Last Sunday, to kick off Debris Month of Action, PADI and Project AWARE staff from the Bristol office in the UK organized a Dive Against Debris event in collaboration with West Country Divers in Swanage. The team dived at Swanage Pier, picked up rubbish and recorded the data before a well deserved traditional stop at the pub before returning to Bristol!

Jennifer Constant, Project AWARE Regional Coordinator, reports on this fun and well attended event:

"It was a rainy and cloudy morning on 5th September 2011. It was also an early 7 am start on the 'day of rest' a Sunday! We packed up our car with diving gear and headed for the Jurassic Coastal town of Swanage, hoping that the sun would come out to play!

Our plan was to go diving and collect as much rubbish as we possibly could. Suited and booted, we took a long stride into the water and as we did, the sun appeared! Yey!

Each dive buddy pair took a mesh bag down with them. When the bubbles started to appear and the divers arrived back to land, the mesh bags came up only half full. Surprisingly, the ocean was pretty clean from debris, which was a fantastic thing!

However, we did manage to bring up over 50 huge screws, 40 medium size ones, a tyre, some plastic, glass and wood and lots of rope and fishing line. We also saved a seagull, it fell in the bin before we arrived. We saw some movement in there and to our surprise there was a huge seagull!

Fun was had by all and we went for a well deserved pint after the dive!

Thanks PADIEMEA team, Project AWARE divers and the West Country team, can't wait to Dive Against Debris again!"

For more photos and a short video clip of this event, click here.

Jennifer works in the Project AWARE Foundation office in Bristol, UK. Visit the "Our Team" page to read more about our dedicated staff members and what they are up to.