Environmental News February 2003

Dear All,

I’m writing this “live” in-between dives on a Liveaboard Cruise visiting the Similans, Richelieu Rock and Mergui Archipelago in Myanmar.

Happy to say that so far diving has been pretty good and that most of our dive sites are teeming with interesting marine life, big and small.

In the Similans, water and diving conditions vary a lot due to cold thermoclines filled with nutrients sweeping over the reefs, forcing divers either to warmer and clearer surface waters, or to put on extra thermal protection like hood and long suit.Those thermoclines do seem to bring in quite a few interesting larger animals in the Similans like mantas, Jenkins whip rays, white tip reef sharks, grey reef sharks, leopard sharks and even the odd shovelnose ray and whale shark. If you haven’t been lucky with big animal encounters yet then look out for the smaller animals because those can be found more or less throughout the season on any dive. So far we’ve seen ribbon eels, blue spotted jawfishes, a frogfish, purple fire dart gobies, spindle cowries, Andaman sweetlips, long nose filefishes, a harlequin ghost pipefish and many more common critters like different morays, nudibranchs and porcelain crabs.

Richelieu Rock has also been excellent with several pairs of harlequin shrimps, tiger tail seahorse, clown anglerfish, red bar anthias, mating cuttlefish, juvenile semi-circle and blue ringed angelfishes, long snout pipefish, devil scorpion fishes, Malabar groupers and of course schools of big eye jacks, chevron barracudas and snappers. We even saw a 3-meter spotted shovelnose ray (guitar-shark) on a recent early morning dive this January! I’ve also heard that some of you had encounters there with mantas and whale sharks!

Surin has some incredible diving as well, especially at Ko Torinla, which is my favorite place of the Surin islands. It’s quite common to encounter turtles, Napoleon wrasses, large stingrays, black tip and white tip reef sharks here and the beautiful hard coral reef has plenty of colorful reef fishes too. It’s amazing that so many of us spend so little time here at these fabulous and uncrowded dive sites.

Myanmar’s Mergui Archipelago has been pretty cold and murky so far. Nevertheless are plenty of critters to be found and are divers now and then surprised by sharks, mantas or large rays on some of the dive sites.

We can count ourselves very lucky with all those great animals still around on our dive sites despite over-fishing, illegal and destructive fishing methods and the strain of an ever-increasing crowd of daytrip and liveaboard diving vessels and their divers.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, it’s not uncommon to see three or four boats diving the same dive site in the Similans, five or six at Ko Bon/Ko Tachai and eight or more at Richelieu Rock. Unfortunately, it also seems quite common to see careless divers thrashing the reefs (while trying to get that photo) and clearly over weighted divers burning through their air in 20 minutes. Large boats are often directly above the dive site dropping off or picking up their divers with turning propellers while other divers are doing their safety stop or simply trying to “enjoy” their dive. In the midst of all this, I’ve even heard of frustrated dive guides giving each other the finger while leading divers! The list goes on and on. We all see it happening and we all seem to participate one way or another.

Who of us truly cares about our reefs health? Why give a damn when a diver from your boat is over weighted, kicks the coral and is having a miserable dive? Why bother use a dinghy to send and pick up your divers if you can do it by big boat? Why invest in a simple waste tank for your toilet instead of flushing waste directly above the dive site? Why pick up that piece of trash if tomorrow there will be another piece anyway? Why bother to tell divers about conservation and do’s and don’ts on the first dive of the trip and organize a checkout dive with some buoyancy skills?

The reasons are very simple.

Because you are a dive-professional and because you love and care about your dive environment.

Let us all reach deep in our hearts and take a careful look at our own “professional attitude”. Ask yourself: When was the last time I did something for the reefs and my dive sites? When was the last time I truly tried to make a difference? Don’t start pointing fingers now and say it’s all getting so bad because of those Thai fishermen and poorly trained Asian divers who kill our reefs. Don’t come up with excuses like “what can I do about it anyway”, “nobody else cares anyway”, “this is not my country so why care” or “I’m here only for a short time and can’t change things”.

Things are not getting better for our reefs. To survive, they need us all to help and put forth our best professional effort. As dive professionals, we all depend on a healthy and safe diving environment for our livelihood.

Your help is needed all the time you’re diving or take people out diving. Your help is needed if you own a boat that is practicing unsafe drops and pick-ups from dive sites that already have divers on them. Your help is needed in setting a professional example, making a change for the better and showing your customers that you care. Your help is needed in training and supervising your dive and boat crew and to make sure that high standards are met.

We will never be taken seriously if we cannot get our act together, not by the local authorities, not by our customers and not by other dive operators. We’ll have to prove that we all, together, truly care about our reefs, our divers and our business.

I believe that deep down, most of us do care. That’s important, but that care must be translated into positive action. Let’s stop talking and start doing something. Now, today!

Safe diving,
Best regards,
Hans Tibboel,
DOCT, Environmental Committee Member
hans@doct-phuket.org