Help me keep diving, or requiem for my love of diving

[potato cod]

I have no idea where this post fits, so I'm just putting it here.

I started diving 12 years ago and fell in love with the sport. Diving is a close as I will get to visiting another planet and I have often said that there was no place I’d rather be than underwater with my dive buddy husband exploring marine ecosystems. For us, diving has been mostly about traveling to tropical reefs, plus some kelp dives, but brrrr!

Over the course of our last three trips, however, I have realized that I will not hang up my fins because I get too old to dive (we’re in our 40s and athletic, so that day is not near), but rather because it will become too sad to dive. We saw the Great Barrier reef full of bleached coral, the Florida Keys struggling with stony coral wasting disease, and, last month, the Bahamas so overfished the reefs seemed eerily abandoned and overgrown with algae.

I’ve known academically that the reefs are in trouble—hell, I teach a course on global change--but I had always hoped that things wouldn’t get as bad as predicted. These last trips have been rough though.

I suppose the sport will continue as new divers with new baselines of what is normal are certified. On the boat in Florida last fall where my husband and I were the most experienced divers, the new folks seemed excited by the pretty corals while my husband and I just looked at each other. We have been on trips with older divers and heard them reminisce about how good the diving was in the 70s, but having never seen a change in the reefs, we didn’t really know what we were missing. Now we do. I’m not sure how those divers kept diving after witnessing declines in reef health.

I’m torn between wanting to dive a lot before time runs out and not wanting to spend a lot of money to see dying reefs.I'm wondering how other divers dealing with this? How do you stay positive? Where do you dive that is still healthy?

 

[Marie13]

I don’t dive warm. I dive Great Lakes wrecks. They are deteriorating at various rates and covered with mussels, but they are still awesome.

 

[Seaweed Doc]

Have you considered taking part in reef restoration efforts? E.g., volunteering to pay your own way to a beautiful place to end up working hard under water?

 

[michael-fisch]

I dove in Sharm El Sheikh back in the mid 80s, and again in 1989 back when it had one store on the hill and one gas station. Last time I was there was in 2000 and I swore that I didn't want to see it again. Ihe changes in just over a decade were massive and will take at least a hundred years to reverse. Unfortunately in 2000 there was no more unowned or unbuilt beachfront and the Sinai had become a parkinglot. The only way to give the Sinai a chance to recover is to kill all the humans, which even with my love for nature is probably a little bit excessive.
Glad I saw it when I did, sorry I didn't get to see it back when it was called Ofira under Israeli rule before the developement started.

Michael

 

[Damselfish]

We've been diving about 30 years and are bummed by the changes too. But we always find something to enjoy, even if you have to look harder for them. I'm a big fan of dramatic topography, and that doesn't go away (even though I may wish there were more fish and color in the scene.) When we're someplace in the Caribbean, I'd say we take more time to just relax now rather than trying to cram in as many dives as possible. That's partly because of the lesser diving, and partly just because we've been to a place multiple times. We'll play tourist more, or hit the spa, or just relax with a good book and a tasty beverage, and that's nice too. We're on vacation.

More and more of our trips have been Indo-Pacific, where the greater biodiversity makes a big difference and things are better (though they have their problems too.) There, I'm usually still trying to pack in dives.

 

[scrane]

Dahab in ‘72 was a bus station, an Israeli military base and a Bedouin village. When it hit the news a few years ago I was amazed at how it had changed.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I agree with what Damselfish said about the Indo-Pacific. Much of it still has, in my guesstimation, at least 10 years of good coral and fish before the increasing effect of human visitors and climate change reduces it to what you have seen in the Caribbean. Face it, the planet is changing fast, the world's population is increasing and becoming capable of touristing every corner of the world, and there are few recreational activities that will not be affected. So my thinking is to just limit my choice of recreational activity to a 10 year slice at a time. Also, I'm hedging my bet on the reefs with a concurrent foray into cave diving. Although I have heard that some caves are getting scraped up and otherwise damaged by the increasing presence of divers, it will be hard to completely trash them.

 

[descend]

I'm in my 20s, so I've never had the lush coral reef experience - I often watch older documentaries like The Silent World to see what the oceans were like then.

The situation isn't universally negative though. Apparently jellyfish are exploding in numbers across the world, as are cephalopods which makes it seem like the oceans will adapt instead of dying out.

Diving in an ocean with lots of squid, octopuses, and jellyfish still sounds like a good time!

 

[Ana]

It is entirely up to you. We all notice to some degree, divers that go to the same areas every weekend notice less than those who dive once a year or less.

The same is true for many places topside also, less green more concrete and steel (unless is a golf course).

It can be said that by removing yourself from diving your footprint is theoretically reduced so you don't contribute to the decline. But by continue diving you could be involved in organized restoration, making others aware of the reality that for many is out of sight, or simply removing whatever trash you encounter on each dive.

Love of diving like other "loves" sometimes require effort to keep it going. The ocean gave you pleasure back then when you witnessed pristine reefs, now you can give back. How you do it, is entirely up to you.

 

[Graeme Fraser]

I have no idea where this post fits, so I'm just putting it here.

I started diving 12 years ago and fell in love with the sport. Diving is a close as I will get to visiting another planet and I have often said that there was no place I’d rather be than underwater with my dive buddy husband exploring marine ecosystems. For us, diving has been mostly about traveling to tropical reefs, plus some kelp dives, but brrrr!

Over the course of our last three trips, however, I have realized that I will not hang up my fins because I get too old to dive (we’re in our 40s and athletic, so that day is not near), but rather because it will become too sad to dive. We saw the Great Barrier reef full of bleached coral, the Florida Keys struggling with stony coral wasting disease, and, last month, the Bahamas so overfished the reefs seemed eerily abandoned and overgrown with algae.

I’ve known academically that the reefs are in trouble—hell, I teach a course on global change--but I had always hoped that things wouldn’t get as bad as predicted. These last trips have been rough though.

I suppose the sport will continue as new divers with new baselines of what is normal are certified. On the boat in Florida last fall where my husband and I were the most experienced divers, the new folks seemed excited by the pretty corals while my husband and I just looked at each other. We have been on trips with older divers and heard them reminisce about how good the diving was in the 70s, but having never seen a change in the reefs, we didn’t really know what we were missing. Now we do. I’m not sure how those divers kept diving after witnessing declines in reef health.

I’m torn between wanting to dive a lot before time runs out and not wanting to spend a lot of money to see dying reefs.I'm wondering how other divers dealing with this? How do you stay positive? Where do you dive that is still healthy?

Here here! I first dived in Mauritius 30 years ago and loved it. Last time was three years ago and I couldn't find my favourite reef. Apart from the climate effects, parts of the reef had been dynamited and without natural barrier protection the rest was slowly destroyed. Broke my heart.

It's about time we realised that we are the ultimate invasive species.