It was an action-packed weekend for the divers at our PADI 5 Star IDC Dive Centre on Gaya island, who assembled to remove another discarded net from our beloved TAR Park in Kota Kinabalu.

After reporting the net and obtaining the relevant permissions, resident PADI Course Director Richard Swann assembled members from our staff team and Go Pro interns to attack the net.

The net removal procedure was explained to the team in a thorough, tailored dive briefing, after which they set off to the site to do the needful.

Environmental awareness is a priority for Downbelow, especially when it comes to groups.

So when 18 Danish adventurers joined us for a week of snorkeling and learning how to dive, it was no surprise that where others may see only students, we saw champions for the fight against shark extinction.

One of our local divemaster inerns, Victor, took it upon himself to spread shark awareness and make the Danes aware of what peril our shark populations are in.

It's a new year with a fresh start, but fishermen will fish and their nets will get caught on the reefs. 

Downbelow's Instructor Paul spotted the net a couple of days ago already, but with our January Instructor Development Course in full swing, plus a surge of diving clientelle, we didn't have any manpower to spare.

Yesterday however, Richard spotted a lull and instructed Paul to round up a crew and extract the net, which he duly did.

PADI Course Director Richard Swann has just completed 7 speciality instructor courses with 2 recently qualified PADI Open Water Scuba Instructors.

Steven and Sevket have been with Downbelow for the last 2 months on professional diving internships, becoming PADI professionals.

One of their elected speciality courses was the AWARE Shark Conservation Speciality.

For this, Course Director Richard donated his time and offered the program for free.