Reef Check Instructor Course - Dennis Adams
Dennis and Mood, Scuba Cat Diving Instructors completed a Reefcheck Instructor course at Scuba Cat Diving aboard Liveaboard MV Scuba Cat at Racha Yai Phuket, Thialand. The course was taught by Prefessor Suchana Chavanich from Chulalongkorn University who is the Reefcheck coordinator & a trainer for Thailand.
Dennis commented "I have to say this was probably one of the most interesting course I’ve ever done in my 9 years as a diver and for sure I will certainly be looking at reefs in a different way when diving".
The course itself focused on who Reefcheck are and how Reefcheck studies contribute to global data used by various organizations to advise country governments on the current health of their reefs and ways to preserve them. To make actual Reefchecks Dennis and Mood also had to learn the methodology of actually doing a Reefcheck plus the key fish, invertebrates and substrates important for the monitoring of the reef ECO system to assist in it’s survival from human impacts, disease and global warming.
Having learned the above Mood and Dennis then put their new knowledge into practice by completing two actual Reefcheck’s at Racha Yai Island working from the Scuba Cat liveaboard. From the data recorded they were please to see that the reef was in a healthy condition apart from some very slight human impacts from minor anchor damage and some discarded fishing nets. So, good news for now, hopefully it can stay this way with a bit of help from us divers.
Scuba Cat Diving, Thailand has established a permanent Reefcheck transect line at Racha Yai and hopefully other divers interested in monitoring our reefs will come along to Scuba Cat Diving, Phuket, Thailand and become trained as Reefcheck Eco Divers to assist as volunteers in the monitoring of our reefs.
"For something that gives us so much pleasure, us as divers must contribute to its survival."
