Red Sea Over Dived or What !!

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Narcosis1

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Comments on damage being caused to the Red Sea dive sites. I feel the best loaction to dive is Ras Mohamed but the rest of the sites are being destroyed.

Comments Please....
 
I feel that the Red Sea Resorts such as Sharm and Hurghada are ruined by the tourist industry. Over developed and now it is starting to look like another Costa Del Sol. People are diving and destroying as no real care is being taken and novice divers are being churned out by the score. Then being allowed to go diving without any real experience, small currents force them to grab on etc destroying the coral.

The gardens are becoming a waste ground, there are few spectacular mainland sites now. Hurghada I feel is even more desolate.

PADI I feel does a little with its conservation support but still churns out the divers like some production line, although I am a Padi Rescue diver and I support PADI and the way it teaches its methods etc I feel it is also very much a case of standing for Put Another Dollar In, In the case of the Red Sea.

The Egyptians are no better with the way they moore to reefs etc, throw rubbish over the side, bulldoze debris from building sites onto reefs, they are all destroying the Eco system that pays for all thier wages, they will kill it if it goes on much more.
 
I was in Hurghada last August and was appalled!
The diving was actually very good and got some good shots of marine life BUT when i was diving with some other divers i was shocked at how they treated the coral. When we surfaced i said to them that what they were doing was wrong and they just laughed at me. I couldnt believe it. Their bouyancy control was non-existant and they were actually physically pulling themselves across the corals with there hands - i was just begging that they'd put their hands down on a urchin (no such luck!)
This links with another thread on the board about instuctors training and how organisations are money hungry.
I havent dived sharm but am considering it next year.
If its anything like hurghada then maybe i wont. I couldnt believe the way the people are as well. As soon as I stepped off the plane I had people harrassing me to take my luggage a few feet to my coache - being a 17yr old girl i was wetting myself having tihs bloke pulling at my worldly goods for 2 weeks!
As we drove through Hurghada i couldnt believe what a building site it was - if people arent careful, our underworld in the Red Sea will get to the point where it matches Hurghada!

-x-abby-x-
 
Better than Hurghada, well ive dived Sharm 4 times this year and Hurghada once. My wife has just come back from the Maldives and from what I hear it is better than the Red Sea.

4 Mantas on 1 dive, sharks shooting everywhere. If you have to dive Red Sea, live aboards are better. Although Ras Mo is a must also the Thistlegorm. Dived Salem Express wow what a sad dive never again.

Head South bigger fish and more unspoilt, I hear Jordan is good too.
 
It really ticks me off when the wonders of the waters are abused like that!:grrr:

It's clearly a lack of education beginning from the instructors teaching in the region. If they were doing their jobs like they should be, students would be aware and careful of the environment. I do of course realize that most instructors do migrate from region to region and don't usually stay put in one place too long. That's actually more disturbing than anything else... The fact that they may actually take those bad habits and spread them like a disease where ever they wind up the next season! :grrr:

Mario
 
Mario,
I think it goes back even further than the instructor.
He has no values regarding the reef & probably didn't learn any from his instruction.
Could this go back as far as course developement or instructor training. One only need to read the ads for instructor development. "Guarenteed to pass, Highest pass rate of any" I think maybe this is where the problem lies.
Part of the burden also lies on the boat DMs, they can control the dive, but are they willing to say "If you touch the reef, then you can't do the next dive." Gets back to $s.
To hell with the reef, where's my check?

Makes me sick to know

Don
 
Don,
If we find out what the agency is, that question can be answered. You'll hear an answer from me if it's a PADI / TDI / SDI instructor doing the injustice. The lack of responsibility of a few should be corrected, perhaps by means of educating the ignorant... or perhaps we just smack em each a few dozen time while yelling :yelling: "wake up you idiot, you're ruining your bread and butter!!!"

Mario :(
 
Its not the instructors so much with the Red Sea but the vast amounts of ignorant tourists, and no even under the water but and the best example I have are Italians standing and walking over the reefs and Ras El Sid.

They dont care, they are not even divers. :sheik: They do not care, they dont realise than it is their livelyhoods at stake. As for the divers, I have to admit its only the novices who cause the damage really and the few as well who dont care
:fury:

But I still firmly believe that as diving has become really cheap ie you can stay in a 4* Hotels and dive for a week for as little as £299 including your flight then it really is attracting the wrong type of people. People who dont give a bugger!! People who just want to be able to say "Hey I am a diver" because it sounds cool. ( And it is cool ) but also there is very much the attitude, of Yeah right I am on holiday I dont care, from all walks not just divers.

I have dived with a few schools out there and never had a bad instructor who hasnt done his bit under the water cleaning etc whilst on a dive or an instructor who hasnt cared, I have many instructor friends and they say you try but with new people coming every week it really gets to the point where you do get tired of shouting etc :yelling:

 
To be fair about the incident I explained above - it was a daily boat with Emperor Divers and I was under instruction at the time from an instructor with Emperor Divers. My instructor did react and told them if they did it on the second dive then they'd not be able to dive again with Emperor divers again.
On the second dive we hardly saw them as I was training but when we did see they they were doing something or other that they clearly shouldnt have been doing and when we got off the boat my instructor asked them back to the school/centre where they were told there custom wasnt wanted anymore.
I was outside the room at the time - as i was suppose to be doing some theory work, and i could hear them through the door saying that it was the companies loss and they'd go somewhere else.
Not all business are terrible (even if they are money hungry). They were actually trained with Emperor Divers on that same holiday as well - and the amount they enforce the fact that you dont touch coral is unbelievable as i know from experience.
I personally believe that at least some of the blame has to be placed on the divers for
1) Not having the sense to realise its wrong
2) for diving in the 1st place - if they arent intelligent enough to not touch coral then god forbid them in a situation when diving!

-x-abby-x-
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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