Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category

More PADI Awards!

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

At Thresher Shark Divers we always strive to be the best in everything we do and so we were over the moon to be recognized again in the PADI Annual Awards.

This year we were awarded finalist in two out of the five categories: the Project AWARE Conservation Award and the Outstanding Dive Center Business Award.

The Project AWARE award is one that we actually won last year, and we are very happy to have continued recognition of our conservation efforts. Currently we are focusing on adding to our artificial reef mostly thanks to Matt and Emma’s hard work over the last month.  More on that story coming soon!

PADI Project AWARE Award

We are especially pleased  and proud to receive the Outstanding Dive Center  Finalist award for the second year in a row. The award recognizes outstanding achievements across all areas of our operation. TSD always tries to maintain the high standards we have not let slip since opening, but we also continue to expand into new areas. In the last year alone we have…

It is the most prestigious award granted by PADI and we were up against some very tough competition.  As a relatively new business compared to most of our competitors, it means an awful lot to us.

PADI regional manager, Jimmy Christrup visited Malapascua recently to formally present us with our awards.

PADI Awards

L-R TSD Instructors and DMs: Holly, Riza, Justin, Dino, JN, Gibb, Mike, Andrea and Jimmy Christrup from PADI

Also this year we have been awarded the following:

Project Aware 2009 International Environmental Achievement Award

The International Environmental Achievement Award honors dive operators around the world who display commitment and excellence in their efforts to protect underwater environments within business operations and their community.

“The Environment Achievement Award is about rewarding vision, excellence and pursuit of conservation. More importantly, this award ensures the enjoyment of underwater environments for future generations.”

Go Eco Status

Go Eco Operator The main objective of Project AWARE’s Go ECO is for dive centres to minimize their impact on the aquatic ecosystem whilst contributing to environmental, economic and cultural conservation. Dive centres are required to meet best practice environmental guidelines and commit to the Project AWARE Go ECO philosophy.

Joanne Marston, Manager, of Project AWARE Asia Pacific added, “We are pleased to recognize Thresher Shark Divers as a Go ECO Operator. We look forward to working with them to implement environmental best practices and educate tourists about how they can travel responsibly.”


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Project AWARE kids day

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Yesterday, TSD was proud to receive word that we have been awarded the 2009 PADI Project Aware Environmental Achievement Award for “exemplary efforts to conserve aquatic environments through education, advocacy and action.”

This is hot on the heels of our recent visit last week to the local school to hold a Project Aware Kids event. As part of our ongoing effort to protect the local environment, we have an outreach program for the local kids. Our island is very small with only one junior school and one high school. Many of the kids that attend are the children of our employees, but many are also the children of local fishermen. No matter what their parents do for the living, most of them depend on the health of the local reefs to survive.

We believe in change through education and also in providing alternatives to fishing.  By employing almost exclusively members of the local population we hope to help alleviate the burden of local parents to feed their families by fishing. Through education we hope to change behavior to protect the local environment, both above and underwater and we need to work with the next generation of Malapascuans as well as the current.

Project AWARE were kind enough to send us a huge box full of goodies for our event. Their fab kids materials include stickers, activity books, and teacher’s guides. The books are chock-a-block with  fun facts, information and ideas to promote environmental awareness.

Armed with these materials, our intrepid team headed off to the ‘barrio’ (village). Head of the charge was Mike – our soon to be resident Course Director – along with TSD’s Filipino DM JN, interns Sanna and Liz and general helper-outers Jason and Carley.

Liz, Sanna, Jason, Mike, JN

We chose the age group of 12 and 13 years olds for our first classroom presentation, as the school teachers thought they would be the most receptive.

Kids

We handed the books out and talked though each section, told them about Project AWARE. The colorful books were a big hit.

Liz, Sann and JN in the classroom

JN led the classroom session as he was born and bred on Malapsacua and of course speaks the local language.  Although naturally shy, he soon warmed to the role and the kids obviously loved him – he is a well known face on the island and it is seemingly every Malapascua child’s dream to grow up to be a Divemaster!  They discusses many aspects of conservation and underwater life, including various local marine life and of course our thresher sharks – their importance to the local economy and their place as apex predators in the food chain. Sustainable fishing methods were also discussed, as well as the trash problem faced on the island and our regular cleanup events.

