One afternoon on the island of Koh Tao, a poor boat captain watched as his vessel filled with rubbish. Over five hours, ten volunteer divers removed a record amount of trash from one reef.

Some months earlier, in a bid to protect a shallow reef at Hin Ngam, local dive schools and the Save Koh Tao Group installed a ‘No Boat’ Zoning Line. But after the monsoon season New Heaven divers were astonished to find an 80 metre stretch of line covered in bags, ropes, and marine debris.

Armed with scissors and Project AWARE clean up bags this group of dedicated divers worked hard to remove the rubbish.   And they worked even harder to get the rubbish onto the boat.

Two boat loads of rubbish were ferried to the beach. Onshore more New Heaven divers, staff and customers greeted the team to help bag and sort the rubbish. 

Exhausted divers enjoyed free ice cream donated by a nearby shop. “This will surely be a clean-up we remember and will be talking about well into the future,” said Chad Scott of New Heaven.  “Not only was it a personal, and dive school record, but we think it may be an island record as well.”

A big thanks to New Heaven Dive School, this Dive Against Debris is one for the record books! Keep up the fantastic work to protect your reefs and well done guys.