Earth Day is an annual event that encourages citizens to do something to help this planet we call home. At B&J we seem to spend most of our lives under water rather than on land, so it always seems fitting to organise activities with volunteers to help protect our beautiful ocean ecosystems.

This year was even more special as we were invited by Project AWARE to be one of the first members to join their brand new Adopt A Dive Site initiative that was launched on Earth Day. You can find out more about Nic’s adoption here.

This year’s event was very successful as we pulled out record hauls of fishing net and general trash over the weekend. Thanks to all our volunteers from B&J and also Alvin from Reef Check Malaysia, Marine Parks and Cintai Tioman for helping us dispose of our bounty!

On Saturday we targeted Magician’s Rock – a site that we have tackled before because of the huge fishing net that is stretched across the reef. Magicians is a tricky dive site on the best of days due to its swirling currents, and with the nets being down below 20m, only the toughest and most experienced divers could join us on our mission.

We studied video footage from our last dive at the rock to plan the most efficient way of removing as much net as possible. We decided to attach lift bags to strategic parts of the net and carefully cut away any tension points catching on the reef as the net raised towards the surface. The plan worked brilliantly underwater but it required our team to focus throughout the dive to ensure that they were safe at all times – the last thing we needed was for a diver to become entangled in this huge net as it made its way to the surface!

Vast stretches of net floated silently up to the surface, their positions marked by the liftbags popping out of the water.

Once back on the boat, we were able to easily locate their positions and we manhandled the net into the back of the boat. Not an easy task, especially when faced with heavy old nets covered in stinging hydroids!

As usual in this type of activity, there can be a few casualties of removing old nets. Pieces of broken coral and tiny crabs can be brought to the surface by accident. That’s why we spent a good few hours scouring through the net removing any living creatures and returning them to the ocean. Once cleaned, we chopped it up to get it into bags more easily, weighed it and then disposed of the nuisance net responsibly. The cleaner parts of the net were even recycled by a local restaurant to use for protection against falling coconut leafs over a seating area. 

We removed a massive 122kg of net, 45kg of fishing weights and 11kg of rope smashing our record for the biggest underwater haul ever at B&J!

We chose Mangrove Bay as our adopted site because it’s very special to us. We spend a lot of time there during surface intervals when diving at Coral Island, but we hardly ever dive here. If you think about it, all of our regular sites are spotlessly clean because our crew and customers are looking after them on a daily basis – picking up small bits of trash and reporting any larger problems like fishing nets. Sites like Mangrove Bay accumulate debris because we’re not there every day taking care of it. It was for this reason that Nic thought it was important to pay special attention to this special place. By adopting this site, Nic and B&J pledge to conduct at least one Dive Against Debris survey there each month. On top of that, we pledge to clean up the mangrove root system at every possible opportunity.

We’ve blogged about Mangrove Bay a lot over the past few years. We always try our best to get amongst the roots of the mangrove forest whenever we can. They need constant attention because of the funnelling effect caused by the shape of the bay which constantly channels huge amounts of debris into the forest. The mangrove is big – nearly 1.5km in length. We can only tackle a stretch of around 30m in length each visit. To give an idea of the task we’re up against - during the couple of hours we spend in each section we can easily fill the back of the boat with net, rope, plastic and general trash.

This visit was no exception. Our volunteers worked tirelessly to remove as much trash as they could. Battling the maze of roots and the nipping crustaceans we managed to fill the back of our biggest speedboat. This time we were more prepared than ever with some floating rafts to help us transport the trash back to the boat.

It’s impossible to weigh such vast quantities of debris, but we estimate there was over a tonne of trash removed. It took real brute strength to drag piles of net from the boat onto Marine Park’s jetty. Many thanks to the staff at Marine Park for helping us dispose of the debris alongside a huge ghost fishing net that they pulled out in front of Berjaya resort just a few days before.

To honour our pledge, we also conducted the Dive Against Debris survey on the reefs of Mangrove Bay. Becuase the area is regularly used as a safe haven for visiting fishing boats, we often find trash like cans, water bottles and food wrappers lying on the reef. In total, we removed 54kg of rubbish in just under an hour which was taken back to base, sorted, weighed and reported to Project AWARE on their Dive Against Debris Map.

If you’re interested in getting involved with B&J’s Project AWARE events, then do get in touch. Send an email to [email protected] and keep an eye out for special events posted on our Facebook page!