Missing the Point and The Damage Thereof

[strikeshield]

My dive club does the Conestoga in Cardinal Ontario quite a bit for our check out dives. The last dive of the second day is a "treasure hunt" for the new divers. Now I don't feel good about having colored rocks placed inside the wreck for the new divers to find. Divers scrounge around the inside of the wreck and probably contribute to aging it a bit. Nevertheless, I was more dismayed to spot during our dive, that someone had actually attached a cyalume stick to the bow of the deck and attached it with, of all things, a freakin tie-wrap. Now the stick was obviously dead and had been placed there probably days or weeks before, but the idiot who did this, never went back to remove it. Without pliers, the Tie-wrap cannot be removed.
I also agree with the other posters especially GDI (since he was my instructor...) that seeing instructors take their students down to the silt and kneel or stand in it is discouraging. I am not very experienced, but GDI drove the idea of proper trim and buoyancy into us at the outset of the course and explained the reasoning for it. I agree wholeheartedly with the recommendation. I am still amazed, however, to see PADI "AOW" divers diving in a quasi vertical position finning into the silt. I was in Maui a few months ago and the dive masters at Lahaina Divers briefed us on not standing on coral etc. before we jumped into the water. First thing I saw in the water was one of their "master" divers doing exactly that during a dive.
I am saddened to see that many divers just don't give a crap. It is not a difficult concept to grasp, "enjoy your dives, touch nothing and leave only bubbles" so that many more people can enjoy the site or wreck. It's like letting your dog crap on the neighbour's lawn and not pick it up.
Just my $0.02 anyways.
Great discussion.

Christian L.

 

[Airleron]

It's always been my belief that what isn't naturally growing/living there, shouldn't be there. On most dives, I come back with beer bottles, sun glasses (cheap ones), bottle caps, a pink toy tea kettle (in the middle of the ocean, no less), weight pockets to a BC, etc.

 

[Jupiter31]

It's always been my belief that what isn't naturally growing/living there, shouldn't be there. On most dives, I come back with beer bottles, sun glasses (cheap ones), bottle caps, a pink toy tea kettle (in the middle of the ocean, no less), weight pockets to a BC, etc.

Wait a sec - that's my wife's weight pocket from her BC

I don't mind finding things other divers have dropped - like a knife, for example - next time leave the sheath too please!

But I hate seeing crap people have left on wrecks and agree if it was not there when the wreck was sunk, don't add it - not everyone shares some folks' heightened sense of humor

 

[Anti-Hero]

I'd be pretty annoyed if I found toys intentionally placed in our local dive spots.

 

[gcbryan]

Around here they call that stuff artificial reefs or memorials to a fellow diver. Personally, I rather see that stuff removed.

 

[wreckless1]

Before reading the OP, I had no idea that this sort of littering was happening on Great Lakes shipwrecks. (I've only dived one so far.) I guess I just though nobody would "enhance" a site by doing something like that

I've seen photographers (maybe "snapshot collectors" would be a better word) and even instructors grabbing onto coral, picking things up, and harassing puffer fish, and people silting up swim-throughs without even trying to do them properly.

Granted, if you're trying your best and knock over a coral by accident or something, that's different, but I also think that many divers just don't care. IMHO, you earn the right to dive a particular site in a particular way by putting in some practice to do it right. If you can't handle a camera and control your buoyancy at the same time, then you shouldn't bring one. I want to, but I don't because I know I'm not ready for it.

When it's a shop putting ads on a site or wreck, or instructors setting a bad example, it's even worse. I like the spray paint idea above, but instead I think that I'm going to bring a mesh bag on future dives in case I run across something I can throw away properly.