Diving While on Cruise

[Altamira]

No doubt cruise ships contribute to ocean polution. But so does Christi's, and all dive boats, the cars we drive, the fertilizers and pesticides used for our food, the manufacturing process used in our dive gear, etc. Virtually everything we use in our lives contributes to ocean polution and damage. I am not defending cruise lines, but divers who use cruise lines to get to dive destinations are not the bad guys, any more than divers who drive or fly to dive.

 

[Charred]

The difference is that when I stay at a hotel, or drive my car or go diving, my trash doesn't get dumped in the middle of the ocean. The impunity with which these ships dispose of their waste is the difference.

 

[Altamira]

The difference is that when I stay at a hotel, or drive my car or go diving, my trash doesn't get dumped in the middle of the ocean. The impunity with which these ships dispose of their waste is the difference.

Ah! If only what you said was true. Well, it is partly true in that the hotels' or your trash, chemicals, and other pollutants may not get dumped in the middle of the ocean, but it gets transported there from runoff, leaching, and dumping. One of the greatest sources of ocean and water body pollution is runoff and dumping from the land that we live on and continue to pollute with reckless abandon. This is a huge problem in the U.S. and other industrialized countries, and likely worse in less well developed countries. But, I suspect you already know that.

As I said earlier, I certainly do not condone cruise ships intentionally polluting our oceans and ports, but in the grand scheme of polluters, I believe there are far worse culprits. None of them are acceptable.

 

[Christi]

With all due respect, to compare dive boat pollution to the cruise ship pollution and the dredging of reefs is grossly unbalanced. The cruise ships pollute with such impunity and on such a large scale there simply is no comparison.

And for those that think the cruise ship tourist dollars stay here in the local economy, another huge misconception.

• Only 30 - 40% of the tour costs for cruise ship booked excursions, tours, etc. goes to the actual service provider. The rest the cruise line keeps.
• The ships docking fees, goes straight to Mexico City and a small portion is funneled back to the island
• The souvenir and jewelry shops are obligated to keep a tab on which ship people are coming from and they have to pay a large percentage of their sales to the ships
• A very, very small percentage of cruise ship passenger revenue actually makes it into the local economy - and it is severely disproportionate to the negative effects the cruise ship volume has on the island in general - from traffic, to more corruption, to greed, to more crime and I could continue this list ad infinitum

My argument is that there is no moderation with the cruise ship volume. A little of a good thing has become excessive and a giant nuisance to the detriment of this island and others.

 

[Christi]

Yep, exactly like all the dive boats!

 

[Dave Dillehay]

Dear Altamira,

You are so off base it amazes me. Even in the most remote dive locations in the world I have never seen a dive boat just throw crap overboard. Maybe some exotic live a boards might in very remote locations, but to equate that to the massive crap of 5000 person cruise ships polluting the Caribbean is just mind boggling.

And especially in Cozumel most dive boats have gone to reusable water cups, minimal plastics and NEVER throw stuff overboard. If that ever happened the roar on Scubaboard would be deafening!

Go Christi! Has that cruise ship been identified?

Dave Dillehay

 

[Dave Dillehay]

PS. I do believe that Cozumel's southern resorts do generate lots of pollution into the reefs and that needs to be fixed by a central sanitary sewage treatment plant like we have up north. OR hell, just pipe the stuff up to the north end so it gets to Cuba!

Dave Dillehay

 

[jonhall]

In fairness to @Altamira he didn't say he was comparing cruise ships pollution to anything else- he said there are other things that contribute to pollution (but shouldn't have named any specific dive boat ) Below is a link to a fairly current article about some of the issues brought up in this thread - further down in the article is an interesting stat about cruise ship pollution around European coastlines. Also info in regards to Caribbean cruises.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/overtourism-cruise-industry/index.html

 

[Christi]

Dear Altamira,

You are so off base it amazes me. Even in the most remote dive locations in the world I have never seen a dive boat just throw crap overboard. Maybe some exotic live a boards might in very remote locations, but to equate that to the massive crap of 5000 person cruise ships polluting the Caribbean is just mind boggling.

And especially in Cozumel most dive boats have gone to reusable water cups, minimal plastics and NEVER throw stuff overboard. If that ever happened the roar on Scubaboard would be deafening!

Go Christi! Has that cruise ship been identified?

Dave Dillehay

No it hasn't been identified - it was posted by a fellow operator in Cayman who is fighting the war against Carnival cruise lines who are trying to dredge out an entire reef to build a pier. They currently tender all of their ships but Carnival wants to make Cayman a large port of call as it has done in Cozumel. Cayman is also experiencing the issues we have suffered with increased crime, traffic, greed and corruption.

And where do people think all of that trash dumped into the ocean goes? It washes up on beaches around the world!

 

[Altamira]

@Christi, @Dave Dillehay, and all others. I carefully re-read my posts, and I did not say that dive boats pollute, or cause as much, or more damage to the reefs as do cruise ships. That would be absurd. Nor do dive boats at places like Coz, GC, and many others damage the reefs with anchors. But, I have been on dive boats in other parts of the world where the dive ops were happy to anchor on whatever they hooked their anchor to, reef or rocks. I also see a hell of a lot of crap in the ocean that did not come from cruise ships. Pollution is everyone's problem, responsibility and failure. I certainly am not blame free. I own a boat, and am fully aware that it too is likely polluting the lake where I live. But, I do keep the boat in my garage because I see the slick of oil and other petroleum products at every marina on our lake.

I was primarily responding to @Christi's comment in post #30 "...I find a real disconnect with divers who supposedly care about the environment but continue to cruise." I should have been more specific and targeted in my posts. I cruise, drive, and fly to dive destinations, and also consider myself to be very cognizant and responsible in caring for the environment. However, with respect to cruising to dive, I also spent most of my adult life operating out of military airfields and commercial airports, and you would be appalled at the amount of pollution those facilities put into the air, ground, and water, much of which finds its way to our oceans. So, if divers are to be chastised for cruising to get to dive destinations, then we should certainly be chastised for flying to dive destinations, especially to those airports near the water (Coz, Caymans, Roatan, Bonaire, Curacao, just to name some). Furthermore, there are relatively few divers on cruise ships, and the ships are still going to Caribbean ports, whether or not any divers are on the ship, because the countries want cruise ships to come and bring thousands of tourists. As divers, we don't like the damage they do, but the politicians and businesses not associated with diving do not appear to give a damn about the environment, reefs, and wildlife.