In this episode of The Dive Locker Podcast we learn why dive pro’s should adopt the phrase “leave the dive site cleaner than it was when you arrived.”

Welcome To The Show!

Welcome to The Dive Locker Podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest in diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management and dive business.

So today I’m sharing another one of my tenets – one of my personal professional mottos. It is “Leave the dive site cleaner than it was when you arrived.” Now this sounds like just a nice tip or a saying, but it’s far more powerful than that. It has the power to be a rule in diving, and a best practice for divers and pro’s, but it is also a powerful teaching tool. And I will share all this with you.

How This Began

The year was 1988 and I had enrolled in the Assistant Instructor course at the University of Florida. It was a hard transition for a PADI Advanced diver to transition into a combined NAUI, YMCA and CMAS Assistant Instructor program taught in an academic institution. The whirlwind of concepts that the UF Academic Diving Program prided itself on like knowing gas law front and back, were truly a challenge for me.

Now, in a program like that you had instructors who gravitated to areas of passion. A couple were math aces and they were the gurus for the gas laws and formulas, a few were pre-med and they loved physiology, and then there were the environmental sciences majors who loved all the environment content of being a dive professional. But the interesting thing was, everyone on staff without fail was conditioned to cleaning up dive sites when we went diving. And I don’t just mean collecting garbage off of reefs.

We were taught and everyone subscribed to the motto – “Leave the dive site cleaner that it was when you arrived.” And here’s how it manifested in my very first encounter with this rule. So let me set the stage. The University of Florida Academic Diving Program was the large university diving program in the world teaching over 1,200 students per year. Our Open Water Diver course had around 200 students each semester. And yes, as an Assistant Instructor in training we had to do our first presentations to an auditorium of 200 college students. Talk about nerves and learning how to teach and public speaking – that’s for another episode.

But with so many students we had a couple diving options – they could do the Keys option or the local option. Keys was a trip with overnight stay, whereas the local option was a 45 minute drive from campus both days. About half went to Keys and half stayed local.

The Motto in Action

So during my AI course we were taking our Open Water students on their open water dives 1 & 2 to Manatee Springs State Park near Cheifland, Florida. We had about 75 students, we reserved two pavilions and we spread out four massive blue tarps on the ground for the student’s equipment.

The dives went fine and each instructor and assistant debriefed with their students in little clusters all around the area. Then as if on cue the lead instructor called all the groups together and said please put everything in your cars and come back here in two minutes we have one last piece of your training for today.

When the students came back David went into saying we leave all dive sites cleaner than they were when we arrived. That means right now we are going to walk around our area and then some and we are going to pick up every piece of trash including stuff that’s not yours, it was here when you arrived.

Student Response

Now you could tell some students were a little taken aback but David went on to explain about the sinkhole and spring we had just been diving in. And how trash will make its way into the water, then into the aquifer, and he explained the devastation to the environment, the animal life and drinking water. And again that was 1988 not as big a time for environmental concern.

But once the students understood the WHY behind the motto, everyone scattered about cleaning up the park. If they couldn’t find trash they went somewhere where they could. Not only was it the 75 student it was our 20 or so staff too. All of us combing the park and picking up every possible piece of trash.

The next day we would go to Ginnie Springs or a local lake and in the briefing we carried that to the underwater cleaning of the dive site as well. Students would see trash underwater and pick it up. Then, at the end of day two, again the call to action goes out after the debriefing and all the students and staff clean up the dive site.

Lasting Benefits

Now fast forward. Several years later in the early 90’s. Manatee Springs State park had to restrict diving due to the environmental impact that divers had on the sinkhole and spring. They cited that not only was there damage along the banks from divers entering and exiting, but the amount of trash left behind by divers was overwhelming and the ecosystem was suffering.

They put this restriction in place and at one point shut down all diver access. That is except for the University of Florida’s Academic Diving Program. And in a letter by the Florida State Parks Manager, The University of Florida Academic Diving Program was given a special permit to dive there because quote “they care for the park as much as the park rangers do.” Wow!

This has played out over and over and over again. We got such a reputation that we were able to get special access on private properties for lake dives and small spring runs. Operators thanked us for our efforts Blue Grotto, Ginnie Springs all the dive sites around the university. But it even worked when we went on dive boats. Our groups would clean up so much that the boat crew was so appreciative of how we helped them and cared for their boats and the reefs they frequented.

This has stuck with me through the years at Emory and Georgia State, YMCA Scuba Program, Pro Dive and now at NSU.

Make This Motto Part of Your Culture

The key is making this motto part of your culture. As a pro and your entire dive center, must teach this to your students. The important teaching point to this is, it’s not good enough just to clean up trash on a reef. You got to clean it up before it gets there. That’s the ah-ha moment that it clicks. And when they, your students adopt it as a rule – cleaning up the dive sites both underwater and topside – That is powerful.

It is a great example to set. You will be known for this. And that will win you favor and rewards both seen and unseen. You know in episode 40 i gave 13 ways to be an ocean ambassador. Well doing this makes you a water embassador. You’ll help ANY location your diving lakes, quarries, rivers, sinkholes, springs. And even pools.

Once at a city’s municipal pool in Pompano Beach, we did this and the Aquatic Director wrote us and said how great we were and how impressed she was by our cleanliness and professionalism. Guess what, once there was a conflict in the schedule and the pool was double booked. Guess who they gave the reservation to? That’s right, our dive shop.

So as you can see the benefits are numerous to adopting the motto leave the dive site cleaner than it was when you arrived. Do this, put it on your walls, make decals, put it in your operational manual, get it out there by doing it yourself and teaching others to do it. Adopting this motto will make a difference to you and your business, your students and especially the aquatic environment.

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Thanks For Listening!

That’s it for today, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher, that way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live and please leave a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes Page at scubaguru.com . There you can also click the microphone and leave us a comment. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care of my friends.

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