CDWS dissolved...?

[Crowley]

Just to let you know that it is still possible to renew your work permits. Hubbie and friends went to El Tor the other day and were able to renew their work permits beyond September. Rumours have been flying around that no one will be able to stay beyond that date, so this is a smidge of good news, in confusing times.

I recently renewed mine, without even having to visit El Tur - job done, renewed work permit until May 2012, no worries.

As for CDWS, I agree there were a few issues up in the higher echelons, however their core motto and reason d'etre was inspired and with good will. They wanted to ensure the quality of diving safety and conservation in our area, and their loss will be sorely missed. OK, they have not closed down, but without money, how are they going to maintain all the good work they have done so far? Already I have heard comments along the lines of "we can do what we like, there is no CDWS anymore!" do we really need a "big brother" to tell us right from wrong? We know what is safe, what is healthy for the reef, so why do people ignore these guidelines?

I agree 100% - and actually one of the reasons I like the CDWS is that it builds a bridge between the foreign staff and the Egyptian dive professionals. One of the main factors was the drive to educate both local and foreign staff about the benefits of preserving the ecosystem, not simply using it as a short-term cash-cow and looking at the overall long-term benefits of good education with respect to dive practice. One only has to pop down to Ras Katy to see the Glass bottom boats *still* feeding the fish, because they earn more money per day than all the big dive centres combined and so therefore they have a lot more clout than we do.

Anyway I do feel for those who put their hearts and souls into trying to make the Red Sea a better and safer piece of water. They are now unemployed.

Me too - and it sucks. As it stands today, the CDWS officially exists, but is effectively defunct. Yes, Egypt has wider issues right now but since this is the Red Sea Diving forum, the focus is of course on what is going to happen to the dive industry now. Work permits are being renewed but new work permits are NOT being granted. I'm all for enforcing the legality of visas and permits and CDWS licenses or whatever but the whole process is becoming prohibitively expensive. Sorry, but we don't have that kind of money.

The long term staff in Sharm are slowly drifting away - and there are no new replacements - and living with this uncertainty and the new expense is driving the foreign dive staff away. There are no new applicants for jobs, the language requirements are not being fulfilled, and yes, as DiveBunnie says, a lot of people invested a great deal of time and effort into making Sharm a better place to dive, and now they aren't here any more.

I am already seeing the changes in attitude - and it sucks. I appreciate that diving in the Red Sea is a significant money spinner for the country, but it's in the minority when you look at the amount of money generated by oil and the Suez Canal and tourism overall. We need some help, I think.

Cheers

C.

 

[elmagnoon]

CDWS and specifically its board members were corrupt and their policies were driven by self interest. Mubarak was not all bad and neither was CDWS and at the same time, both deserve the death penalty (CDWS as an organization not the members).

 

[String]

Im not exactly crying into my beer about the demise of a massively corrupt government agency that did disastrous damage to the diving industry (although i fully expect in September a new equally as corrupt body to replace it).

The office in Haddiba was open for a day or so last week - they were reminding people to pay money for cards and centres to pay their membership (odd given they dont actually exist...and one has to wonder where all the massive fees they collected went in the first place!). More and more they remind me of the dark knight from the holy grail with "its only a flesh wound".

The foreigner departure has started in earnest here - i was the only non Egyptian at canyon a while back. Sat and watched with amusement as a guide stuffed his pockets with rocks, some more in one of his customers and set off across the lagoon knees dragging through the sand towing someone by the valve.

Places here now arent checking CDWS cards at all but they are checking for original work permit stamps in passports (no copies). The army generally have taken over the check points but are open to bribes just like the old police so a lot of "closed" centres continue to operate.

Regarding visas, i now know of 4 people who went to el turd to renew and everyone now instead of getting a 12 month visa is getting a 3 month non-renewable visa. This comes up conveniently to the election dates in September.....

The atmosphere here now is getting more and more poisonous.

 

[divebunnie]

Ah that would explain why I was asked for my passport the other day on the boat rather than my CDWS card.

As I said before, people at our dive centre went to El Tor the other day and are renewed for another six months, taking them beyond September.

