President Obama used his executive power on Friday August 26, 2016 to create the world’s largest protected marine area off the coast of Hawaii. It quadrupled the size of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument to 582,578 square miles, making it more than 50 times larger than the entire land area of the Hawaiian Islands.
I know for the diving community this is a big important step in preserving our underwater environment. The sad part is that, why should it take a Presidential Order to do what everybody in the world should be doing, protecting our precious underwater world.
This brought back thoughts of how the island of Bonaire, thanks to Captain Don’s ideas of making the island an underwater sanctuary many years ago, transformed it into a thriving economy, making the pristine underwater world available to thousands of divers.
I also thought about Dee Scarr, dive instructor, and creator of the program “Touch the Sea” which she ran during her life on Bonaire. I met Dee in the 70’s when I started diving the waters of Bonaire. Every time I visited the island, I always had a chance to dive with her at her favorite site, under the town dock. I remember one dive when after we finished looking for, and photographing Mantis Shrimp. Dee led me to a small coral outcropping just 100 feet from the dock. This was the plan. I was to hold the covered, I think a Planters Peanut can filled with chum, and at a given signal from Dee open it up to release some of the food, and then close it, and then just stand still. Dee was armed with two underwater cameras complete with strobes, this was pre digital, and she was going to photograph what was going to happen. What was going to happen? We never discussed this part of the dive. So, I opened the can, releasing some of the chum, and quickly closed it. All of a sudden from that small coral outcropping came, very fast, a six-foot moray eel, headed for, you guessed it, me. Once the eel devoured what food was in the water, it started to search for more, on me. As it searched it wrapped its body around me, giving me the chance to have its body run through my hands. Finally frustrated, the eel put its head right up to my mask, looking me in the eye before swimming away. A very memorable dive to say the least.
