By Imad Farhat

On August 19th, we hit the water once again! This time, together with Healthy Seas, we organised our pilot cooperation project in the warm Mediterranean waters of Lebanon.

After rigorous scouting, the Ghost Diving Lebanon team together with the marine conscious minds at North Coast Divers, successfully located a humongous abandoned fishing net, one that was set up to be used as a channeling trap to catch schools of fish such as skipjacks, barracudas, little tunnies, and lots of other species that roam the area.

To our great sorrow, the first scouting dive revealed the sad truth to why we do this job! We were too late this time, a juvenile green turtle had been entangled in the net. Unable to set itself free, it suffocated and died.

Thankfully, our other encounters were moments of joy! We were in time to save other entangled animals such as a red mullet, some crabs, shrimps.

Joined by the dear friend Jenny Lord, a member of the Scuba Seekers family in Dahab and Ghost Diving Egypt, armed with our trusted lift bags and ropes, we went out to shoot that enormous ghost net to the surface.

Visibility was not great but we are accustomed to that since the conditions are most of the times reduced to mediocre once we start  maneuvering the net.  Forty minutes into the dive, we had already scanned, assessed, attached the lift bags to their designated locations and initiated the lifting process.

But, the approximately 400 kg net insisted not to leave the bottom! After lots of hard work, trying to cut off the net connection points to the bottom, and after bursting 2 of the liftbags due to the huge weight, the team managed to send the net upwards to the surface for collection.

Lifting that ghost net onto the boat was not easy either, neither moving it from the boat onto land. The only option was to cut it into smaller pieces. At the end of the day, although a dramatic event such as finding a majestic green turtle dead in a ghost net will never be sight easily digested, knowing that our seas are now with one less threat, is a huge relief and a source of joy.

A huge thanks to the team, David Ferris, Elie el Khoury, Christian Khater, and our beloved Dahabian visitor Jenny Lord for the efforts done on that day and for the continuous support in our missions.

Imad is the leader of Ghost Diving Lebanon, an underwater photographer and videographer and GUE diving instructor.