Making rubbish a reality

Last Sunday, 22 onion-bag clad GUDC members executed Operation Clean-Up 2.0.

With knives in our hands, tanks on our backs and spit in our masks we trundled our way to the waters edge to clean, scrub and.. well clean.

Its such a sad reality to see how careless some people are. The amount of fishing line is astonishing - and I get that if your line gets snagged you have to cut it, and no fisherman is going to jump in to get his gear back - but something needs to change, especially along the Seaway wall where there is such a massive diversity of marine organisms and in such huge numbers. Whats more, the amount of cans, lures, and plastic that litter the seafloor is hard to swallow (quite literally for fish).

The oceans and its organisms suffer from the "out-of-sight, out-of-mind" concept, and its events like the clean-up dive that help bring the ocean floor to the surface, and shed some light on what our laziness and/or carelessness results in.

If we switched environments, and took the rubbish from the bottom of the seaway, and dumped it on the beach at surfers paradise next to sunbathers and tourists, I can guarantee we would pounce to fix it... because we can see it, we can touch it and all of a sudden it becomes a reality. The fact that when you drop your mars bar rapper or flick your cigarette butt out your car window it 9 times out of 10 ends up on our coastline, or on the ocean floor. Consequently, this may very well end up in the stomach of a turtle, a cuttlefish, or even a sea bird. Its worth noting, that here I am attempting to pull at the heartstrings by using charismatic animals (e.g. a turtle), however these organisms are certainly not the only ones at risk.

The Sarah Shark crew filmed the dive, and will use it to drive the message of conservation for our oceans.

A masssssive thankyou to the club admins for all the effort pre and post clean up. Chris, Soph and Shary for organising gear, DD and Ryan for being BBQ shopping mules and of course to Benny for cooking up an awesome feast. Also, a thanks to our film and photographer crew - Kieren, Simon, Hugh and Ryan. Annnnnd to Devocean and Dannys for being so accommodating with gear.

Biggest of all, thank you to those who took time out of their weekend to join us. Clean-Up dives are not usually the most glamourous nor the most 'amazing' but you can sleep well, content with the fact that YOU may have just saved the life of an inquisitive cuttlefish, a hungry trevally, or a clumsy eel.

Check out some pics below shot by club admin Ryan Pearson;