FANTASTIC!At noon on August 8, five boats with nine divers and three volunteer deckhands headed off to the Sebasitan Inlet to clean the South Fishing pier on the west side of the A1A bridge and the "L" dock further within the south side of the inlet. We had two park rangers on shore clearing the fisherpeople from snagging divers, a marine patrol vessel cruising our dive sites to fend off boaters and press with camera crews capturing our collection. Does the idea of 4000 pounds collected in 23 minutes rock your mind? It should.
Despite the murky waters from the recent rain and the threat of ripping currents from the full moon just ending, we all plunged into the water. I left my camera at home this dive to maximize collections....geeze, is that hard work. My off the cuff estimate is each diver brought up twice to three times their own weight in materials. One diver, Jennifer Gregory, now referred to as "the animal" collected the most, the most unusual and the biggest. She was our smallest diver...there to help, but also looking for people to come to her church's fish fry next Saturday to raise money to build them a church. She is awesome and $7.00 seems cheap. You can get tickets by calling Jennifer at 464-4949. Everyone should do this.
We collected a bathtub, a huge tarp, some fire hose or tubbing, balls and balls of fishing line, fishing poles, steel seawall pieces, 4 anchors, 60 feet of chain, 100 feet of rope, 7 casting nets, and shrimping nets. That was jennifer. She collected around 1100 pounds, it appears.
I collected around 500 pounds of casting nets, fishing poles, anchors, and a huge rope cargo net. There was wood and pipes and hose...like fire hose, I guess.
Each boat found similar stuff. We did not really need bags as the stuff was too huge. We really did not have to move around.. the stuff was right there under us dive after dive. These 9 divers collected, in 1/3 the time more than the 64 divers collected during the Ft Pierce dive two weeks earlier. My thanks to Gene Muckbridge for bringing my attention to the "L" dock. Jennifer and Dyana dived there and wore themselves out hauling up stuff. They rocked.
The Orchid Island Rotary Club decided not to sponsor us any further, so we chowed down on frozen pizza left over from the Fort Pierce dive, donated by various local pizza shops, and washed that down with wonderful canned water from FEMA days. This hardly dampened the spirits of this wonderful group of divers captains and volunteers:
Ken Chapin, captain
Kevin from TowUS, captain
Dyana Boyd Voss, diver
Richard Blanken, diver
Jim Gleason, diver
Jennifer Gregory, diver
Nick Gey, diver
Andrew Crull, diver
Tom Wolfe, diver
Gene Muckridge, captain
Kevin Griffin, deck hand
Bob Dietz and Richard Wheeler from the Park
Bill Landt and his wife, diver, captain and crew...
and myself, diver
This was a wonderful way to end our summer cleanup season. We are already planning our efforts for next year. If you know of some specific spots that need attention, let me know. I will dive and video it and make plans to add it to our efforts for next season. I would like more divers, more boats and more locations to continue to expand this work.
I will be collecting bags all year long from Nelson Family Farms and other outlets and will work on better ways to bring in large items such as those that Jennifer seemed to just swim upon. I will continue to search for funds and donations for pontoon boats, crane systems and better collection devices and methods. I will also be working on offering, through a dive organization, a "Marine Cleanup" certification to better train the divers, cover them under a Padi or SSI umbrella for insurance purposes, and add documentation and credentials to these efforts.
Keep diving and spread the word.
Look for the articles in the Press Journal and Hometown News regarding today's dive. And don't forget the BIG PARTY ON SUNDAY AUGUST 16 for all volunteers, divers, captains and spouses starting at 12:30pm at the Ft Pierce Yacht Club. This is where you will receive your T-shirts.
And if you need a data card for Sebastian or Ft Pierce to register the materials collected, email me and I'll send you one. Or you can download it from this site by clicking on the link on the right. I will then forward the info to April for insertion in the overall collected material database. Remember, this is how we track our progress and determine which sites need further attention.
Thanks again for all you have done to cleanup our waterways.
Captain don
