Tag Archives: Diving

Sustainable Fishing

How does your Facebook feed look like?

If your Facebook feed is covered in posts telling you about our ocean being covered in tons of plastic, what we can do about it, asking you to help saving our oceans, sharing posts from Project Aware, Sea Shepherd and PADI, informing you when our oceans will be empty from fish, letting you know how many sharks are killed by humans every year instead of the other way around, how turtles suffocate on plastic bags, how many marine spices gone extinct the last few years (and the list goes on and on.) These posts are most likely coming from that friend with the underwater profile picture. Your fellow diver.

And it’s true. We do care more about the ocean than most because we breath in it every day, right? We see what massive negative effects humans have on our water planet and we understand how important it is for us and our life on land.

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One thing Quo Vadis Dive Resort care about a little bit extra about today (and all other days) is how the increasing global demand for fish has pushed the oceans to its limits. For hundreds of years the fishermen have respected the ocean, only taking what he need. Today he don’t respect the ocean anymore and without any fundamental restructuring of the fishing industry the ocean will soon be empty.

One billion people (yes, you read it right) rely on fish as their biggest source for food. So you can just imagine the size of this issue we are facing. As consumers we need to stay informed on which fisheries are sustainable and which are not. We need to know which fish to buy and what progress is being made globally.

All life on our earth is linked to the ocean and its inhabitants. The more you know about it the more dedicated you will be to help out. Read, talk and thirst for more knowledge.

Here is some links to help you get started. Read about what fish is on the menu and what fish better not be. http://www.goodfishguide.org/
http://wwf.panda.org/how_you_can_help/live_green/out_shopping/seafood_guides/

/Caroline and Charlie

 

5 awesome facts about the seahorse

1. Did you know that the Latin family name of the sea horse, hippocampus, translates to horse seamonster? They sure don’t look very scary to me. Their size are ranging from tiny 1.5 cm up to 35 cm. 2.

2. They don’t have any stomach and because of the missing stomach these horses needs to eat all the time. To be exact they need to find at least 3000 tiny shrimps every day or they would die of starvation.

3. The male seahorse really takes his daddy role very serious. In this relationship the male are the one to carry all eggs in his pouch. Of all the eggs only one of thousand survives to an adult size. Some studies shows that they are extremely faithful to each other. Once they find a sea horse partner in their taste they stick with each other for the rest of their life. How romantic!

4. To great exercise can kill this little creatures so mostly they are sitting on the same coral relaxing and eating. Except to gain too much weight the only thing this guys need to worry about is the hungry crabs. If the dwarf sea horse needs to run from the crab he faces a problem, since his horse powers only can create a top speed of 1.5 meter per hour…

5. The seahorse are endangered by over fishing and habitat destruction. The Chinese medicine market has a huge responsibility since they convinced the chines people that seahorses cure impotence, wheezing and pain. Which has non-scientific proof. 20 million seahorses are estimated to been taken from the sea by this reason every year.

The fishing of the endangered seahorse has been controlled by CITES since 2004. CITES is a Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Sadly enough Norway, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia didn’t sign the law. Support CITES and other ocean fighters that supports our ocean with knowledge among the local people.

Denise’s Pygmy Seahorse at the divesite Umbrella

 

 

Meet Caroline

13445776_10154314896642430_3164609797173540346_nMy name is Caroline Sandstedt and I will also be blogging here together with Charlie, so I want to give you a chance to get to know me a little. So who am I? I’m the girl who got addicted to scuba diving, I’m always the one with the loudest laugh and the largest suit case. I grew up in Sweden but since I have been old enough to travel I have not stayed put since. I have tried a lot of different jobs in my 26 years; I’ve been working as a waitress, barista, copywriter, art hostess, nanny, telemarketer and saleswomen. But it turned out all I ever wanted to do was to work with scuba diving.

I started diving 11 years ago but it took a little bit longer for me to fall in love with this world and lifestyle. When I was 22 I travelled to Thailand and there the underwater beauty got to me and I quickly worked my way up from Open Water diver to Advanced Open Water then to Rescue Diver and then I was stuck. Like really, really stuck. Have you ever heard about the dive virus? Whatever it is, I caught it and now I work as an instructor and dive center manager at Quo Vadis Dive Resort and my life is complete. 11264860_10153376111792430_4036510932369688699_n

I always tell my friends: if you want to be really good at something you have to truly love what you do. And I live as I learn. Going from an office job in Sweden to practice my passion in the warm tropics was a life changer and a life saver.

I’m in love with the ocean and being an Dive Instructor was the most obvious choice, giving me the chance to spend countless hours in the place I love the most, teaching people how to enjoy the colourful life under water and to show them how to take care of it so we can enjoy it’s magnificent beauty in the future.13510961_10154314891402430_40901198977813199_n

So if you want to learn how to dive and if you want to be inspired, I’m definitely up for the task. Make you holiday stand out and I can promise you an experience you will always remember. I’m hoping to see you underwater soon!

Visa Wait

When I lived in Thailand for a few months we had to do what they called a Visa Run, get out of the country (if only for a couple of hours) and come back again to get a new stamp in the passport and allowance to stay another 30 days.

In the Philippines, Visa Wait and Queue would be a more apt name. I went to the local immigration office in the city yesterday to sort out an extension (here’s a tip; no flip-flops or shorts are allowed, so wear trousers and shoes), and waited in three separate lines before getting that stamp. I also paid 3,030 pesos, must be very expensive ink (although it did come with a paper proving that I’m not a terrorist). It wasn’t too bad though, it only took about two hours, so could have been a lot worse.

Being in the city I also took the opportunity to buy some new gear; wet suit, fins and a Suunto Zoop dive computer. So now I have a complete diving kit, and finishing my rescue course tomorrow. Dive Master here I come.