Next off we handed out Project Aware stickers and gave each child an activity postcard.  They were instructed to take them home, complete the conservation-related word puzzle on the back, and return it to their teachers the next day so we could post them to Project AWARE for their recognition certificates.  Amazingly, out of the 57 distributed, all 57 were returned the very next day!!!

As trash is a big problem on the island, and things tend to get thrown away wherever and whenever they are no longer needed, Sanna had devised an inventive game.  She distributed wrapped candies to all the children, then they had to throw the wrappers into a trash can from a distance.  Whoever, got the wrappers in the trash can got another candy.  Pavlov, check out Malapascua :-)

Trash game

It was a very successful day.  The kids loved it and were all very interested in what we had to say, and they hopefully took some of it in.  Of course we do not expect miracles overnight, but we hope with a continued effort we can make a difference.

Thank so much to Project Aware for all the materials, the kids and the teachers loved them!

And for anyone who is thinking about doing any PADI course or wants to replace their cert card with a shiny new Project AWARE version -  be sure and give a donation to Project AWARE to receive a special certification card, the money really does go to a cause.

Project Aware

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Project Aware Cleanup and Fundraiser

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Thresher Shark Divers put on a very special event for International Cleanup Day this year, with a truly international group of volunteers from the UK, China, USA, South Africa, Italy, Portugal, France, Canada and Israel and others.

Clean up briefing with Mike

Clean up briefing with Mike

The afternoon’s festivities started with free cleanup dives. About 40 volunteers went out to various dive sites around the island. We even managed to stop the IDC for half a day and our eager Instructor Candidates and Course Director John Taylor joined the cleanup.

Some of the volunteers leaving for the cleanup

Some of the volunteers leaving for the cleanup

For those people who were not diving (or too young to dive), there was plenty of trash to clean up on the beach.

Beach cleanup

Beach cleanup

After a triumphant return with many sacks of trash, we distributed our usual free ‘Cleanup Punch,’ a lethal concoction of Andrea’s mixing, and Project Aware certificates and stickers were awarded.

Project Aware certificates all round

Project Aware certificates all round

Our youngest volunteers were Matt (aged 4) and Siv (aged 9) from Denmark. Siv was gutted that she was too young to become an Open Water Diver on this trip, but still became a Bubblemaker and a PADI Seal Team member.

After a six month shark course in school she is already signed up as a ‘Lifetime shark protector’, she is a budding conservationist and dive instructor, and was particularly proud of her Aware Kids prizes.

Next up on the agenda was a fundraising beach BBQ with pork, chicken and (sustainably fished) seafood. All proceeds went to Project Aware.

The highlight of the evening was our raffle draw for an assortment of prizes. After 5 days of frenzied ticket buying, everyone had their favorite gifts in mind. Prizes ranged from free meals at Oscar’s Restaurant and drinks at the Pub, to PADI courses, to souvenirs, to just plain silly (‘Free midnight swim for two!’).

The grand prize was a free PADI Thresher Shark Diver specialty course and this was definitely the favorite prize for ticket buyers. As the Thresher Shark course emphasizes shark conservation and Project Aware’s “Protect the Sharks” campaign, it was a fitting prize.

There were about 20 prizes awarded in all, so a lot of people won something. Max seemed to do the best, winning seemingly every other prize, but then he did buy a lot of tickets. Some people were happy just to win the shot of Single Malt Whiskey from Trevor’s private collection, others longed for the private island tour with Cecile (our most sought after waitress). But the most enthusiastically wished for prize was by John Reed who desperately wanted the Discover Tec experience. Unfortunately, John didn’t win the award, but Jason did. Jason could see how much he wanted it and so he kindly donated the prize to John. What a great friend. So John did go to the ball after all and is now hooked on tec…

Despite huge numbers of tickets he bought, Jason did not win the Thresher Shark Diver Specialty course (that honor went to Steve). But as he made our biggest cash donation of USD200 in cash, we decided to give him an additional free Thresher Shark Diver course anyway, for being such a sport. Thank you Jason, you’re a star.

Everyone had a really good day, it was a lot of fun, and certainly something we will repeat in the future.

In total we had over 50 volunteers and raised a lot more money than we every expected.  As the final amount raised was so close to four figures, Trevor and I decided to make up the rest to a grand total sum of money raised of AU$ 1,000!!!

Project Aware will be receiving their check imminently.

All diving, freebies, drinks and prizes for the event were donated by Andrea, Trevor and Mike at Thresher Shark Divers.

