71% of Earth’s surface is covered in water. The planet’s ocean are vital to its health.
Life Underwater
Both Dylan and I have spent a significant amount of time on the water and under its surface. We are both scuba certified. We have also both lived in Hawaii, where we spent a ton of time surfing, swimming and free diving or snorkeling. We care deeply about the health of Earth’s oceans.
Offshore diving in Hawaii
The ocean is in danger
We have all heard about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch -the huge island of plastic and human waste that has accumulated in the North Pacific ocean. This is just one of many threats to the ocean.
You probably also know about microplastics, and the fact that all plastics break down over time and fill the ocean with microscopic, hazardous particulates.
Clearly neither of these things are good, and it would be great if we could solve these problems.
Save the turtles
Yes, we all saw the video of the poor sea turtle with the straw in it’s nose. It was tragic. A lot of people and places discontinued straw use because of it. That’s good! But it barely touches the surface of the problem.
Plastic is the issue. Plastic straws make up a fraction of a percent of the plastic in the ocean. If you use reusable shopping bags, great. Studies have shown, though, that the largest contributor to plastics in the ocean is the commercial fishing industry. They discard plastic nets and other materials in huge amounts. Believe if or not, the best thing you can do to help reduce plastic in the ocean, in our opinion, is to either not eat fish, or to procure your own fish (or non-commercially caught fish).
Scuba
In addition to protecting the ocean, we are interested in using it to help us find solutions.
Much like the sky is a great environment in which to home your problem solving skills, the ocean is, too. Scuba diving is a fantastic skill to learn as a problem solver. Learning how to survive in environments that are inhospitable to humans makes one better at seeing solutions and reacting under pressure. The skill of scuba diving also helps us explore this necessary ecosystem and better understand it. There are also direct parallels between surviving underwater and surviving in space. The life support systems share many similarities. Neutral buoyancy is an analog for microgravity. These are some of the reasons that NASA uses the underwater environment to train for space missions. NASA Astronaut Kayla Barron, one of the first women to serve on a nuclear submarine, said in her NASA interview that the ISS is basically a submarine in space -she isn’t wrong!