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Beach and Reef Clean Up - Koh Keung Badaan - Pattaya Thailand

On Tuesday 24^th July we carried out a reef and beach clean-up at Koh Keung Badaan, Pattaya, Thailand. The clean up site was chosen because we had not done a clean-up there for a long time and there have been a lot of Thai fishing boats in the island bay over recent months.

We set off from the dive center at 09:15 accompanied by a reporter from the Pattaya People newspaper and arrived at the site at 10:45. After being briefed about the dive objectives and things to be aware of, the 16 scuba divers headed off in buddy teams to see what they could find. Within minutes of entering the islands water the first tyre was found and brought up, less than 5 metres from where our dive boat was anchored. An hour later we had recovered another 5 tyres, several discarded fish traps, a mass of fishing line and netting, 78 glass bottles and a wide variety of other bits and pieces, including a television, a radio/ cassette player, a mobile phone and a phone charger. As always all nets, traps, tyres and bottles were checked for living occupants and any that we found were quickly returned to the water or removed prior to exit.

After lunch we headed off to the islands beach where we spent an hour picking up bottles, lighters, shoes and polystyrene. Some of the guys resourcefully made a raft out of driftwood to float the rubbish bags back to the dive boat, while others swam back towing several bags tied together with rope. Once the collection from the beach had been loaded onto the boat we set off for the second dive of the day. This bought the number of tyres recovered to 9 and glass bottles to 178. Amongst other items found there was a wrist watch, a mask and snorkel and several items of clothing. By 15:30 everybody was back on board and, after doing a role call just to be sure, we headed back to Pattaya Bali Hai pier where we were greeted by a photographer from the Pattaya People.

On Friday 28^th July a full page report was printed on Page 3 of the Pattaya People newspaper which is now proudly on display outside the dive shop. Pattaya People are to cover many more clean ups for us in this area. We are planning a big clean-up for September 15^{th 2007}, which is international clean-up day and would like to get as many scuba divers and non-divers involved as possible. We are hoping to obtain permission from the local authorities to hold a barbeque on the beach at the end of the day and will also be organizing a raffle to raise money for Project AWARE.

Written by Sue (Mermaids Green Coordinator)

Many thanks to all of the divers that took part and Sue for organizing the event. Please do take a look at a couple of pics taken from the day. Each picture opens in a new window (pop-up).

	I think that the mid day sun got the better of these guys ...

Marine Debris facts - startling facts about debris in our marine environment