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August IDC

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

Our IDC started on August 1 with four eager but slightly panicky candidates.

Martin with Petr and Mike getting ready to do skill circuits

Martin with Petr and Mike getting ready to do skill circuits

First up we had Martin, who is changing careers. He’s making a sideways jump from the snowboarding industry to diving and had been with us for 4 months already. He had spent an unprecedented 6 weeks out of the water due to ear infections and was hurriedly catching up on missed water work prior to the IDC.

Next was Petr, the crazy Czeck children’s brain surgeon. Petr was at TSD last year doing his DM and came back for his summer holiday this year to do his Assistant Instructor course.

Petr’s first few days were full of mishaps. On the day he arrived he was so excited to be back, that as he was getting off the boat, waving at us with his phone in his hand, he managed to drop it in the sea. Very shallow sea, but still deep enough to kill a very expensive Nokia. The next day, he managed to lose a fin on a dive. The day after he broke a fin strap on his brand new pair of fins…. And then he got himself an ear infection. Still, it gave him time to finish his knowledge reviews and brush up on physiology which was not his strong subject (joke only, ha ha, he’s a doctor). Despite all this he managed to do stunningly well on his Assistant Instructor course.

Number 3 was Lil’ Dave who was still recovering from being ill for a week, and it was touch and go as to whether he would be okay in time to start.

Working hard!

Working hard!

The only person that was in tip-top shape at the start of the IDC was Mark. In retrospect, this was to be expected as he had just come from Manila where he was practicing with his teammates in the Volcanoes, the Filipino national Rugby Team. Mark kept his ‘other job’ very quiet from us all until it slipped out after the IDC. His month as TSD was his ‘break’ before he heads off to Malaysia to play for his adopted country. But despite his excellent physical shape, it had been a year since Mark did his DM and some serious swotting up on Physics was required.

So the run up to the IDC was slightly hectic with lots of last minute preparations. But then… we all sat down for the welcome lecture from CD John Taylor, and it had begun…

The IDC begins...

The IDC begins...

The IDC went very well. Petr finished his Assistant Instructor course and sadly had to leave halfway through… but someone has to save those children’s lives in the Czeck Republic. He plans to come back next year to finish what he started. The others carried on to finish the entire IDC. Everything went very smoothly and by the end of the course our lads were up to speed.

Confined Water Presentations

Confined Water Presentations

After all this preparation and all the training, our three candidates sailed through the two day Instructor Exam. No problems at all – everyone passed everything first time, scoring mostly 4.5’s, 4.8’s and 5’s (out of 5).

Classroom presentations

Classroom presentations

Martin, the poor thing, got Spencer limits to explain, but Mark lucked out and got the same classroom presentation he had given during his IDC.

After returning triumphant to TSD as newly certified Open Water Scuba Instructors, it was time for them each to complete five Specialty Instructor Ratings. Our instructor, Kim, joined them for this one and finally there was some female input on this IDC!

Wreck Specialty Instructor course - learning how to tie off lines inside wrecks without getting yourself all tangled up in knots!

Wreck Specialty Instructor course - learning how to tie off lines inside wrecks without getting yourself all tangled up in knots!

Last but not least, after three weeks of very hard work, was the IE party. We made it into a big party with a spread laid on courtesy of TSD for the candidates, our staff and customers.

Congratulations!

Congratulations!

A very good time was had by all.

Mark has already moved on to find work before he has to head off to Malaysia for the Asian rugby tournament. Martin and Dave will be with us for a few more weeks completing their MDST Prep program.

Congratulations guys!

TSD's three newest Instructors!

TSD's newest Instructors L-R Instructor Examiner George Wegmann, Martin, Dave and Mark

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PADI Project Aware recognizes TSD

Monday, March 30th, 2009

We are very proud to announce this week that we have been notified that we will be the recipients of not one, but two PADI Project Aware Environmental awards

  • TSD is the winner of the PADI 5th Annual Project Aware Marine Environment Award. This award recognizes outstanding ecological achievements, with a focus on fostering environmental and cultural understanding, appreciation and conservation
  • We have been awarded Project Aware GO-ECO Operator status. This is given for our efforts to ensure that we are environmentally responsible, dive practices are sensitive to the marine environment and environmental education is available for visitors.

We are also pleased that we were the runners up for the PADI MEMBER AWARDS in the categories of

  • Outstanding Dive Center Business Award and
  • Diver Retention Award

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