I have now lived on Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand for nearly 7 years. For almost 6 of those I have been involved in Dive site and beach clean ups. It didn't take long for me to realise the importance of these actions and what a great job Project AWARE do.

As soon as I became a dive professional I knew I had to do what I could to educate new divers on the importance of our actions. I still remember my Open Water Instructor nearly 15 years ago telling me that the reason BCDs had pockets was so you could pick up any trash you came accross while diving. I believed him! I still tell this to all of my students to this day.

I now work at a new dive shop on Koh Tao called Scuba Shack. Having spent most of the last 18 months getting the business up and running, we are proud to say that over the past few months we have finally been able to start promoting dive site clean ups once again as my partner and I did at our last dive center. Recently we have started organizing monthly clean ups and in a couple of days will be going back to Aow Leuk bay for the third time in as many months. We hope to see a difference from our efforts.

What will be different this time is that I can now certify my students, DMCs and fellow professionals as dive against debris activists. I am proud to announce I now have this distinctive speialty. I look forward to returning to Aow leuk in a couple of days to certify 4 of our DMCs. I also hope to certify many more students in this great distinctive specialty in the future...