some debris does end up on the reef.
On Thursday afternoon, May 18th, our volunteer divers met at Port Bonaire. They began with a briefing from our crew members Zara and Sarah about how to safely remove debris from the reef. They were also instructed how to correctly remove fishing line without damaging delicate creatures such as sponges.
Once everyone was ready, the buddy teams entered the water and quickly began collecting debris. Zara and Sarah helped the divers to carry the bags out of the water.
In total, 161 pieces of debris were removed from the reef. This included (among other things):
2 balloons
50 plastic bottle caps
50 cigarette filters
5 plastic food containers
4 pieces of plastic cutlery and 2 pieces of metal cutlery
5 straws
5 pieces of rope
10 pieces of fishing line
5 pieces of clothing
4 diapers
1 condom
Te Amo is a sea turtle nesting beach so the presence of balloons and fishing line were very concerning. Luckily, thanks to our volunteers, all this waste is now off of the reef and has been disposed of responsibly.
The next quarterly Dive Friends Bonaire underwater cleanup is scheduled for Saturday, July 8th, 2017. If you won’t be able to attend, join us every first Wednesday of the month for the Dive Against Debris Specialty course.
Additional information about the cleanups is available at: http://www.divefriendsbonaire.com/eco-activities/. All are welcome to join in. For more information about the Debris Free Bonaire initiative, visit www.debrisfreebonaire.com. For more information about Project AWARE’s Dive Against Debris program, visit http://www.projectaware.org/project/dive-against-debris.
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