AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums The Cayes Ambergris Caye Clean Up Dives

My wife and I will be on Ambergris Caye on Dec.2 and staying for a week. We have been coming down for the past few years and we both enjoy diving. I regularly notice announcements of clean up dives among scuba websites/forums, etc.

I was thinking how nice it would be do be a part of a clean up dive in our favorite dive vacation location. I realize that no dive operator could afford to organize such a thing without the participants paying, and I think people would be willing to pay for the opportunity to give something back to a place we enjoy diving.

Does anyone think that other tourist would volunteer and pay for the opportunity to be a part of an underwater clean up effort?

I know I would be happy to volunteer and pay for the opportunity if we could do something meaningful while on vacation and be underwater. We generally bring items and donate to SAGA but something underwater would be cool as well.

The fact is, we come to AC for the people, weather, diving, and slow pace and while we will always donate to SAGA it is not what brings us to AC

To be honest, there's far more cr*p on the beaches than underwater.

Underwater Clean up campaigns and Project Aware dives against debris are fun and world wide popular.
http://www.projectaware.org/project/dive-against-debris
We've(San Pedro Dive Shops) had numerous such events over the last 15 years at no charge to the participants.
The results showed us how lucky we are that we have very little underwater debris. PROBUS is correct our large problem is beach trash. Garbage that the world dumps into the oceans floats ashore and floats ashore on Ambergris Caye. Our Island got its name from how the Trade Winds and prevailing currents bring what floats in the Caribbean to our beaches.
http://scubalessonsbelize.blogspot.com/2008/12/project-aware-eco.html
Involvement in Beach Clean up can be very gratifying for divers and reward for involvement in the past has been fun dives and snorkeling trips fro participants.
http://scubalessonsbelize.blogspot.com/2009/10/aware-kids_17.html
http://scubalessonsbelize.blogspot.com/2007/08/help-monitor-ambergris-cayes-reef.html
Its easy to organize the community is very aware of the problem and events are often.

In all my years diving here I have seen very little litter underwater as any time something is spotted the dive master quickly retrieves it and removes it. THANKS GUYS AND GALS

Thanks for the responses. I have to agree, most of my diving has been done on the reef along AC and I have not seen any debris before. I guess I was thinking that if the beaches get as littered as they do there must be some underwater places that needed cleaning as well.

The beach clean up is a good idea. Anyone know of anything happening the first week in December that might need some volunteer assistance?

I'm not sure you need a group to make a diff. Absolutly the north/south groups have made a huge difference. But,you know, every first-time, or multiple-time visitor could pick up as they walk around. The little cans are there. Do it.

I agree and we do that, but there is something about the sense of community and meeting people when something is organized that is appealing. Ultimately, I am just getting excited about my upcoming trip and my mind is running with ideas.

With that said, how about a lionfish hunt?