Recently in Conservation Category

El Gouna
Report by Mat Cotton, Dive Centre Manager

Luckily, the reefs that we focused on to clean had very little rubbish and trash to be collected! This means that after the few weeks of debris dives, we still had not collected much litter - rather a result we felt. This prompted the staff to undertake their own clean up of their local jetty area near the dive centre, which was in need of a clean-up!

Hopefully guests diving with us enjoyed their debris dives as well as being able to help the local environment here in El Gouna.

We also had a school group recently who did a reef survey and found the local corals to be very healthy. Emperor also arranged for HEPCA to come and give a talk during this time about the affect of tourism on the local environment and what we are doing to counter this.

Among the more obscure items we collected over the few weeks were:
A large car tyre
Fuel canisters
Various masks and snorkels which, if in working condition, were donated to local staff.

Marsa Alam
Report by Luke Atkinson, Dive Centre Manager with special thanks to Ian Clarke for this amusing photo of 'glove on head'. Possible contender for the Turner Prize?

71 people took part in our cleanup dives over four separate 'Debris Days'. Over 70 kg of rubbish overall was collected as well as 355 Euros raised for Project AWARE.

Some comments from our guests...

Mick Scott, "Well done guys, keep up the good work."
Big Blue Marble, "Great effort, it's good to see this sort of cleanup. Lets hope others follow."
Phil Mills, "I fully support debris dives. Well done."

Last month, all our dive centres and, more importantly, our guests, took part in the cleaning up of our reefs and Red Sea. Here, Nuweiba and Sharm share their findings... 

Emperor Nuweiba - Dive Against Debris

Report by Kathrin Heussner

"Nuweiba, being a small and individual dive centre with small diving groups, we are delighted at how much our guests care for our reefs. Nearly all of our certified divers last month took part in at least one trash dive! 

With so many dedicated divers we managed to do more than 10 clean up dives, covering all our dive sites from Ras el Shetan and Magana to Pipeline and Outside Hilton/ Sinkers, our house reef Abou Lou Lou all the way to Mazeriq.
 
Altogether we collected more than 150 kilos of rubbish. Unsurprisingly the majority of our rubbish bags were filled with plastic debris: bottles, wrappers, lids, bags, which could easily become a hazard especially for our beloved big turtles looking for food.
 
A tyre and a fish trap are amongst the larger objects removed. Everybody agreed that cleaning up the reef can be fun, especially in Mazeriq where we noticed that we could easily have equipped a whole person: shoes and shorts, mask and snorkel, shisha, headphones and batteries, teapot with spoon, fork and knife, even a newspaper, canned juice and food.... bearing in mind we are in the desert!
 
The weirdest things found in the sea this month are probably "frozen and cleaned squid tubes" and a goldfish bowl.
 
Every Friday we offered a third dive for 5 euros for all divers collecting rubbish on at least one dive, which were donated to Project Aware.
 
We would like to say a massive 'Thank you!' to all our guests who helped us collect rubbish on their dives and we will do our share and continue our clean up dives in the future in order to preserve their health and beauty."
 
If you would like to read more about our Dive Against Debris activities, have a look at: http://www.projectaware.org/diver/emperordivers-nuweiba.

Emperor Sharm El Sheikh - Dive Against Debris

Report by Kirsty Stenhouse

As part of Project Aware's Global Campaign, 'Dive Against Debris', guests at Emperor Divers in Sharm have been doing their part to pick up as much waste in the local area during the month of September.

Clean up dives have been carried out every Friday afternoon at a range of different dives sites off the coast with the amount of rubbish collected from each site ranging from a couple of kilos to over fifteen kilos in one dive!

Man made waste in our water is a serious threat to all marine life across the planet and it has been estimated that over a million sea birds and 100,000 marine mammals die every year as a result of this debris.

The Red Sea is widely regarded as having some of the world's most diverse and beautiful coral reefs, with over 700 different individual species of corals and thousands of fish species. Plastic debris, in particular, is particularly harmful to coral reefs as well as animals such as turtles, sharks and sea birds.

Over the last month divers at Emperor Sharm have collected more than 60 kilos of man made waste, including several metres of fishing line, plastic bags, glass bottles and pieces of rope and clothing.

A number of interesting items have been found, notably an entire rug, a large metal cable, a giant plastic screw and part of a metal staircase!

A big thank you to everyone who got involved; watch this space for more clean up dives to come!

