Taken and edited by me
It’s been a long week and I’m glad it’s over. Despite the fact that I love adventure, there are days when I’d prefer to stay home and do the things I love as a form of relaxation.
And for scuba divers, relaxation’s key if you’d like to get through the trip without feeling fatigued (believe me, I don’t enjoy much when I’m tired).
As calming as scuba diving can be, it’s considered an extreme sport, and for good reason. If I were in Singapore for the holidays, I could sleep as late as 4am, but a diving trip? I’d be off to dreamland by 10pm. Ironically, it’s the result of easy dives, so imagine what it’ll be like for more challenging ones. Therefore, it’s no surprise that divers want a comfortable place to rest and get ready for the following day.
However, with rising concern for the environment and the concurrent rise of Eco-tourism, I thought about the two types of accommodation – dive resorts and liveaboards (i.e. staying on a boat).
What Liveaboards Look Like (Image by Paul Nendick under Creative Commons Attribution -NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license.)
And which is better? Let’s look at how both have played a part in marine conservation.
I recall how the resort I stayed at in Manado embodied the zero-waste attitude – instead of storing food in Styrofoam containers and plastic, it was in reusable containers instead. Even the cutlery was metal! This might seem trivial, but it’s effective.
In fact, as much as we think the dumping of plastics is due to irresponsible waste disposal or excessive consumerism, as interpreted from the figure, there are times when it’s accidental.
As you go from one dive site to another, the winds are strong enough to send anything light flying into the ocean. Hence, by simply not using these persistent materials, the risk of accidental marine pollution became non-existent.
Now, how about other touristy spots, like Raja Ampat and the Philippines?
Take Misool Eco Resort, a subsidiary of Misool Eco Foundation, in Raja Ampat. One key thing the foundation did was create a 1200km2 marine reserve to prevent unsustainable fishing, which ultimately led to the return of sharks and manta rays. As for the resort, it took steps to reduce its carbon footprint by using solar energy, and aims to stop using petrol for its boats.
In Cebu, Philippines, Evolution Dive Resort committed to making every dive an effort to clean the ocean, which means ordinary people, like you and me, can help! Not only that, it is also part of the Green Fins programme, which I will get to in a minute.
Liveaboards were difficult to find, especially local ones, but I stumbled across Explorer Ventures, which also committed to joining the aforementioned programme. In a nutshell, Green Fins gets members to reduce their impact on the environment and raise awareness among the general public. Practices include briefing divers on the importance of not touching anything underwater and teaching them the rules of Marine Protected Areas.
In conclusion, I haven’t decided which option’s better, or at least not based on what I’ve considered. For example, what you want to see matters too – liveaboards travel further, so divers have a better chance of seeing bigger creatures (I’ve always wanted to see a school of hammerheads), but they’re also difficult for people who get motion sickness (unfortunately, like me). However, I realised it’s not hard looking for greener alternatives to reduce my environmental impact – it’s just a matter of choosing to.
Hey Natasha!
WOW both options sound like a ton of fun and they sound like my kind of vacation! However, I do wonder about the possible repercussions if both options were to become increasingly popular as tourist attractions. If both types of accommodation were to experience increased tourist traffic, do you think this may harm the respective local marine ecosystems?
Thank you!
Joseph
Hi Joseph! Once again, thank you for stopping by and I’m glad that I was able to portray a diving holiday in such a way! Believe me, there are days when you’d want to skip an 8am dive, because even with a 10-hour rest, you’d still feel like your body’s recovering from the previous day. Furthermore, as someone who doesn’t fancy entering cold water (which I always associate with morning dives), it sure felt like an even bigger turn-off for me. I’ve been there and done that, and frankly, I’m not sure how I managed to even roll out of bed, despite all the innate complaints, but one thing’s for sure, I’ve never regretted it one bit. In other words, I’d say dive holidays are pretty balanced, in a sense that you get to partake in physical activity and relax at the same time (because you literally don’t do anything as you wait for the next dive and also, it’s a safety step to ensure that you don’t suffer from decompression sickness). It’s simply just you, blue skies and the ocean, together with many like-minded individuals. In fact, most of our close family friends now are people whom we met on diving trips, and the best part? They come from all over the world, so it’s pretty wholesome, and cool, right?
