Shaka Doug
Contributor
Today's haul at Five Caves... will it never end?
I love diving Five Caves (aka "Five Graves", "Turtle Town" and "Nahuna Point") here on Maui. It's pretty much one of my favorite shore dives ever. I've made at least about 500 or more dives there and I know the site very well.
Something that really bugs me about the place is the huge amount of fishing debris I continually find there. On each dive I make at this location I try to pick up the lost fishing weights and tangled line. You would think that after 11 years I'd have the place mostly cleaned up by now.....hardly the case.
A few times I've collected quite a large amount of lead and have photographed the haul, intending to one day post something about the problem right here on Scubaboard. Well, I guess today is the day I start with the posts.
I'm posting some pics of a typical score. One of the saddest parts is I can do this time and time again, only days apart, I can get another pocket full of lead, hooks, leaders and crap. Do the fishermen understand what they are doing when they bottom fish in the coral reefs? I don't see this as a sustainable practice, do you? From my observations, there's really nothing left out there to catch....especially with the giant hooks they like to use. Unfortunately, I do see lots of turtles and reef sharks with the hooks imbedded in their jaws and fins / flippers.
Here's some photographic evidence for you to consider:
The last four photos are all taken very close to one another, just a few days apart, in the same exact area. (Now I wish I had taken photos of my find each time I dove there.) What do you think I'll come back with next time???
Here's another reason that the fishing debris is uncool:
Sea Turtle with about ten feet of fishing line caught in her front flipper at Ulua Beach.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can stop this? The reefs could really use a break!
I love diving Five Caves (aka "Five Graves", "Turtle Town" and "Nahuna Point") here on Maui. It's pretty much one of my favorite shore dives ever. I've made at least about 500 or more dives there and I know the site very well.
Something that really bugs me about the place is the huge amount of fishing debris I continually find there. On each dive I make at this location I try to pick up the lost fishing weights and tangled line. You would think that after 11 years I'd have the place mostly cleaned up by now.....hardly the case.
A few times I've collected quite a large amount of lead and have photographed the haul, intending to one day post something about the problem right here on Scubaboard. Well, I guess today is the day I start with the posts.
I'm posting some pics of a typical score. One of the saddest parts is I can do this time and time again, only days apart, I can get another pocket full of lead, hooks, leaders and crap. Do the fishermen understand what they are doing when they bottom fish in the coral reefs? I don't see this as a sustainable practice, do you? From my observations, there's really nothing left out there to catch....especially with the giant hooks they like to use. Unfortunately, I do see lots of turtles and reef sharks with the hooks imbedded in their jaws and fins / flippers.
Here's some photographic evidence for you to consider:
The last four photos are all taken very close to one another, just a few days apart, in the same exact area. (Now I wish I had taken photos of my find each time I dove there.) What do you think I'll come back with next time???
Here's another reason that the fishing debris is uncool:
Sea Turtle with about ten feet of fishing line caught in her front flipper at Ulua Beach.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can stop this? The reefs could really use a break!