House Reef Clean Up

Scuba Junction, Green Fins and Marine Conservation Koh Tao, joined forces together yesterday to conduct an Underwater Reef Clean Up on Sairee Reef.

Scuba Junction take care of the reef just off the beach in front of our dive shop, our house reef.

More than 40 volunteers in total participated, SJ had following divers joining in:

Ian, Kerry, Paul, Matt, Dan, Adrian, Tony and Deow (all SJ employees and/ or DMTs) where joined by Sophie, Myles and Yoko (SJ diving customers).

The Clean up was a 'success' with lots of plastic (which is dangerous for marine life as it can be mistaken for food), styrofoam, bottles and even a phone charger were part of about 20 kgs of garbage.

Myles found a pair of shorts smoothering a large piece of coral and was carefully removed. Hopefully this coral will be able to recover.

Reef Monitoring

Six of our DMTs participated in our latest GREEN FINS Reef Watch program.

After receiving an extensive Reef Ecology Lecture covering coral reef ecology and supporting marine life, Fran (Australia), Ian (UK), Paul and Kerry (RSA) went out diving with our Marine Conservation coordinator to collect coral reef data.

Tomorrow Matthew and Dave (both UK) will monitor a different site.

We welcome all volunteers for our monthly beach clean up (Aug 31st) which will be the next activity.

Last Monday a team of Scuba Junction also went out together with 30 other volunteers of Marine Conservation Koh Tao to restore land damage in the hills around Tanote bay.
Natural barriers were removed to create a fresh water reservoir to help alleviate the water shortages in Koh Tao in dry season, but at the same time removing natural barriers creates more run off and silt which influences the dive sites below.

In June more than 100 trees were planted and Monday small dams were built to slow down the run off and reduce the amount of silt that runs in the bay (and smothers corals).

GREEN FINS Assesment on sustainable Dive Operations

In the beginning of July, Chloe and JJ came to Koh Tao to assess GREEN FINS members on their performance in creating more sustainable and ecological friendly dive operation.
We are very proud to be a member of GREEN FINS and will continue with our support and educating our divers on how the individual can make a difference.

This is what Chloe had to say about Scuba Junction:

Dear Koen,

I would like to thank you whole heartedly for your wonderful cooperation and on going support to the Green Fins project. We are very proud to have Scuba Junction as a member of the project. We were thrilled and very encouraged by your attitude and commitment to helping the marine environment and how a dive center can have a huge influence in doing so.

The assessment results were excellent. I was extremely impressed with the attitude of your dive staff and their role model behavior under water. If you are managing to carry out Reef Watch Surveys regularly by the next assessment I can see future results being almost perfect! Keep up the brilliant work!

Wishing you the best of luck with all environmental endeavours, and remember, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions at all.

Chloe Hunt
Coordinator (Phuket)
Green Fins Project
Phuket Marine Biological Center
51 Sakdidaj Rd., Vichit
Muang, Phuket 83000
Tel : +66 76 391 - 128
Mobile : +66 862 780 483
Email: hunt.chloe@googlemail.com
Website : www.greenfins-thailand.org

Whale shark next to Scuba Junction Dive boat

Yesterday our divers got a very special treat.

THEIR OWN PRIVATE WHALESHARK RIGHT NEXT TO OUR BOAT !!!

Last week we also had a sighting but we thought that was a fluke, August is not the month we have regular sightings, but this is the second (and different one) whaleshark that was spotted in teh last 4 days, so this is not a one off anymore.

We will keep you updated on more sightings as they occur, as for now we had 11 very happy customers and 5 dive guides/instructors to share with the fun...