Now, with regards to your question, I personally feel that there might not be much harm for the most part, and while this might be a little shocking for me to say, there are reasons as to why I feel this is so. Firstly, diving holidays are pretty seasonal. In the case of Manado, the “best time” only lasts for 3 months, where the sun’s high up in the sky and the rain’s minimal. Based on this, I’d say that there’s quite a bit of time per year for the environment to have a chance to regulate itself, at least from human activity. Of course, you could also travel during the wet seasons (like I did after my O’levels in 2015), but you’ll also realise that there’s not many people around either, which automatically reduces the magnitude of damage done to the environment. Furthermore, as mentioned last week, the dive masters are pretty serious when it comes to minimising the impact on the reef no matter where we went, be it the mainland, Bunaken or the Lembeh Straits, and I feel this would help all year round, despite the potential increase in tourist traffic, because the minimum they allow at any one dive site seems to be a rule of sorts, which I doubt is something they will change. And besides, I’m pretty sure they themselves would like to enjoy the dive too (they’re pretty passionate about what they do and I can totally see why), so imagine seeing more divers than fish, that’s not too pleasant if you ask me, even if you’re a dive master whose been to the dive site a countless number of times.
With social media nowadays, it’s pretty inevitable that there will be increased tourist traffic regardless. However, for diving holidays in particular, one way in which I feel they restrict the number of people at any given time would be by providing information on the difficulty of the dives and what to expect. An example’s Layang-Layang, Malaysia, famous for sightings of hammerhead sharks and manta rays. However, based on what my Dad experienced (i.e. fast currents and high waves), it’s clear that it isn’t for everybody, and I think that helps when it comes to keeping numbers in check (because I personally felt that I would never get there unless I dived more). As we’ve also established, inexperience can prove detrimental, so by making difficulties transparent, I feel that it does play quite a role in being a deterrent. Lastly, liveaboards are only so big, and the people are further split into smaller groups (i.e. 4-5 per dive master), and I think all this contributes to reducing the impact at any dive site, really.
However, I did mention “for the most part”, because I personally feel that there are other factors in deciding whether a place would be more susceptible to damage. One example would be Bali, Indonesia, which attracts millions per year, and it’s also a place most are familiar with. With that, it’s no surprise that they’ll be more compelled to go to such places, which sadly, exacerbates the existing waste management problem that Bali’s experiencing. I went to Bali once, and despite it being about 2 hours away from the popular destinations like Nusa Dua and Jimbaran, the effects were still pretty clear. There were many things to see, like giant groupers and Napoleon wrasses, but the corals weren’t doing so well, because they either looked bleached, or worse, dead. It was something my family noticed too, and it’s safe to say that we won’t be going back any time soon.
To wrap this all up, it seems we’ll be sticking to the less well-known sites, and by the end of this blog, I hope that for those who want to dive, perhaps it’ll be good to do some research on the various dive sites a country has to offer. They might be off the beaten path, but rest assured, I think there’s a higher chance you’ll be able to see a lot more, and I could, once again, base this on my own personal experiences. Furthermore, I named this blog “Into The Unknown” too, hoping to show that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with going to dive sites or places that are still hazy in people’s minds. And by making this choice, you might just be making a difference in reducing the impact somewhere else!
P.S. Apologies in advance that this comment is so long hahaha but I hope this helped, perhaps, in shedding a different perspective on the situation showing that it might not as bad after all. And besides, this sure did help in allowing me to think critically, so thank you for that too!
Wew! Thanks Natasha for the really informative reply!!