Sunshine instructors Dave Scanlan, Sarah Van Name and DMT Jacabo Sanchez  attended Save Koh Tao's mooring buoy workshop on the 16th of February 2012. The workshop was an educational experience that can help us to correctly install and repair mooring and marker buoys around Koh Tao. Chad Scott, of Save Koh Tao, led the workshop.

 The morning started with a slideshow presentation of the different knots required and images of appropriate and inappropriate uses and placements of buoys. We learned the importance of proper knots and what each one is for. A nice strong anchor is important too, preferably one that has little or no coral on it. Small anchors might overturn and damage the area around it. We also learned the importance of having more than one rope from the anchor to the boat. Some buoys simply tie off at the bottom and have a float at the top. A proper buoy has a line from the bottom and a loop at the top. Attached to that loop are a rope with float and a separate rope to attach a boat line to. This makes the buoy stronger and if it breaks at any one point we only have to replace a small part, saving valuable resources.

 After practicing different types of knots such as the bowline, hitches and fisherman's knot on smaller ropes, we had the chance to work in groups and tie the knots on the larger 2" ropes. Then we worked on creating marker buoys. The information and skills that we gained can now be passed on to the other DM's, instructors and boat captain so that all of our mooring lines are awesome. We will keep Project Aware updated on all of the mooring lines/marker buoys that we create in the future.