What Would You Do?

Wasn't sure where to post this - mods please move if you wish....

This scenario happened last week in Guam diving off an MDA boat in Apra harbor with 20-25 people on board.

I dive regularly (every summer vacation for the last four years so stilled haven't racked up so many dives), and some of my reasons for taking up diving with my daughter were to enjoy the ocean environment, observe and photograph the beautiful wildlife before man screws it up completely - I am a firm believer in the mantra of "Take Only Photos, Leave Only Bubbles".

Just as my daughter and I had finished our descent, getting the camera ready to shoot etc, I noticed some rapid movement off to my left. I look around and I see the previous group of maybe 4-5 divers with two of the younger members (late teens, early twenties) literally thrashing around in the water, playing American football with a large pincushion starfish, fins stirring up sediment, banging into the reef.

Just for a split-second, I had an urge to kick over to them and confront them underwater, but then I thought - to hell with it, I am on vacation and I want to enjoy my dive.

I reported it to the captain of the boat after surfacing, but again, had no intention of taking it further myself, especially with my daughter present.

What would you have done?

I would report it to the Captain as well as the dive operator afterwards and preferably in front of those clowns or loud enough so they could hear the complaint.

There is no point of starting an argument under water.
Reporting it to the captain was a good move.
You are not the scuba police but you might have asked them if they had seen the freshly broken off corals, too.

What can you do? There are no SCUBA police. You can complain to the dive op. They have the option of refusing to take them on other dives (in which case they'll go with another operator).
Or, you could approach them in a non-******* way back on the surface and try to educate them on why what they were doing isn't such a good idea.

The captain is probably not going to do much, because what divers do that does not affect safety is not really his job. The operator is not probably going to do anything because that is a boat, not a boat and DM type operator, especially for the local market.

I recommend you never go on the MDA's weekday boats when it is mostly Japanese because handling sea life is as much as the job description for the guides for the Japanese divers. Kneeling the divers on the bottom, and handing them blue starfish, pincushion starfish, and wrestling octopus.

You probably noticed the captains/crew throwing out lines to catch fish when running between the dives, and you will often find them taking octopus, and spearing fish on the sites. A lot of the people who work in the water in Guam are actually catching their dinner every day, unless they are in one of the Marine Protected Zones.

American football? Are you sure? I mean it could have been Australian rules football, soccer or even rugby.

cocoajoe:

American football? Are you sure? I mean it could have been Australian rules football, soccer or even rugby.

Click to expand...

The final one who touched the "ball" appeared to "spike the touchdown" which is not done in those other games.

Pee in their dry bags.

Doc:

Pee in their dry bags.

Click to expand...

You are right, I missed my opportunity because we came up a couple of minutes ahead of them, damn!!

On a more serious note, after considering what peeps have replied above, this morning I drafted and sent this email to Lee Webber, the president of MDA.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mr. Webber,
I was on vacation in Guam over the last two weeks and used the MDA daily boat dives with my daughter a total of five times over several days. This is the second time we visited Guam and have been very happy with MDA's services. On our previous visit we did our AOW with Jennetta Adams.

On the plus side I am grateful that we managed to get the best possible and safe diving under the conditions following the tropical storm on 30th July. In particular, Captain Bill was extremely helpful and professional.

However, there were a some disappointments - some within your control, some maybe not so.

On two separate occasions, we saw the crew of the boat fishing for reef fish and squid during surface intervals or when the boat was underway. We observed two squid and one fish being landed. Now, I like to eat fish as much as anyone but I really don't think it is appropriate on a dive boat where your paying customers are hoping to observe marine wildlife in its natural element. When I review my photos of my dives, there are actually very few fish to be seen.

My daughter and I dived without guides or instructors taking photos and trying to observe the marine life as non-disruptively as possible. But underwater we observed some behavior by other divers and their guides which was disturbing.

In one instance, a couple of young guys who appeared to be under instruction picked up a pincushion starfish and appeared to be attempting to play underwater American Football with it including "spiking the touchdown". During their play, they were thrashing around, disturbing silt, kicking parts of the reef and likely causing damage. I did nothing at the time but back on board I did report it to the captain. I don't think the instructor / guide knew what was happening as they were at the back of her group and possibly out of sight.

In another instance we saw a Japanese dive guide working on the boat with two customers. I guess they were over-weighted as we witnessed them literally standing on several sections of coral reef while he took their souvenir underwater photo. This wasn't a brief occurrence, for the full 3 minutes of our safety stop, we witnessed them literally walking around on the the reef just below us while their guide did nothing to prevent them.

I'd like to stress that we also saw some excellent work by a couple of guides, notable Geoff of Gently Blue and Chris (not sure if he has a company). Even though we were not part of their paying group, they were very helpful to us and had obvious respect for the environment.

My daughter and I are still virtual newcomers to the dive community with just 40 dives in our log books so we didn't feel able to to comment strongly on these points at the time, but I feel that you as the owner of possibly the leading company in Guam should be aware of these occurrences.

My daughter and I did our Open Water courses at Redang Island in Malaysia 3 years ago, with several additional dives. During each pre-dive briefing the instructors and guides took great pains to regularly remind each diver not to touch the coral. In addition, during the dives, they would steer novice divers away from getting too close to the reef and picking up any creature was strictly considered forbidden.

I know that you cannot control what your customers do, but maybe would it be possible to include "DO NOT TOUCH THE CORAL" as part of the boat rules, and set guidelines for any guides working for you to observe and reprimand divers (and other guides) where possible so as to protect the reefs as much as possible.

With Best Regards

---------------------------------------------------------

I'd swim away.