Earth Day Dive Against Debris with Sea Experience

Overview

On Saturday, April 20, 2024, The International SeaKeepers Society collaborated with Sea Experience to celebrate Earth Day with a 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. We were joined by 4 divers who descended with mesh bags to collect any trash they came across while diving. 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. We typically collect a lot of cargo shipping straps at this site, and today was no exception. Along with tons of these straps, our divers found old rope, nets, bottles and cans that we were able to remove from the reef. After emptying our bags onboard, we descended to use our second tank at The Caves, a shallower reef site ranging in depth from 20-30 feet, named for its small caves. At this site, we found lots of fishing lines stretching across the reef, some of which were attached to hooks, lures and weights. We removed these lines, being careful not to damage any part of the reef they may be wrapped around. Despite the lightweight nature of most of this trash, it added up to over 15 lbs of trash removed from our reefs, preventing injury and death to the wildlife we were lucky to observe while diving. We are grateful to the divers who joined us and to Sea Experience for hosting us, and we look forward to our May dive cleanup!