‎It was a beautiful August day when Crystal Dive hosted a group of 19 of PADI’s finest for a day of Eco diving on Koh Tao’s shores.

The day started when the crew disembarked at Koh Tao and were given a detailed and entertaining presentation on Koh Tao’s marine conservation and reef restoration projects. The crew included CEO Drew Richardson, Project Aware Asia Pacific’s  Joanne Marsten, marketing representatives from Asia Pacific and head office in the Americas as well as many regional managers.

Led by IDCS Nathan Cook and his son Kailash Cook the group, received a professional presentation with some great information traded between both the audience and the presenter. The bulk of the presentation focused on the volume of diving gracing Koh Tao’s shores and the many projects both Crystal and Eco Koh Tao, in conjunction with Marine Conservation Koh Tao are involved in to try to reduce the pressure on these precious natural resources.

The afternoon saw Nathan lead the group to two artificial reefs both of which are home to coral nurseries to help rehabilitate those particular locations. At Twins, in Buoyancy World we took some coral fragments from our coral nurseries and transplanted them onto an artificial reef structure designed specifically to receive coral transplants.

Our second dive took us to Crystal’s ‘in-house’ artificial reef, Junkyard. The viz wasn’t so good but the project’s goals were obvious to all who joined in the dives, illustrating how much life can be drawn to a barren patch of sand with the help of a bit of structure.

It was nice to see the PADI office bods out diving and enjoying their diving. It was especially enlightening to see the genuine interest displayed from all participants and a real belief in the need for such work. We are thankful they took this time to join us.

Thanks especially to Eco Koh Tao’s Simon Dowling and Ecodiver’sIzabelaKasprzyk & Sylvain Pigeon for their assistance on what was a couple of busy dives.

PADIwww.padi.com

Project Aware www.projectaware.org

Marine Conservation Koh Tao www.marineconservationkohtao.com

Crystal Dive www.crystaldive.com

Eco Koh Tao www.ecokohtao.com