Dive Against Debris with Sea Experience

Overview

On Saturday, August 10, 2024, The International SeaKeepers Society partnered with Sea Experience for our August Dive Against Debris cleanup. Sea Experience is a dive shop located in Fort Lauderdale that is awarded the PADI Green Star to commemorate their efforts and dedication to conservation and identify them as a dive shop that cares about our coastal environment and actively takes steps to protect it. This month we were joined by 13 volunteer divers who descended with mesh bags and sea snips to remove any trash they found at the dive sites. We used our first tank at Hog Heaven, the wreck of a 180-foot barge about 60-70 feet deep, intentionally sunk in 1986 as part of the Florida Artificial Reef Program. As usual, we recovered a lot of cargo straps that may have made their way to the wreck from Osborne Reef, an attempt at an artificial reef made of car tires that are likely attached by these straps. We used our second tank The Caves, a shallower reef site ranging in depth from 20-30 feet, named for its small caves. During this dive, we found several long pieces of fishing line we carefully removed from the coral and a glass bottle. Once back on board, we weighed all the trash removed, which came to a total of 11 pounds of debris, bringing our total for this year’s dives to over 102 pounds of trash removed directly from the ocean. We are so grateful for the hard work of all of our volunteer divers, and to Sea Experience and their crew for making these outings possible!