Krnica, Croatia
In April of this year, I was invited to take part in the Healthy Seas 10th anniversary as Ghost Diving USA’s President which I happily accepted. After much planning leading up to the September event, a quick 13 hour flight to Istanbul, a five hour layover, a two hour flight to Ljubljana , and finally a two hour drive to Krnica, Croatia, I arrived the night before the event was to start.
The six day event consisted of team leaders from 12 different countries all there to celebrate 10 years of Healthy Seas and at the same time take part in five days of debris recovery in the the area. Each day consisted of one dive with specific areas and goals in mind. We would run on two boats with the teams were split accordingly. One of our main objectives during these cleanups was the recovery of gillnets. I was shocked at the amount of gillnets that I saw, and just how destructive these nets are. Within 5 minutes of the very first dive for the event we encountered numerous crabs and lobster that were entangled but still alive in the gillnets. We were able to free everything we saw, but it emphasised just how destructive these nets are. I have not encountered these here in the United States. I was shocked at how many live animals we saw in the nets in the short amount of time we were there and how many we were able to release each day. I am happy to report that we were able to finish our goals and recover hundreds of pounds of debris, nets, lobster pots and various bits of garbage.
Krnica is a very small rural town on the east coast of the Istrian peninsula in Croatia. It is beautiful and picturesque. Each night was spent in a local restaurant in Krnica that had great Italian food. Since the moment I arrived I was greeting warmly by the Healthy Seas representatives and all of the team leaders from the other countries. English was the preferred language (thank goodness!). Being able to talk with leaders from the other chapters was extremely educational for me. I learned a lot of recovery techniques. Other teams use different techniques because of the various conditions the teams are diving in. We were also able to discuss the logistics of how they run their chapters.
On the final day, all of the teams, donors, and representatives drove up to Ljubljana, Slovenia and took factory tours of Econyl and Aquafil. This was quite an experience for me. I had never seen the upcycling process in person and now I’m able to bring that experience back and educate people in our presentations and outreach events on how the net is processed and repurposed. Seeing the warehouse filled with 60 tons of net that turns over every 30 days also hit home and highlighted how big the problem is, but also how beneficial the partnership with Econyl and Aquafil is to us.
Finally, once the event was finished, I returned to Krnica for 2 extra days of some fun Tech 2 wreck dives with a new friend from Ghost Diving UK.
My take away from this experience is that we are everywhere, just like the slogan says: “ghost fishing gear is everywhere, but so are we”. There are chapters all over the world and everybody that I met is just as passionate as we are about problem and the solution. I dove with almost everybody at the event at different times, and everybody is exceptional in the water. Standardization of underwater communication, cleanup procedures, gases, and equipment made logistics and dives easy and efficient.
I’d like to give a huge thank you to Krnica Dive and Maurizio Gurbach for providing everything for us, and making everything so easy for us during our stay.
