Hi!
I recently went on a trip to Okinawa for diving. Above water, everything was wonderful but I was rather shocked at some things that happened while diving.
Beyond quite a few unsafe practices, I noticed that divers were being encouraged by the DM to hold on to coral. The knees and elbows of rental wetsuits were completely shredded. At times, people were moving by digging their fins and knees into the reef and going hand over hand, it looked more like a rock climbing class than a diving trip. Nobody seemed to have been taught buoyancy control, DM included. Because the DM was always kicking the reef, everybody, especially the newer divers, stopped making efforts to avoid doing so too.
The DM was also a great fan of poking things with a stick and picking things up and moving them around, to the point where a boy started copying him and turning starfish and sea cucumbers onto their backs to take photos and not putting them back afterwards.
Mostly, though, I saw a lot of coral being kicked, grabbed, bumped into, and broken, during dives. I picked up several chunks of coral that I saw being broken to show the DM, and he just shrugged, I took pictures for the dive shop owner and he just shrugged too.
I saw OW classes where students spent the class kneeling on the reef, so it seems like they really just didn't care. I wanted to say something, but the language barrier made things difficult. I want to write them a letter, but don't know how to in Japanese., or where I might get something translated. I was also wondering if the reef in Okinawa was protected in any way, or if there were any kind of environmental conservation projects going on in the area? Or some organisation that could do something about this? Or even just a way to suggest the dive center offer a buoyancy class?
I recently went on a trip to Okinawa for diving. Above water, everything was wonderful but I was rather shocked at some things that happened while diving.
Beyond quite a few unsafe practices, I noticed that divers were being encouraged by the DM to hold on to coral. The knees and elbows of rental wetsuits were completely shredded. At times, people were moving by digging their fins and knees into the reef and going hand over hand, it looked more like a rock climbing class than a diving trip. Nobody seemed to have been taught buoyancy control, DM included. Because the DM was always kicking the reef, everybody, especially the newer divers, stopped making efforts to avoid doing so too.
The DM was also a great fan of poking things with a stick and picking things up and moving them around, to the point where a boy started copying him and turning starfish and sea cucumbers onto their backs to take photos and not putting them back afterwards.
Mostly, though, I saw a lot of coral being kicked, grabbed, bumped into, and broken, during dives. I picked up several chunks of coral that I saw being broken to show the DM, and he just shrugged, I took pictures for the dive shop owner and he just shrugged too.
I saw OW classes where students spent the class kneeling on the reef, so it seems like they really just didn't care. I wanted to say something, but the language barrier made things difficult. I want to write them a letter, but don't know how to in Japanese., or where I might get something translated. I was also wondering if the reef in Okinawa was protected in any way, or if there were any kind of environmental conservation projects going on in the area? Or some organisation that could do something about this? Or even just a way to suggest the dive center offer a buoyancy class?
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