On April 22, the world will be celebrating Earth Day - a time to honour our natural environment and to lend a helping hand in keeping it clean and tidy.

Emperor Divers' centres will be doing their bit and inviting guests to join in. For instance, Emperor Sharm El Sheikh is offering a free 3rd dive on all our boats as a clean up dive; El Gouna is organising an underwater clean up in conjunction with the Movenpick Hotel from our day boat; Nuweiba will be taking part with an organised clean up too and the chance to win an exclusive Nuweiba Oscar at the end of it! Hurghada and Marsa Alam will also be doing their bit to help the Red Sea environment.

So if you're out diving with us on the 22nd, grab some feel-good factor and do your bit to help make the Earth - well, the Red Sea - a better place to live.

El Gouna
Clean up Day on Northern Tawila Island

26 September

This is a joint effort by Emperor Divers and other centres, staff, guests and residents to clean bird and turtle nesting grounds on the Island.

Boats will leave at 08.30 and hotel pickups, food and water is arranged.

Are you visiting El Gouna then? Then join in and make a difference!

Contact Mat Cotton, Emperor Divers' El Gouna Dive Centre manager manager.elgouna@emperordivers.com and book your space. It's FREE!

Our newest fishy favourite in Marsa Alam is 'Kermit' the Warty Frogfish. First spotted by our dive guide Sarah, Kermit now resides near a table coral in Marsa Mubarak, meaning you can see stonefish, scorpionfish, crocodilefish and a frogfish on one dive!

Over the past two months he has grown from about 5 cm to nearly 10 cm...although being a warty he won't get much bigger!

Dive Marsa Alam - book today!

Each Sunday in Nuweiba, you can now learn about the area's coral reefs through a 'family fun day' and award yourself with the PADI AWARE Coral Reef Conservation Specialty. 
 
This weekly event aims to raise awareness in the form of trash dives helping Nuweiba maintain its unspoiled beauty and pristine coral gardens. Organized beach clean ups and underwater clean ups make a significant impact in helping us to preserve the amazing underwater ecosystems.

After the clean up, Emperor's Nuweiba team invites you to take part in the Coral Watch monitoring dive where you learn how to record and monitor corals and return data, all of which helps in preventing the destruction of our world's most fragile environment.

On completion of the day's activities, guests can choose to see a free Coral Reef Conservation presentation by the staff allowing them to earn the PADI AWARE Coral Reef Conservation Specialty.  Here you will learn:

Nuweiba Dive Centre Manager, Ute Friedrich, reports...

Never before have I seen one here, but just the other day in Ras El Shetan, I found the robust ghost pipefish. And what made it even better is that I was diving with Barnsley BSAC Divers. It took a little while to get everyone to recognise that this little thing was indeed alive and well and not some masquerading piece of ghostly seaweed!

David Patchett, Diveleader of the group, happily confirmed that none of the group members had ever seen anything like it before.

And the icing on the cake was that the same group saw two seahorses the day before in Magana!

The HEPCA Mooring Team recently completed their periodic maintenance rounds in the Northern Islands. Their five day trip established 19 new moorings and maintained nearly another 30. The trip included some of the reefs most visited by the diving industry including Shaab Abu Nuhas, Siyul Al Kabeir, Shabruhr Siyul (East and West), Onghosh and Siyul Al Sagheir.

Mustafa Abdulla, the Head of the Mooring Team said, "Our team had a great time; they were blessed with great sea conditions, and besides we always enjoy our trips to the pristine northern reefs!" He went on to thank HEPCA's members and supporters in the north, who play a vital role in reporting damaged moorings, missing buoys and mooring violations.

Duncan McAllister, Sharm el Sheikh's dive centre manager, reports:

"Its official, after so many near encounters the end has finally come and the 'Dan Era' is over. After more than five years Dan Zanoni, Marine Biologist, has left the building and gone on to pastures new. We tried to keep him, but when you are up against someone's dream job you're always facing an uphill struggle.

Dan has always wanted a job that combined his diving, his degree (marine biology) and involved some form of research. Out of the blue in November he was approached by his old university in Norway with an offer to return and be in charge of their new Sperm Whale Research Team and it was just too much temptation to resist.

And so we say farewell to a very popular member of the team, but I am sure we will be able to get him to do some guest appearance articles for the Newsletter, as these have proved so popular. I wonder what those might be about?

He says to all his friends - if you ever want to go snorkelling with Killer Whales in November in Norway, feel free to make contact, but bring a dry suit and extra thermals, you'll need it."