Women's Dive Day 2025 Cleanup with Sea Experience

Overview

On Saturday, July 19, 2025, The International SeaKeepers Society partnered with Sea Experience for a Dive Against Debris in celebration of Women’s Dive Day! 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 8 volunteer divers who descended with mesh bags and sea snips to remove any trash they found at the dive sites. Our first site was 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. At this site, we collected a lot of cargo shipping straps, aluminum cans, and fishing lures, many of which were tangled in the sand and the wreck. The second stop was The Caves, a shallower reef site ranging in depth from 20-30 feet, named for its small caves. This section of reef was looking very clean, with the exception of half of a plastic chair that some of our divers came up with! SeaKeepers’ Community Engagement Manager also completed a SEAFAN BleachWatch report to help increase observations of coral bleaching and disease in South Florida. In total, we removed over 12.5 pounds of trash from the two dive sites, while getting to spot super cool creatures like a green moray eel, a spotted eagle ray, and tons of fish. While heading back to the marina, we held a raffle for all our volunteers, and gave out gift bags to all the women present in celebration of Women’s Dive Day. We are so grateful to all the volunteers who joined us and put in effort to clean our oceans, and we look forward to partnering with Sea Experience again in August and September for our last two dive cleanups of 2025!