Diving-Club@Billabong

Save the Beach event at Villingili – Snorkeling trip

After a long pause in the activities of the diving club, caused mainly because of a blockage in the Eustachian tube of my left ear (a consequence of some forced equalizing during my last dive), some students at Billabong High decided to participate in one of the snorkeling groups of a cleaning event organized by “Save the Beach” which happened in Villingili on Saturday, March 2^nd.

At 8:20 in the morning, Aysha (former student), Hanani (9A), Ahnaf (9A), Muaviz (8B), Alhan (8B), Janan (8B), Ahzam (8B) and I took a lorry from Billabong High to Villingili´s terminal. Half an hour later we met with some more Billabong students, then with the two other members of our snorkeling group Daha (8B) and Daniel (10A), and finally at around 9:15 we met with the Into Scuba team who provided us with t-shirts, lifejackets and some extra fins.

To reach the reef, each student had to jump from an estimated height of 3 meters, put their masks and fins on, and then swim against an uncomfortable current. Each student had different tasks such as carrying lifejackets, looking for garbage, carrying the garbage, helping those few who weren´t very experienced snorkelers or taking pictures. Once at the reef, the current was perfect for all of us to drift along it and enjoy the underwater view which included a small manta ray.

All in all, we did two long trips along the reef, finished at around 1:30 pm and saw all kinds of garbage including plastic bottles, plastic bags, cans, cigarette boxes, diapers, t-shirts and office chairs. Unfortunately, we also noticed that the reef isn´t well preserved and a big part of it has died as a consequence of negative human intervention. We all hope that these kind of awareness events will not only become more frequent but will also succeed in promoting an environmental culture in this country in order to preserve and protect the great underwater biodiversity of the Maldives.