BIG BLUE - Share the Life

Students from Concordia International School in Shanghai (CISS) signed up for a 10 day Ecology program.

After 4 months of hard work, training 15 non divers in PADI Open water in Shanghai with both Joel Klammer and Paul Adams PADI Instructors from Big Blue it was finally time to depart on a scientific study where the final icing on the cake was a scientific study of a delicate ecosystem where data will be used world wide.

The Friday evening departure at Pudong airport (13th of June 2008) started with the parents and young scientists saying good bye for the next 10 days where they boarded the flight with Terry Umphenour, Colette Vroom, Joel Klammer and Paul Adams.

After an early morning arrival in Thailand we transferred to Club Bamboo in Patong where we checked in and assigned rooms.

The next day at an early breakfast we were greeted by Sarah from Scubacat where we introduced everyone before spending a relaxing day around Patong where Scubacat generously helped with transport of everyone from Club Bamboo into Patong.

After a relaxed day it was an early night before the next day where the underwater adventure would begin.

Transferring out on Scuba Adventure we arrived at our new floating home “Scuba Cat”. After a lengthy introduction to the boat and assigned rooms we prepared to take 4 groups of open water students diving for their 3 training dives and the remaining 5 already certified Open water divers for fun diving.

After a fantastic first day of training people began to get into the life of scuba diving, by the end of the 2nd day, every one had completed their Open water Course successfully.

The next 2 days focused on Advanced open water where we covered, Deep, Navigation, Peak performance buoyancy, Fish ID and Drift Diving, everyone successfully completed these 5 adventure dives which earned them the title of PADI advanced openwater diver.

Now its time for the final course, the whole reason the trip was put together, the scientific study. Project Reef check course – led by Reef check instructor Dennis Adams with other Reef Check Instructors Kathryn Ridley and Mood while PADI Instructors Joel Klammer, Renee Robins and Paul Adams became Reef Check Instructors taught by Suchana Apple Chavanich, Ph.D. of Chulalongkorn University, Department of Marine Science.

After returning safely back to shanghai all members of the first Ecology trip reunited with their family.

The achievements from this ecology trip were:

18 impressive environmentally aware Advanced Open Water Divers certified to perform reef check in at least 1 area where most of the people had at least passed 2 of the 3 areas.

The largest reef check program ever run world wide (20 participants)

The generation of 4 surveys over two transect lines.

The second reef check instructor course to be run onboard a live aboard world wide.

The First two reef check instructors in main land china (Joel Klammer and Paul Adams)

And one Master Scuba Diver

This is the most impressive program run to date with Big Blue, Scubacat diving, Project Reef Check and Concordia International School Shanghai.

Big Blue is proud to be a part of this program, to see the hard work of everyone involved the team work and for it work out successful that created environmentally aware Divers who we hope will continue on and become leading ambassadors of our oceans and continue to work to study and survey our dwindling underwater world. We would like to thank all the participants for working so hard and achieving what they set out to do, we wish to see everyone back some day and hope that you continue to explore the underwater world.

We are proud of all the participants: Alby Ghazal, Amanda Galvin, Anthony Wonsono, Casey Rueschel, Catherine Klammer, Christina Tsai, Donald McCarty, Emily Arslain, Jane Chow, John Barret, Joshua Neumaier, Kathleen Mcilvenny, Kristina Arslain, Margaret McCoy, Matthew Faircloth, Min Ju Lee, Rachel Bolten, Sabrina Yuen, Taylor Jurgens, Terry Umphenour.

And would especially like to thank the following people: Terry Umphenour, Sarah Kench, Joel Klammer, Paul Adams, Colette Vroom, Dennis Adams, Professor Apple, Renee Robins, Phil Lineker, Margaret McCoy, Kathryn Ridley and Mood.

If you would like to see this same program in your school, please ask your school to contact us or contact us to find out how you can be involved.

Quote: “Great trip would do it again in a heart beat and learned a lot” – Donald McCarty

Quote: “This trip was amazing and all the instructors made it even better. The dive sites were amazing and I can't think of anything that could've made the trip better...” - Christina Tsai.

[ 2008-06-13 ]