Abandoned fishing net recovery
Written by Sarah Whitcher Friday, 31 July 2009 23:14
We recently had a marine biologist (Hubert) who specialises in sea snails and his 2 daughters, Jasmin and Ines as guests at Dive In Dahab. Richard and I invited ourselves along to one of his snorkelling trips in the hope that we would learn and see more because of his keen and trained eye.
From Dive In's house reef Islands we snorkelled south towards Napoleon reef, Hubert and Jasmin freediving down to inspect corals and fish closely followed by Richard and myself. About twenty minutes into the snorkel we came across an abandoned fishing net lying over a plateau of coral from 0 to about -4m. The net looked like it had already been there for a couple of days and had obviously been left there by a Bedouin after he could not recover it from the coral. We estimated the net to be 15m x 4m and it was completely spread out across the coral, trapping fish between the coral and the net. We could not see any fish fatalities yet but we knew that the coral would be damaged and the longer the net stayed entwined with the coral the more damage would be done.
When we returned to Dive In we put an alert up on the dive planner board for volunteer scuba divers to help us with the fishing net recovery. A few days later we had found our volunteers and we designed a plan for the net recovery. Relying on Hubert's knowledge and experience we came up with a plan that we would have two teams of scuba divers who would work at opposite ends to free the net and use our freediving buoys to support the disentangled parts and land the net.
So Elke, Rolf, Anne, Alex and myself worked on one end of the net with Hubert, Ines, Jasmin and Richard at the other. At the surface Nils - Elke and Rolf's son - snorkelled and helped keep the buoys in place. Wearing gloves and often having to use our knives we slowly started to free the net. Ideally we wanted to keep the net intact but some of the net had entwined so deeply in the coral that we had to cut it out. As we untangled the net from around the coral it was clearly visible where the coral had started to discolour and die. As the net lifted up fish were able to swim around freely, which in itself was a good thing to see. Richard and I tended to the freed net and ensured that it did not further catch on the coral, eventually gathering it up and taking it up to the buoys. In the beginning we had the impression that we would have to come back several times before the entire net would be freed. But we got the hang of it and the ends of the net were the worst part, so when our computers registered 45 minutes, we lifted the last of the net off the reef and then Richard, Alex and myself swam to shore with the net safely stowed in the buoys.
Back at the dive centre we took stock of the damage that the reef had suffered, as some bits of coral had been broken off in the net either during or before the recovery. Overall the broken bits were next to nothing compared to the devastation the net would have wreaked over the years had it just been left there.
This was one of the most rewarding jobs I have ever been a part of and I am sure everyone that helped felt enormous satisfaction that we had done our part in helping preserve the very environment that is our playground.
On a side note, just today we were told by Anne, our in house marine biologist, that during the swim out to the site, she just might have discovered a species of sponge that has not been found in the Red Sea so far.
