Favourite marine animal: Octopus

Favourite Dive ever: Jeju Beom Island

What’s your first memory of the ocean? Fishing with my dad on the piers of North Carolina

What does diving mean to you? Ohh wow. For me, it means a chance to explore an environment that makes up most of our planet..something only divers can do.

How did you first get involved with Project AWARE? Well, it all started with doing my AOW certification. There were several specialties I was interested in, but it seemed to me nearly all of them involved a rather large amount of cash for an overnight trip (night diving)...or a long trip (wreck diving) etc. The AWARE specialty was one that I could do that was actually free, other than the regular cost of diving. In the beginning, I wanted to just get into the ocean and practise basic scuba skills, and during that time I began to pick up debris mainly because I just didn't want to see it.

Why did you start submitting Dive Against Debris data and tell us more about your adopted dive site? My instructor mentioned to me that PADI had Project AWARE and the Dive Against Debris program. The dive site I adopted (ADS 126) is a beach diving site that holds special meaning to me as it was the first place I even opened my eyes underwater with a mask and snorkel and fell in love with the underwater world.

In my early days of scuba diving that is where I went to practice scuba skills and dive for cheap. I began cleaning and reporting initially because I believed if I increased the numbers in terms of debris cleaned, it would get local attention and other volunteers would join me. That didn't happen. Since then it has become something of a passion project for me, I am not married and don't have children, so as I get older I wonder what I am leaving behind on this planet in terms of legacy. This marine conservation work I do and hope to continue and expand upon is something I have settled on as something that will remain of my life and actions when I am gone.

This year I decided the time was right to try to do a bit more to affect my local area in terms of the marine debris issue other than Dive Against Debris surveys. I hired a film producer and we are currently about halfway through production on the documentary titled: Hae Shin. The documentary is mainly focused on my Dive Against Debris work, and the general marine debris issue here in South Korea. The scuba community is very hungry for scuba related film, and I hope for their support. Noone will care about this film more than the scuba community and marine conservation activists.