Kon-Tiki Krabi´s International Beach Clean Up – 2013

As with all the previous years we always look forward to September with excitement, the clean-up day is here.

We prepared ourselves with all necessary equipment like rubbish bags, gloves, fruit and drinks, data sheet, 1^st aid kit and of course all of the prizes from our generous sponsors. After all the banners were in place, prizes displayed, rubbish bags and information posters were in place, we got started.

We welcomed all of our volunteers, dive guests, KRABI tourist police, and a team of almost 14 people from Macro, Paulo, the owner from Long tail boat restaurant, and some tourists. All in all we were about 50 people gathering rubbish on Ao Nang beach, willing to make an impact for the environment.

Everyone got divided into teams and was provided 1 big rubbish bag, 1 big ice bag (for more dangerous materials) and latex gloves to use when picking up all the garbage with. We also informed and provided our collectors with data sheets from Project AWARE, so we could record all of our findings. This information will send to Project AWAREs database, being an important tool for Project AWARE, as they lobby different governments on what is happening and how the environment is affected. But also to keep statistics if we get more or less debris as the years goes by.

The day was a great success and just this morning we managed to collect 106 kg of rubbish in just 2 hours.

To make it more exciting for our volunteers we made the day in to a small contest with our sponsors handing out the following prizes.

1^st prize – Aqualung Departure bag (value of 6890 baht) donated from Aquamaster in Phuket

2^nd prize – Dinner for two at Carnivore Steak & Grill (value of 2000 baht) & Pepeete Snorkeling set from One Stop

3^rd prize – Mix of swimming goggles, rash guard from One Stop and many different items from Blue Mango Restaurant

There were of course the Project AWARE diplomas, as well as other small handout to other participants, like the Krabi tourist police and to MACRO who all helped out with the beach cleaning.

It was a perfect day with small glimpses of sun, even though the rain was pouring down on us.

Kon-Tiki Krabi would like to send a big thank you to our Sponsors

More happenings coming up in high season, so keep posted for “Dive for Earth” and “Divers Night”!!

Kon-Tiki Krabi

Kon-Tiki Krabi´s Instructors is swimming for the sharks!

Yesterday we showed the world that we take the fight for the sharks by implement our Finathon.

What is the Finathon™? Like a swimathon, fun run, cycle race or marathon – the Finathon is a great way to bring the community together, raise awareness and funds to support this unique cause. With your help and support can we:

Fight to stop shark finning

Insist on full protections for critically endangered sharks

Negotiate stronger policies to ensure a brighter future for all sharks

Shark fishing is largely unregulated around the world. Overfishing, bycatch and finning – the cutting of sharks fins and throwing away the body at sea – kills thousands of sharks every day. Project AWARE has recently helped close loopholes in the EU finning ban and secure international trade protections for 8 of the world’s most vulnerable sharks and rays. But, to ensure the survival of sharks, stricter, enforceable controls are needed for more species at national, regional and global levels.

Two of our finest instructors accepted the challenge to swim for Ao Nang beach to Poda Island if we raised 500$ but we didn’t reach all the way to our goal and ended up at a little bit over 300$. But our instructors still felt that they had to do something, they swam from Ao Nang beach, pass Tonsai beach to Railey west and then ending up at Phra Nang Beach, a distance of around 4.5 kilometer in the time of two hours and forty minutes in rain and wavy weather.

We at Kon-Tiki Krabi would like say thanks to all people who donated money to our event and help us spread: Extinction is not an option!

If you want to take action and fight for the sharks, you can find more information about how you can make a different at http://www.projectaware.org/

 

 

Kon-Tiki Lanta is releasing a new Android app to support Project AWARE

“Andaman Reef Guide” is a simple application that holds a database and interesting facts about the species on the reefs of the Andaman Sea.

By purchasing this app for around 100 baht the user will get access to 300 pictures and information about the coral reef. 20% of the profits will go to Project AWARE, a foundation that supports the conservation of the marine environment.

The application is also linked to monthly updates on the Kon-Tiki website that holds more in depths information regarding specific marine species.

The app will soon also be available on AppStore for iPhone.

The application can be purchased here:
http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.com.kontiki.fishid&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImFpci5jb20ua29udGlraS5maXNoaWQiXQ

Read more about Project Aware:
http://www.projectaware.org/

Biggest cleanup in the world!

If was early up in the morning of 30^th September! This day Kon-Tiki Phuket would be a part of the biggest underwater clean up in the world with more than 450 divers just as many non-divers and 16 dive boats cleaning the reefs of Racha Yai, Racha Noi, Coral island and Phi Phi islands. .

Earlier this year, Tony Andrews, PADI regional manager for west Thailand contacted all dive centers with an idea of doing an underwater clean up. At the first meeting around 10 dive centers showed up for support and within the next couple of months the event just got bigger and bigger. But it was not only dive centers participating. All official government offices were there from marine police and the Thai navy to governor office to tourist authorities of Thailand.

Kon-Tiki left for Racha Noi with around 20 divers. Our task was cleaning up Banana Bay south. Onboard our staff Mikael Stenberg, Mikael Nilsson, Michael Mengel and Jim Chance went through the day’s program with all the other divers. We went through how to collect rubbish, what we should take back to the boat or leave, how to separate it and how to protect the ocean in the future.

First dive went good and with the staff guiding the divers and filling the bags. Then we had time for lunch and ready for the second dive. The biggest thing we found was a fishing net weighting around 300 KG and we estimate we had just about 600 kg of rubbish. We found things like ropes, cans, glass bottle, plastic bottle and fishing lines.

Before reaching the pier all boats who participated gather together at Koh Lon for a group photo. But the day didn’t end there. In the evening everyone was invited to party at Kan Eng 2 in Chalong. We had speeches from PADI and government officials, raffles (I won a dry bag), donations to Go Eco Phuket, free food, free beers, live bands and as the big surprise, JOB 2 DO a very famous Thai band.

In total 15 tons was collected, 450 divers and just as many non-divers, more than 100,000 THB donated to Go Eco Phuket underlined that this was a new world record for most people doing an underwater clean up. Will we do it again – Absolutely!

Kon-Tiki Phuket likes to say thank you to all who participated and anyone else who was involved in this event. Without you we couldn’t have done it. If you have pictures or stories you like to share please send an e-mail to Michael Wallentin at manager@kontiki-phuket.com

The international cleanup day in Krabi sept. 30th

Every year Kon Tiki-Krabi arranges a clean up day on this date. This year we choose to do it a little different because PADI´s big underwater cleanup in Phuket.  Instead of doing a normal reef cleanup we partnered up with the newly open dive shop in Ao Nang, The Dive. Together we went out in the Ao nang archipelago visiting three different islands. With us on the boat we had, 1 PADI Open water diver course doing his last 2 dives, 2 guests doing PADI discover scuba diving from Hong Kong, and the Dive joining with 2 divers from france and a few staff from Kon Tiki. The day was absolutely perfect with clear blue skies, a flat sea and great expectations for the dives. The total amount of rubbish collected was “sadly” only about 15m net (collected with 9 divers). This is good news, as this means that we all are getting better and better on making sure that no rubbish is just thrown overboard or just dumped where we can´t see it. In the end of the trip we also managed to get a nice donation to PROJECT AWARE from everyone that joined us.

Now we are counting the days until our high season schedule starts, as then we have a weekly underwater cleanup planned starting from oct 15^th-apr 15^th.

Slowly, we can all make small efforts. But joining forces and by doing it together, small gets big!

 

 

 

Conny Jeppson
Assistant Manager
Kon Tiki-Krabi