Thresher Shark Divers put on a very special event for International Cleanup Day this year, with a truly international group of volunteers from the UK, China, USA, South Africa, Italy, Portugal, France, Canada and Israel and others.
Clean up briefing with Mike
The afternoon’s festivities started with free cleanup dives. About 40 volunteers went out to various dive sites around the island. We even managed to stop the IDC for half a day and our eager Instructor Candidates and Course Director John Taylor joined the cleanup.
Some of the volunteers leaving for the cleanup
For those people who were not diving (or too young to dive), there was plenty of trash to clean up on the beach.
Beach cleanup
After a triumphant return with many sacks of trash, we distributed our usual free ‘Cleanup Punch,’ a lethal concoction of Andrea’s mixing, and Project Aware certificates and stickers were awarded.
Project Aware certificates all round
Our youngest volunteers were Matt (aged 4) and Siv (aged 9) from Denmark. Siv was gutted that she was too young to become an Open Water Diver on this trip, but still became a Bubblemaker and a PADI Seal Team member.
After a six month shark course in school she is already signed up as a ‘Lifetime shark protector’, she is a budding conservationist and dive instructor, and was particularly proud of her Aware Kids prizes.
Next up on the agenda was a fundraising beach BBQ with pork, chicken and (sustainably fished) seafood. All proceeds went to Project Aware.
The highlight of the evening was our raffle draw for an assortment of prizes. After 5 days of frenzied ticket buying, everyone had their favorite gifts in mind. Prizes ranged from free meals at Oscar’s Restaurant and drinks at the Pub, to PADI courses, to souvenirs, to just plain silly (‘Free midnight swim for two!’).
The grand prize was a free PADI Thresher Shark Diver specialty course and this was definitely the favorite prize for ticket buyers. As the Thresher Shark course emphasizes shark conservation and Project Aware’s “Protect the Sharks” campaign, it was a fitting prize.
There were about 20 prizes awarded in all, so a lot of people won something. Max seemed to do the best, winning seemingly every other prize, but then he did buy a lot of tickets. Some people were happy just to win the shot of Single Malt Whiskey from Trevor’s private collection, others longed for the private island tour with Cecile (our most sought after waitress). But the most enthusiastically wished for prize was by John Reed who desperately wanted the Discover Tec experience. Unfortunately, John didn’t win the award, but Jason did. Jason could see how much he wanted it and so he kindly donated the prize to John. What a great friend. So John did go to the ball after all and is now hooked on tec…
Despite huge numbers of tickets he bought, Jason did not win the Thresher Shark Diver Specialty course (that honor went to Steve). But as he made our biggest cash donation of USD200 in cash, we decided to give him an additional free Thresher Shark Diver course anyway, for being such a sport. Thank you Jason, you’re a star.
Everyone had a really good day, it was a lot of fun, and certainly something we will repeat in the future.
In total we had over 50 volunteers and raised a lot more money than we every expected. As the final amount raised was so close to four figures, Trevor and I decided to make up the rest to a grand total sum of money raised of AU$ 1,000!!!
Project Aware will be receiving their check imminently.
All diving, freebies, drinks and prizes for the event were donated by Andrea, Trevor and Mike at Thresher Shark Divers.