PADI, diving and Instructor Development (IDC)

Koh Samui, Chaweng Beach underwater clean up

Yesterday Chaweng Beach underwent an underwater clean in conjunction with the THA (Thai Hotel Association) and TAT (Tourist Authority of Thailand).

Divers associated with GIDOA participated and about 10 divers hit the water. I was diving with Claire who's participating in the current IDC. In order to be able to participate in the clean up we took a morning off from classes!

Samui's Mayor, Khun Ramnet Jaikwang was present at the clean up

One would expect a lot of garbage and other assorted trash near the beach, due to the recent flooding. A strange thing occurred though, my usual garbage 'hunting grounds' at Chaweng Beach seem to have been gone, it looks like all the sand that went missing on Chaweng's beach during the floods, has been spread out over the ocean floor as a big blanket.

The only thing that I found yesterday were the sun deck chair, pictured above which was too big for me to take out, an iron structure, pictured below and plenty of new bottles. No old tyres and other rubbish was anywhere to be seen! A very strange phenomena.

Between a group of 5 divers we just about managed to fill 1 big garbage bag, where usually one person is able to fill such a bag on it's own. It unfortunately$ doesn't mean that the beach is cleaner, in my opinion the garbage is just covered under a layer of sand and still out there, just out of view.

The bottle above with the octopus in it, shows how clean the bottle are that we found, there's hardly any marine life on it, in contract to previous finds here.

All in all an interesting dive and I'm sure that there are more bigger items out there like the sun bathing chair.

Camille