Went along with the Department of Marine Conservation yesterday to clean up fishing nets and rubbish around two islands off the coast of Chumphon. The group arranges these projects from time to time inviting Thai scuba divers to come together to clean the reef. Koh Ran Gai and Koh Ran Ped are two tiny rock outcrops off the coast of Pathio, Chumphon. The water is quite deep here dropping to over 30 meters and the coral and marine life is prolific; walls of hard corals and sponges, soft coral gardens, caves, swim-throughs, huge schools of fusiliers, trevally and barracuda and plenty of smaller marine life. The diving equals, if not exceeds that around Koh Tao.
- Start at sunrise ...
- Smoke from Chinese firecrackers floats across the water ...
- Fishing pier at the end of Bangberd bay.
- Sharing the jetty with the culprits ...
It is for this reason that Thai fishing boats come to the area with their destructive reef-raping methods of catching fish (and anything else that gets trapped in their nets). There were around 20 divers in total, some local some had driven all the way from Bangkok to take part, we broke into teams, each one tackling a different section of the reef. Huge swathes of coral were covered in these nets, some over 25 meters long, air was quickly used at depth cutting the nylon off the reef - it is totally different working underwater to pleasure diving! A fish trap the size of a pickup truck was also found ... full of reef fish such as angelfish, batfish and butterflyfish which are inedible anyway. We could not lift this so cut the netting away to free the captives.
- A wall of fish ...
- A huge fish trap on the reef ...
- Freeing the inedible captives ...
- Koh Ran Ped, Ran Gai in the distance ...
- Crystal clear water ...
Although we brought up a lot of trash there was still more below, the second dive sent us into decompression since you get carried away a little when working down there. These projects should be held more often as on this one we just scraped the the tip of a very big iceberg, our dive team probably lifted less than ten percent of the nets just on these two islets. The problem really should be solved at the source - the fishing boats - but this is a job for the government. A look at the villages and beaches where they are based says it all, the place is paradise but with trash and squalor everywhere - cleanliness and environmental care starts at home.
- The water wont be this clear for long ...
- Squid drying.
- A fisherman's back yard, trash everywhere ...
The government have started an initiative with this:
Gulf fishing gear ban for 3 months :
http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews ... r-3-months
But the problem lies as always with the enforcement and endemic corruption, somebody down the line takes a bung and the boats are out again regardless.
I had some vision of a special Thai craft shooting around, keeping things clean like a giant vacuum cleaner 
Sounds an excellent idea. Why not start a new thread, and see what response you get? I could spare an hour on a regular(ish) basis if you can arrange something.
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