Ever since I first went scuba diving ten years ago in Australia, off the Great Barrier Reef, I’ve been thinking about a return to the underwater world. It’s quiet (despite the sounds of the regulator making bubbles) and magical; swimming feels more like flying to me, and my body moves smoothly and efficiently, more seal than human.
My recent visit to the rivers and springs of Florida to visit manatees has firmed my resolve to get PADi-certified so I can dive properly and explore the blue world underwater. My interests are mainly in warm clear waters, in search of colorful fishes, graceful large undersea creatures, and hopefully some hardy and resilient corals.
However, this week I came across some examples of other reasons to go diving. In this story in National Geographic, writer and explorer Tara Roberts recounts her discovery of the diving group Diving with a Purpose. Here’s what they do (from her article):
…a group of predominantly Black scuba divers called Diving With a Purpose (DWP); they search for and document missing slave shipwrecks around the world. They helped with the discovery and documentation of the São José Paquete d’África shipwreck.
…since 2003, DWP has been training ordinary people as underwater archaeology advocates to assist archaeologists and historians in finding the submerged history of the African diaspora around the world. People as young as 16 and as old as 90 participate in this work. The only requirement is an interest in scuba diving and a commitment to perfecting your diving skills.
So she joins them, and begins the process of scuba certification, specialized marine archaeology training from DWP, and then trips with them to search for and document the stories of people who were kidnapped and transported against their will and perished during the transatlantic slave trade.
You can watch a documentary about the search for slave wrecks here on Youtube.
Roberts has written a book about her experiences, called Written in the Waters: a Memoir of History, Home and Belonging. It just came out, and I’m looking forward to reading it. Will report back with a review.
My curiosity was activated by reading about Roberts’ voyage of discovery through diving. What projects are going on out there in the water whose purpose is greater than pursuit of colorful fish?
Turns out, there are loads of environmental and other organized diving groups, doing work they find personally meaningful and which contribute to the health of our planet.
One such program is called the Dive Against Debris diving certification. The PADI certification organization sponsors this program for training divers to learn how to survey sites targeted for debris cleanup. And there are a lot of such sites. Here’s a map of sites they’ve mapped out already:
You can learn more about the cleanup efforts in the Florida Keys in this video.
Unsurprisingly, there are organizations that keep track of and facilitate both learning and volunteering for underwater environmental projects. You can find such a list here, for example.
First things first, though: gotta get PADI-certified. Time for one of my favorite things: adventure travel planning!
Readers, have you done any underwater volunteer work? Any on-the-ocean environmental citizen science? I’d love to hear from you.