Story by Karen Erens and Jean-Marc Claes
Photos by Karen Erens
September 17, 2023 — International Clean Up Day — did not go by unnoticed by the cruising community in Curaçao.
Because Curaçao is nicely positioned outside the Caribbean’s hurricane zone (so designated by many boat insurance companies), many sailors seek shelter here during the season, and many are particularly attracted to The Spanish Water, a 360° protected anchorage in the middle of the islands. Its lagoon-like qualities make it a superb place for passing the hurricane season. Add to that the island’s many amenities for quality living for sailors, including supermarkets, restaurants, a plethora of activities for adults and kids alike, good marine services provided by several marine supply shops (Budget Marine, Freedom Machine), also haulout services from Curaçao Marine, and even dry storage, and you get a recipe for a wonderful time — and perhaps some garbage.
So on September 17, we (Karen and Jean-Marc of s/y Blowing Bubbles, a specially equipped scuba charter sailboat on hurricane break in Spanish Water), took the initiative to organize an underwater cleanup at Spanish Water. Together with fellow cruisers and scuba divers, we would clean up the ocean bottom surrounding our boats.
Organizing this event was a handful. Not only did we need to get permission from the local government (as we would be scuba diving in the navigational waters of the anchorage, controlled by the harbour master) but for safety reasons, we consulted with the Coast Guard about the diving activities. Cleaning up garbage is important, but so is keeping it all safe.
In preparation, we organized a group of cruisers who would be scuba diving, and trained them to safely use special recovery air-lifting balloons to lift heavy objects from the bottom. This training would be helpful in their regular sailing adventures — for example, when an anchor gets stuck or a heavy object gets lost from the boat.
This course in search & recovery was offered for free by ScubaBiz.help, a company that does what its name says: Helping within the scuba business. We were grateful for the much-needed help to get this project from idea to reality.
These well trained cruisers/scuba divers also gave us an inventory of the objects to be recovered, in order to prepare all needed gear for the cleanup day itself. It was a challenging list:
- 2 sunken dinghies
- 1 outboard
- Several big boat batteries
- Several truck tires
- etc…
This required several air lifting balloons and multiple dive tanks for inflation.
The list of needed equipment was handled by us, s/v Blowing Bubbles. A local dive operator, Curious 2 Dive, gave a special discount on dive tanks and dive gear so more people would be able to join in on the cleanup, as smaller trash would also be collected from the bottom.
After about three weeks of preparation, C-Day was approaching. One day before, marker buoys were attached to the large objects to be lifted from the bottom. This could not be done further in advance as the risk for outboards/boats getting entangled into these buoys would be too great.
C-Day was a reality, with 29 people showing up at the start of the event, bringing dinghies, dive gear, ropes, masks, snorkels and most of all, a lot of positive energy!
Even a team from the Coast Guard and the airport fire department came out to help!
During what became a five-hour cleanup event, a total of 2,400 pounds (1200kg) of garbage, rubbish, and litter were collected from the bottom.
An impressive amount was piled up in front of Uncle J restaurant. It’s next to Spanish Water and the perfect place to deposit the heavy objects but also, because of Uncle J, the place where a large container would be placed, to make sure all the collected garbage would be taken away to get recycled.
A special moment during this day was the recovery of a large dinghy (15ft/5m) filled with sand and water, pulled out with the help of many sailors — and the discovery and rescue of an octopus living within the sunken hull of the dinghy!
So, no animals were harmed during this cleanup event!
At the end of the day, the beautiful moments, the positive energy and so much more were celebrated with a cold beer for all those of legal age. Don’t get me wrong, young cruisers did their share of cleanup, too, and they were rewarded with cold soft drinks.
This was truly a unique example of teamwork, community work and excellent spirit spanning ages, gender and nationalities — 16 nationalities were present during this international cleanup in Curaçao, making it a truly international cruisers event!
Are you joining us next year?
Karen Erens and Jean-Marc Claes, professional scuba divers, have voyaged aboard the Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 50 Blowing Bubbles since June 2021. Watch the YouTube video of the cleanup: youtu.be/nX4ZZKcm3uk. Find out more about ScubaBiz at scubabiz.help — you can even download the monthly scuba magazine for free.
