Today was a great opportunity to give something back to Wellers Rock, one of our main training sites, by participating in Dive Otago's Dive Against Debris and Specialty Course. 20 divers braved a ominous looking forecast to do their bit to preserve our marine environment. Of those 20, 4 of us took the extra challenge of completing the Dive Against Debris Specialty course.

Starting with the knowledge review I was amazed at how many different causes there were for marine debris and all the different things that can make their way into the oceans. As great as it is to remove the debris from the ocean, it was scary what simple changes could be made to prevent it from getting there to start with.

The group of divers today was an amazing mix of abilities and backgrounds. This made for a fun and intersting day. I was buddied with Kyren, a Divemaster from the USA. Goint into the dive I had images of coming out with a catch bag filled to the brim with debris. I thought this was the only way to make a real difference. Within minutes of starting the dive I realised this imagage was never going to be realised. There simply wasn't enough debris out there. I've never been so happy to be wrong! After a quick loop out along the rock wall we returned to the shallows and continued our search. It was in the shallows within about 50m of shore that Kyren and I found most of our debris. Not long after finishing the dive the wind and waves really picked up. Talk about perfect timing!

After quickly weighing (over 25kg!) and sorting the debris it was back to Dive Otago for the obligatory sausage sizzle and to log our data. All in all it was a successful day and most important we all seemed to have a pretty good time. Thanks heaps to Tracey, Emma and the rest of the team at Dive Otago for organizing such a great event. I can't wait to do it all again sometime soon!