One of the great things about being a diver is that you always meet some fellow divers who are open and friendly – and suddenly you are full of new ideas for the next dive.
Back in March 2007 in Thailand I barely got of the ferry from the mainland to Koh Chang before I was talking with an English diving instructor called Matt. Matt told me that the next 2 days on Koh Chang was dedicated to the 3rd Underwater Cleanup – a project sponsored by the Thai Government and arranged by Project A.W.A.R.E – in brief a Underwater Cleanup is a 2 days cleaning the beaches and underwater event by the local Dive centres, their staff and some invited guests and thats where I come in – Matt suggested that I should join in, which I found a great idea! Matt told me first to contact Don the owner of the local dive centre White Sand Dive Centre, where I was planning to stay around…  Matt was going further down south Koh Chang, but I was of course also welcome to do the Underwater Cleanup with the dive centre Dive Point that he was working for…
Anyway I rushed to the White Sand Dive Centre where I meet Don for the first time – what a great guy! Don did managed to include me in the Underwater Cleanup on his boat and furthermore Don was really helpfull in finding a place to stay for the next couple of days! If you’re staying and diving at Wind Sand Beach on Koh Chang there’s only one Dive operation to dive with, if you ask me…
Participating in an Underwater Cleanup was certainly something different – no time to look at fishes and corals, but a lot of hard work cleaning after the fishermen who unfortunately dump such a lot of shit…
The Underwater Cleanup started early in the morning and ended with me getting tired home around 20.30.

After a cermony we went to the first dive site, which wasnt really a dive site, but rather a place where Thai fishermen dump all their shit…  nets, hoses, bottles, tires ect..  there we a such LOT of junk, and we quickly got our bags filled up…  I went up and down 5 times on that dive…

The next one was regular dive site and we did find some trash there, but fortunately its was in small amounts.

We found on the sites everything from whole tired to a toilet and on the first day the 16-18 particioating dive centres, their staff and guests did in fact gather (and remove) 5 ton of trash from the sea – I’m sure they got just as much home the next day, too…

The 3rd Underwater Cleanup at Koh Chang was started by a small cermony

And then time for a team photo before we went out – t’s Don with the shades in the middle, first dive since his surgery!
Can you find me?

And the it was time for the briefing before the first dive

My dive buddy on one of the dives – check out his bag…  we went up and down with sooo much shit from down there

And of course a picture of me in the nice blue water

So next time your in an area with a Underwater Cleanup I can only recommend you to join it and I wil for sure join any Underwater Cleanup I will be close to…  just say when!