On the 5th December of December 2014, twelve gap year students and two carers from around the U.S arrived at Easy Divers on the small island of Nangyuan in the gulf of Thailand.

The group was part of an organization called Adventures Cross Country (ARCC) who had spent 3 months traveling around Thailand volunteering within the community.

Easy Divers take several groups throughout the year who come to take their PADI Open Water and Advanced certifications.

This December group took part in Easy Divers first Finathon which we presented as 'The Easy Divers Jawsome Challenge', and then they also had the opportunity to get involved in a Dive Against Debris upon completing their certifications.

The first evening we began the Finathon with an introduction to Project aware, a presentation on shark conservation and then they made up three groups to start with our Jawsome Quiz, the first leg of the challenge.

The teams were, 'The Fearsome Man Eaters' 'Fish Are Friends Not Food' and 'OOO, Krill' Em'.

There was soon a strong vibe of healthy competition and all the participants were keen to gain extra points for their teams by spending their free time collecting stray rubbish from the beach and helping out any way they could.

The second afternoon of their stay once they had completed that day's dive training, we held a Marine Themed Sand Sculpting Competition. Each team had 40 minutes to construct a creation from the sand and any litter they could find on the beach. We concluded with some very original master pieces, a mermaid, a clever construction of the food chain and a sculpture of Dana literally being eaten by a friendly(ish)shark.

They also managed to collect 3 big sacks of rubbish from the beach which was used on the sculptures then sorted after.

On the third day of The Jawsome Challenge we held the 'Finathon Finale' which was comprised off fun and furiously competitive games on the beach and in the water. It was an extremely close competition, putting 'The Fearsome Man Eaters' into the lead and the other two teams a very close draw into second place.

Most importantly everybody seemed to have a fintastic time and put their all into the challenge, learning at the same time about how important it is that we stand up for sharks. Hopefully the teams will be able to spread the enthusiasm they shared with each other onto friends and family back home and be able to raise some money to help support this important issue.

Finally with the whole group as certified divers, we plunged back into the ocean to clean up a valuable training site of any marine debris we could find.

We headed to Japanese Gardens and in buddy pairs and collected approximately 25 kilos of discarded plastic, tin cans and other debris which was sorted into recyclable material and recorded on data sheets so we could submit to Project Aware what we had found.

We were lucky enough to have an enthusiastic, caring team who made the whole experience fun and worthwhile. Thank you to the Easy Divers Team and ARCC for getting involved and making the last few days truly Jawsome!