International Coastal Cleanup Day with Sea Experience

Overview

On September 22nd, 2024, The International SeaKeepers Society partnered with Sea Experience to host our monthly dive cleanup in Fort Lauderdale to celebrate International Coastal Cleanup Day 2024. Sea Experience is our partner dive shop 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. Our boat of fourteen volunteers were given dive scissors, mesh bags, and gloves to remove any trash they encountered during our two dives. Our dive sites were 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, and The Caves, a shallower reef site ranging in depth from 20-30 feet, named for its small caves. This celebration marked the final dive of the year between SeaKeepers and Sea Experience, with monthly dive cleanups occurring from February through September. The accumulation of trash and plastics in the ocean damages the health of the marine ecosystem and has the potential to create dead zones of limited oxygen nearly all species need to survive. This makes our efforts to remove trash from the pelagic environment critical to our oceans’ health. We were able to remove a massive quantity of trash, more than 45 pounds by the end of both dives, bringing our 2024 season total to more than 154 pounds of plastics and trash removed! We give a huge thank you to our amazing volunteers for joining us in celebrating International Coastal Cleanup Day and to Sea Experience and their incredible team for hosting us. We are beyond excited to continue to work with them and look forward to getting back in the water in 2025.