Without the CDWS, we now have no power to prevent indiscriminate destruction of reefs and sea life. On a daily basis now I am having to explain to people on the beach that they mustn't walk on the reef, try to catch the fish, feed the fish or smash open the giant clams. No one is promoting conservation in the hotels at all, it seems. It appears to me as though now "the big bad CDWS has gone" it is a free for all as "big brother" is no longer watching. And we have no one to turn to when we see the reefs being decimated. At least the CDWS would take action and encourage hotels to educate their guests.
Today I had to stop several holidaymakers from catching the fish in buckets, even in a tied up t-shirt! Whilst a whole host of other beachgoers simply stood on the reef watching.

 

[String]

CDWS didnt stop any of that anyway. They were utterly utterly worthless in that respect even to the point they couldnt be bothered to even respond to emails,comment on photos, any details sent about anything or bother to return phone calls reporting any violations. They were all mouth but absolutely no action.
HEPCA to their credit are more proactive but ultimately powerless now.
Ive not seen a single positive thing CDWS did. It shouted a lot but when actually presented with material and evidence it constantly failed to do anything or even bother responding to anyone reporting anything.

Since January there are usually 10-20 fishermen illegally fishing behind the restaurants on the sea front here. That's not CDWS or anything related - its a complete lack of police and law enforcement issue.

The Bedouin are currently utterly trashing some of the reefs in Nuweiba. Arriving nightly in multiple minibuses, using crowbars to lever off massive lumps of coral if their nets get caught and so on. Police wont dare mess with them.

 

[String]

More on some of the visa chaos that might be related to this:

Tourist visa changes could leave expats with little recourse | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today's News from Egypt

 

[divebunnie]

The whole situation is a bit of a mare really.

We found that with the hotels near our house reef, the threat of reporting behaviour to the CDWS was enough to encourage them to stop the feeding, reef-walking etc. Now they don't even bother leaving anyone on the beach supervising anything. It is up to us to politely ask their guests to stop trying to catch the fish in their buckets!

Let's hope something happens to improve things. I know I am probably being just a little too hopeful here, but... you never know.

In the meantime I am going to get our jetty guys to teach me how to say "don't stand on the reef, you could get stung by a stone fish" in Arabic... it seems to work when they say it.

 

[String]

Im thinking of starting a stonefish breeding project. We need many many more to prevent the standing on the reef. Both the locals and the fat useless Egyptian snorkel guides that "guide" people at blue hole by standing them all on the reef, giving a short brief then getting out to sleep in the restaurant.

Dive yesterday on the safety stop we were treated to bedouin kids diving down and ripping an octopus out of its hole. Nice relaxing snorkel this afternoon and seeing 10 bedouin kids with metal bars levering off chunks of coral to get at clams and again octopus. Lovely.

This is since January with no threat of police any more. CDWS threat did nothing here as they never acted on a single complaint by anyone about anything.

 

[divebunnie]

So depressing... my hubbie had to stop someone from hacking out a clam from the reef with a knife they had brought from the restaurant.

If someone doesn't act soon we are going to have about twenty years' worth of destruction happen within a couple of months... really, really frustrating.

 

[Crowley]

Today I saw an instructor conducting part of an Open Water course at Shark and Yolanda Reef.

What I saw at first was a group of divers with zero control and buoyancy absolutely trashing the reef in the area around the wreckage. One of them literally drifted down the wreck and took every piece of available coral with him - seriously. They got as far as the bathtubs, and then - because the current was so strong it was physically impossible to swim back up the wreck, I watched them crawl hand over hand in the sand where they knelt down and conducted a mask clearing exercise with the instructor demonstrating... after this he shook all their hands, they drifted back down the wreck, sat on a row of toilets, fins in the coral, and had their photo taken.

Because the current was so strong I took my divers round the front of the satellite reef - their group crawled back up the wreckage and went around the backside. Needless to say, I was infuriated. I signaled that I had taken photos and would be phoning somebody. I got a dismissive wave of the hand and the middle finger. The photographer is looking at me with his hands up like "what is the problem?"

They were all Egyptian - or at least Arabic - sorry I know that many of the foreign instructors are not perfect either - but when I surfaced I knew that there was nothing I could do. There's nobody to report them to.

This was one of the worst displays of careless disregard for the safety of both the environment and people I have ever seen in my life. And there is nothing I can do about it.

The boat is called Le Zoro - I do not know which centre they operate from, but if you happen across this outfit here as a tourist, avoid them like the plague. I have had problems with groups diving from this boat in the past (most of whom are not Egyptian, I have to say) and they have been minor, irritating issues (swimming through other dive groups etc.) but this was beyond the pale.

Welcome to Sharm El Sheikh, have a nice day.

C.