How to save the coral reefs.
Stop touching and kicking them. Seems simple but the fact is all the dive sites at Caño Island Biological Reserve, a forest and marine conservation area 12 nautical miles or 22 kilometers, offshore of Drake Bay, Osa peninsula, are heavily damaged by scuba divers. There are still too many dive guides who not only fail to prevent their clients from touching and damaging coral but carelessly set a bad example themselves.
When you shop for your dive shop, ask them if they will assure that all guides will take great care with the marine life that grows on the bottom. Report careless guides who allow touching directly to the guards at the island ranger station and to the administrator and owner of the dive operation.
Many people do not know that here the bottom is just as delicate as a Caribbean reef. Even if you cannot see coral there could be a wide assortment of life becoming established on rock. You should not grab the bottom. You should master buoyancy control before you come to scuba Caño Island and demand that the people you dive with are ready to help you observe and protect the coral, not destroy it.
Costa Cetacea guide and PADI scuba diving instructor Shawn Larkin has dived the island for two decades and says, “Caño Island is a terrible place to learn how to dive. Between quickly changing currents, visibility and temperatures, delicate and easily damaged bottom life, and far from medical help remoteness, Caño, like Cocos Island National is best enjoyed by advanced divers. I would guess between 30 and 50 percent of scuba students drop out. There are thousands of calm, easy places to learn how to dive in swimming pool like conditions where you will not hurt coral. Learn to dive in one of these places, master buoyancy control, and them come see the incredible scuba diving of Caño Island, or just come free dive and snorkel.”
2009 Copyright Shawn Larkin www.CostaCetacea.com. All rights reserved.
