Astro Kasih, one for the books

RUBBISH normally would be a huge turnoff but for Team C2 that is participating in this World Record chasing endeavour, there was loud cheers as they set out to dive into the ocean to collect as much rubbish as possible at the Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park.

Today I will be diving with this group not as a volunteer but to observe the underwater cleanup as a media personnel.

The Guinness World Record (GWR) sets strict rules that we had to adhere to; One: At least ONE diver had to stay submerged at all times and Two: Every diver had to pick up at least ONE item of rubbish to complete the feat.

Another rule not on record – the media can’t tag along divers freely, and that means me. Basically I had to get a dive instructor to follow me dive with the group in this mission, to keep my distance and not interfere with their cleanup effort.

Equipped with my GoPro camera, my (hired) dive buddy, Christine and I set out on the same boat as C2.

GWR also set exact time schedules for divers to go down and come up to make sure there are no gaps in the diving time and there will always be overlap of divers so the transition is seamless.

“Ok we are going down in 30 minutes, you may go down first to do your recording while waiting for us” said Yohanes aka Apong, the diver leader of the group.

I cued my cameraman to get in position to record my standupper right before I did a backroll from the boat into the sea.

“Saya kini akan turun ke dasar laut bersama kumpulan penyelam ini untuk mengutip seberapa banyak sampah yang mungkin. Mari kita lihat berapa banyak sampah yang akan berjaya dikutip.”

“SPLASH!”

From the impact of the jump, I was submerged for about three seconds. Immersed, sea water covered my head and all I could see were tiny bubbles against a shimmering blue background.

The air in my BCD pushed me back up to surface and I signaled an “OK” to the rest of the team on the boat.

Christine joined me in the water later and we went down first. The 6 kg bars round my weight belt enables me to sink down the depths to counter the buoyancy once in the sea.

While I wait a few more minutes for the rest of the dive team to descend to my level at about 15 meters depth, I was mesmerized by how superb the visibility was.

Everything in the ocean seems so clear. The colours of the corals were absolutely amazing, I could see almost 50 meters ahead of me.

On previous dives, I heard the visibility wasn’t that great as it had rained a couple of days back.

The moment all 7 divers jumped into the sea, they immediately started looking for trash.

Our first diver spotted a huge fishing net covering a coral reef as big as a Kancil car. The rest then helped him by cutting the nets free using a knife and placing the shredded nets into their mesh bags.

The whole time I was filming them cutting the fishing nets, it saddens me to see how the reefs seems “choked” under those nets.

The big house reef had many other smaller corals growing all over it. Some were flatten and even crushed in areas where the net covered.

Fishing nets were among the most common form of rubbish collected after plastic debris.

Sea corals need sunlight to grow. Plastics or even something as small as bits of even tissue paper that covers a coral reef will stunt its growth. After 3 days without sunlight, the coral dies.

Fishing nets however pose bigger threat. Big fishing nets that get tangled on coral reef (and sometimes fishes and turtles too!) will get dragged by the currents.

Broken pieces of corals stuck to the fishing net makes it even heavier. If another wave of current sweeps in, the fishing net can knock down a whole coral reef that have probably have grown for 30 over years - utterly destroying it in the blink of an eye.

Coral reefs are also home and food for the fishes and 70 percent of marine life.

No corals equals no fish. No fish leads to no food, and hence no income for fishermen.

Imagine having seafood for dinner. How about a steamed garoupa? Freshly caught just from the ocean. Wait a minute, the plastic bags in the ocean, the fish must have eaten them too. In which it results in us eating the fish that ate that plastics, having also plastic debris ending up in our stomachs.

Now what should we do about it? Bingo. Don’t throw plastics into the sea. Not the sea, not even the river which will eventually leads into the oceans.

The earth is covered with 70 percent water. Though many might not see what goes on underneath the sea, the reality is real. Corals are dying, turtles choke on plastic bags and dies, deceived that it’s their favourite food, jellyfishe.

Corals are also very sensitive to changes. Any changes in the ocean salinity due to contamination can cause the corals to be subject to stress and die. Too much sea urchins, jelly fishes or algae, would indicate a polluted sea.

As a diver you don’t want to see those. You would want to see a thriving and healthy coral life, big macro creatures like turtles, shark, rays (my favourite is whale shark!) and not forgetting the micro stuff like the ever colourful nudibranchs.

And who could resist the prospect of stumbling into Nemo and his dad, Marlin hiding shyly in the anemone reef.

My GoPro camera kept rolling as I tried to find Nemo behind those coral pink reef. It has been almost 60 minutes we were underwater. The dive leader signaled his other members to ascend to surface. Every single mesh bags was stuffed with all the rubbish they manage to collect.

The group cheered on happily as they collected quite a lot of trash. We went to the base boat to weigh them and found almost 30 kg rubbish collected in a single dive!

The record however was not to collect the most rubbish, but to have the longest cleanup. 168 hours of underwater cleanup for Guinness World Record. The first of its kind!

But it could also been the most trash collected underwater as we finally clocked in at 168 hours 28 minutes cleanup at 3,171 kg of rubbish!

After the last person of the last team ascended - it was a huge celebration on the boat. Everyone roared cheering the last group who finished the underwater cleanup setting the world record.

The last dive also collected one of the heaviest trash weighing 90.5 kg! Even after the cleanup, there were still rubbish underwater.

Now that the volunteers have completed the 168 hours of nonstop underwater cleanup, it’s now up to the locals to continue preserving their own marine park. There needs to be more awareness projects such as Astro Kasih underwater cleanup and education must also start from schools especially on marine conservation.

Click here to see the pictures of the record making journey.