hi friends and fellow conservationists!!

[conservationdivers]

Hi Folks! It is nice to be here with so many enthusiastic divers! Please PM for a chat! I joined scubaboard to put a dive club together that works for conservation and to chat with other people who are interested in marine science and conservation. Please read below...

We are starting a group dive co-op to help fund marine conservation projects around the world...through group dive travel!

The premise is simple! When you book group travel, tour operators offer a free space or two for the dive trip leaders. When dive shops
organize group trips, they make a profit on each diver AND use the freebies to send staff on the trip. If we join together, we can negotiate
great deals on diving, without the profit margin, and then instead of using the free spaces for dive staff, we can sell these places and use that money
to fund critical conservation research that will help ailing reefs. Once established, a portion of every diver's travel fees will be tax-deductible
in addition to the overall cost being a much cheaper alternative to dive shop trips.

As a democratic club, we can decide where to go, members can volunteer for organization and leadership roles and we can dive with like-minded folks with the added benefit of contributing to these places that bring us so much joy!

If you are interested in joining our club, send an email with your contact details to conservationdivers at gmail.com. Joining is and will always be free, and your information will never ever under any circumstances be shared.

If you want, feel free to include information about where you would like to go or ask any questions if you have them!

This is a group devoted to group needs and conservation! No profit of any kind will ever be made off of our trips. Tell your friends! The more people we get,
the more negotiating power we will have to bring costs down.

Happy Holidays to all,
Conservation Divers
conservationdivers at gmail.com

 

[drbill]

Interesting concept. Will the group also get directly involved in conservation projects themselves?

 

[Manny Paterno]

on my 58th birthday,which happens to be today, i would like to get in touch with rough and tumble divers, who like cheapy dives sharing resources ,expenses..I used to dive Anilao as early as 1975, then there were no DMs , no certification, just gear up and go...all we had then were our regulators ,masks ,fins snorkels, no BCDs, capillary depth gauges ,no wet suits, neither did we have pressure gauges....we only had to secure certification because the dive resorts then (Aquaventure's Dive 7000) refused to load our tanks without C-cards...
Been diving solo all these years in all the places I have been and experienced diving with a DM twice in Coron Palawan. Must have done over a hundred dives around the Calamianes reefs and wrecks without divemasters..my last twenty dives also were without divemasters or buddies either...
with present dive costs, i wouldn't mind tagging along with other divers, sharing costs...

 

[conservationdivers]

hi guys, thanks for your responses! most importantly, i think it should be a user-defined community.

im a marine scientist with lots of friends who run NGOs in the most beautiful places in the world and could easily facilitate direct participation in conservation projects and research. if that's what others wanted. my sort of dream for this group is for there to be enough people that we can have dedicated trips for people who want to experience education/voluntourism or underwater photography or any other specific interest. so i guess to answer your question, any kind of activity is possible, and it will be up to the groups as to what they would like to participate in.

and yes, i think we can bring down the cost a LOT and another idea i had was to have multiple comfort levels for each trip, so people like me who can sleep in a hut can go on trips with people who really enjoy their luxuries. right now there are no real options for budget dive travelers to go in groups, which can be really enriching in addition to being cheaper.

anyways, if you want to be kept in the loop about ideas and future trips, email me at conservationdivers AT gmail.com. and of course, if you want to share any ideas or thoughts, let me know!!