Reef Clean

 “Don’t you get exhausted, after doing this for two years? Don’t you feel overwhelmed, like the problem is just too big to do anything about?” Someone asked our group leader, Dave.

“I’m just more reasonable than I was two years ago,” Dave replied. “Instead of setting huge goals for others, I just focus on what change I can personally bring about.”

Today we are a group of seven individuals working where we can make a difference and I have to agree with Dave - there is so much out there that needs changing, there will always be duality, there is much suffering, and if you focus on it as a whole, it can lead to deep depression and feeling powerless. But if you focus on what is in front of you and know where you can affect change and just stick to that, it puts the problem into workable terms. Reminds me of that Serenity prayer: "God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

During beach cleans and reef cleans, we work on reducing the trash problem in our home ocean: the Celebes Sea off the coast of Borneo, Malaysia. I know somewhere out there is a documented island of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean - a huge mass of plastic and rubbish the size of Texas. But here, in Semporna, there is just everyday litter - just people who do not understand that some things like plastic lids and straws and styrofoam containers will not degrade in their lifetime. Plastic bags float down the street as I cross it to come to work at the dive shop. I step over sewage as I carry our dive gear to the boat. I hold my breath as I pass the rotten food and damp clothing and piles of wet plastic shopping bags on the side of the jetty. I try not to look at what is floating in the water as I warn our customers to watch their step and try to guide them around piles of human waste where our boats pull up. It took weeks to get used to this, and now I still don’t like it, but Semporna is my home and it just melds somehow.

Last week I chipped in with two hundred local Malaysians to clean up their city. The guest speaker gave a very inspirational speech about how with our efforts, we could “save Semporna!” People cheered, and readily accepted plastic bags and pulled gardening gloves out of their plastic wrappers and dropped the wrappers on the ground. As I watched the plastic pile up around our feet, I realized that these people really have no idea what litter is. Sure enough, as we made our way into the separate zones of the city to collect litter and clean the city, the team of people I had been placed with cheerily collected sticks and swept leaves into piles and bagged them - ignoring the cans, fishing line, cigarette packs and straws on the ground. I did my part to gently explain what we really were hoping to collect.  After seeing me wading in to collect handfuls of Pepsi bottles from the sea, my cleaning companions started to understand.  Four hours and a lot of hot labor later, the city did indeed look better. And, well, that was last week. 

 

 

 This week, the city has returned to its normal state and I ask myself, 'are you exhausted, do you feel overwhelmed, like the problem is too big to do anything about?'

No. Because after walking the customers around land mines to the jetty and fitting them in life jackets, the boat leaves Semporna and crosses a strait of hope, past five different islands, some large enough to have three trees only, others wild with jungle. The ocean we dive in here is alive and well. The creatures are thriving and beautiful and teaching diving is my dream job. Sure, our boats have to stop every half an hour to untangle plastic bags from the motors, but then we are off again on our way to the island of Mabul. And today, our team of seven are not guiding trips or teaching classes. We are devoting our day and three dives to making a difference doing Reef Cleans and Beach Cleans.

Reef clean involves the same burlap sacks that bulk beans and rice come in, one neoprene glove, and an hour diving underwater. We drop in at Pan Lima, on the tip of Mabul where the currents converge and bring floating garbage from both sides of the island and where the Semporna drift empties out.
 

 

 

It is awkward at first - trying to swim with a huge white bag acting as a sail on one side of me - trying to grab water bottles and beer cans without touching the reef around them and struggling to open the bag to put in my collections as the current pushes it closed. But then, after a few minutes, I adjust and find a stystem using my metal rod to pull up coffee packets and plastic bags and point them into the bag.

 

After it fills halfway, I set my heavy bag it on a patch of sand where it will not be crushing any delicate aquatic life and make trips back and forth. We work in buddy teams, picking up diapers, coke bottles, lids, straws, books, clothes, right shoes and Styrofoam. We gently untangle fishing lines and cut them away from the coral. Turtles cast us sideways looks. Tiny fish who have made their home in a diaper argue with me but move on. Our rule is to do more good than harm and if anything has become a part of the reef, we leave it. Anything that is growing and supporting life can stay.

 The hour goes by quickly, and following our plan, our team of divers moves to a depth of fifteen feet on a sandy strait to stack our bags and shoot up a signal marker buoy for our boat and do a group ascent.


My bag is bulky and heavy and the ascent is slow, but I am proud of that. The captain smiles and helps us lift the bags out of the water and we back away as they drain over the side to reduce weight.
 Then after lunch we go out for another round. By the end of our second dive, the site truly is looking better - more natural without shiny reflective satchets or bags clinging to it.

 

 

This is Reef clean and I absolutely love it. I adore this ocean so much and yearn to caretake it. I see it as the treasure the local people haven’t yet learned to. So that makes me the obvious candidate for conservation. I love working for a company whose values match up to mine - Scuba Junkie does reef clean projects and beach cleans every single week. They are the only resort on Mabul that transports trash off the island, and pay close to 70,000 dollars a year to transport collected rubbish to recycling centers and landfills. I am proud to be a part of an organization that finds the environment worthy of time and attention. So, sure, somewhere out there is a huge floating island of trash the size of Texas, but on my boat we have seven bags full and we are going back for more.