Diving at the North Sea is not easy… in many ways. Often our diving trips are cancelled due to bad weather just before the action could take place. A group of enthusiastic volunteer divers are continuously preparing and scheduling trips, but whether they can leave the harbour or not is always a question. This weekend we were lucky!
Wreck Diving Team Zeester in the Netherlands left the harbour of Lauwersoog early in the morning on Saturday 4 November, to continue their quest for ghost nets. They are organizing lost fishing gear removal for Healthy Seas at the North Sea since a few years already.
The weather was good and the divers were determined, so everything was in place for a successful mission. With only two dives they managed to remove huge amount of ghost nets again!
The discarded, lost, or abandoned fishing nets are often called “ghost nets”, since they continue to catch fish and other marine animals without human involvement. Millions of marine animals, including sharks, dolphins, seals and turtles suffer and die because of entanglement in these nets.
Every year, some 640,000 tonnes of fishing gear are left in our seas and oceans. It’s plastic waste which remains in the seas for hundreds of years and doesn’t biodegrade. According to a recent report, by 2050 there will be more plastic in the seas & oceans than fish. We all have to work hard against it, not to let it happen. Yesterday again we made a step into the right direction.
A big thank you to all divers involved, more missions coming up soon!
