On a small island in Indonesia called Gili Trawangan we have an amazing diving community, where all the dive schools (over 20) regularly come together to support our fragile local environment. 

The Gili Eco Trust puts on weekly events, including well organised beach cleans and special coral reef restoration dives. This week the focus was for World Oceans day. Each participating dive school was allocated a dive site around the 3 Gili Islands to arrange a Dive Against Debris. 

At Big Bubble we were allocated our favourite shallow reef ‘Halik’. With several fun diver participants and 5 dive master trainees in tow, I was very excited to lead the dive. We also purchased 10 new pocket mesh bags from the Gili Eco Trust to collect the anticipated waste. 

To our amazement we somehow found absolutely zero trash on the dive. No plastic, no fishing lines and no general waste. We did however see several very healthy Green Turtles, 3 scorpion fish, 2 baby white tip reef sharks and 2 Humphead Parrot fish. 

Everyone was delighted with the dive, but were disappointed not to collect any waste. 

It turned out that this was the case for many of the dive sites around the island, with only a few spots, close to the harbour showing signs of significant waste. I personally believe this shows that the people of the Gili Islands are doing a great job of keeping our reef system clean. Obviously more can be done, as some schools reported plenty of waste, but sometimes good news is good news. 

Big Bubble will endeavour to utilise our new mesh bags and continue to organise bi-weekly beach and reef clean ups to keep our favourite dive sites clean. 

By Dan Sherwood 

PADI IDC Staff Instructor #374009