Dive success

THE organisers of Dive Fest Barbados 2018, hauled in a second year of a successful festival which mandate is to protect coral reefs and sea turtles in Barbados.

Speaking at the Festival’s closing ceremony at Copacabana, Bay Street, where the event also opened on July 4, Andre Miller, of the Barbados Dive Operator Association, thanked all those who participated in the successful week of activities.

“First of all, Saturday, the second batch of one hundred Barbadian children started swimming on that beach. The more children we have swimming the healthier our reefs will be. This whole thing started with a movie night on Tuesday, thanks to all those who attended our free diving movie.

“The second day we started with our conservation work. We did beach clean-ups on Needhams point and a couple of the dive shops did some underwater clean-ups. In total we removed about 530 pounds of marine debris. Some of us will use that garbage to build our recycled boats.

“We did a submarine Rodeo. We got strapped to the deck of a submarine and to see photographers who have travelled this world giggle like kids, that was so amazing!

“We had some lion fish hunts from the West Coast, all the way to the South Coast. We did some turtle tagging on the West Coast, we did night diving, we did beach and we did wreck diving. We did some more coral nursery out planting,” Miller said, as he spoke passionately about what he described as an amazing week of activities.

Meanwhile, Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA), the title sponsor of Dive Fest, Senator Rudy Grant, said the new Festival has potential for further growth and development, and could possibly attract an increasing number of visitors to participate in the activities.

“So we will continue to partner with Andre and with the other entities, to ensure that we are continuing to have a successful Dive Fest. Diving is very important to us as a sub sector, but we have to ensure in the same way that we are focussing on such an activity, that there are other activities that we have that are able to enhance the visitor experience,” Grant said.

Participants in the various competitions that were included in the week’s activities, were awarded for their contribution and achievements. (AH)