@PunkabillyTurk , I recognize that you are on the other side of the world from me and are sleeping now. When you get up and back on I hope you will recognize that some of our comments are easily perceived differently from how they are intended. Tone is difficult on the internet. As you dive more you will come to new understandings related to diving ethically and safely.
You may find yourself witnessing diving practices that you have been taught will lead to unacceptable risks and yet the person you see doing it may have done it literally thousands of times. You may see a diver doing things that seem destructive and judge them in your mind but later see a sea turtle literally tearing the coral apart. The next year you revisit the site after a hurricane and the reef that seemed so fragile has been wiped out.
You may come to accept that some of what divers do is a part of nature. Divers become part of the ecosystem and part of the culture of the environment. It is hard to make judgements because one diver kills a lion fish. (good?) An eel chases the diver with the lion fish because they have been fed or because they smell the food. (bad?) It is really hard to judge those with many years of experience that may have started diving in a different time and have watched their underwater world change from many impacts more destructive than anything that they will ever do. I want to minimize my impact but I have made mistakes.(sad?)
In Cozumel there are many thousands of divers each week and parts of the reef show the signs of this but the presence of these divers and their money sustains the marine park and the dive masters that might otherwise be fishermen.
What I'm trying to say with far too many words is that it is complicated and you and I are too new and inexperienced to be able to decide for ourselves much less others what is right or wrong. We can only act on our best instincts and our moral compass in choosing how to dive. I sometimes write things just to get my thoughts out but it might be too early to publish them for public consumption. I have written things and then read them years later and thought, who the hell wrote this and discovered it was me. Don't worry about this thread. People needed something to express themselves about and you gave it to them. Dive lots. You are a lucky man.
You may find yourself witnessing diving practices that you have been taught will lead to unacceptable risks and yet the person you see doing it may have done it literally thousands of times. You may see a diver doing things that seem destructive and judge them in your mind but later see a sea turtle literally tearing the coral apart. The next year you revisit the site after a hurricane and the reef that seemed so fragile has been wiped out.
You may come to accept that some of what divers do is a part of nature. Divers become part of the ecosystem and part of the culture of the environment. It is hard to make judgements because one diver kills a lion fish. (good?) An eel chases the diver with the lion fish because they have been fed or because they smell the food. (bad?) It is really hard to judge those with many years of experience that may have started diving in a different time and have watched their underwater world change from many impacts more destructive than anything that they will ever do. I want to minimize my impact but I have made mistakes.(sad?)
In Cozumel there are many thousands of divers each week and parts of the reef show the signs of this but the presence of these divers and their money sustains the marine park and the dive masters that might otherwise be fishermen.
What I'm trying to say with far too many words is that it is complicated and you and I are too new and inexperienced to be able to decide for ourselves much less others what is right or wrong. We can only act on our best instincts and our moral compass in choosing how to dive. I sometimes write things just to get my thoughts out but it might be too early to publish them for public consumption. I have written things and then read them years later and thought, who the hell wrote this and discovered it was me. Don't worry about this thread. People needed something to express themselves about and you gave it to them. Dive lots. You are a lucky man.
