Roughly 1 million divers are certified every year, ONE MILLION. There’s no denying we are in one of the fasting growing industries, but what does the effect of all these new divers have on the reef, and what are we doing about it? In a recent GreenFins study they told us up to 70% of divers come into contact with the reef. That’s a lot of reef damage, and it’s not something to ignore.
Individually we can do something about it by simply not touching and treading on corals, but it’s the dive centres we look to to educate their students and customers.
But how do you know which dive centres are reef-friendly? Luckily we recently came across a new scuba travel agency SeaCrush who only list hand-picked diving operators chosen for their commitment to conservation. We take a closer look at why SeaCrush could be our newest way to book scuba holidays.
GTS member Isabelle Barbier tells us about SeaCrush
“At first, we just wanted SeaCrush to be a short-list of only the best dive destinations for biodiversity,” says Isabelle Barbier, co-founder of SeaCrush. “But after seeing some online videos of divers touching marine life, we thought to ourselves how bad would we feel if those divers turned out to have been our clients. We’ve developed a sort of ‘LinkedIn for divers’ that allows dive buddies to endorse each other for reef-friendliness. We organize trips to Raja Ampat, Socorro, Mozambique, and more top dive destinations. We send accepted members to our conservation-minded dive partners who will be more inclined to take careful divers to their very best coral reefs.”
SeaCrush S.A.S. is a travel company registered in France since 2017. Its founders launched SeaCrush.com, a handpicked “best places to dive” travel platform, in 2018. The portal allows travellers to search and book “bucket list” dive trips that are distinctly filtered by best seasons for wildlife. Whether you book a trip with them, or not, they’ve also mapped top diving destinations per-country that includes practical tips and must-see tourism highlights (eg. check out their extensive dive guide on Mexico). Its founders – Isabelle Barbier of Paris, France and Michael Lake of Charlottesville, USA – had travelled multiple times around the world before meeting each other on a liveaboard in Burma. They decided to combine their flair for entrepreneurship and love of oceanic flora and fauna to create SeaCrush.
Volunteer trips
All the selected eco-resorts, liveaboards and dive shops on SeaCrush are engaged in sustainable tourism and marine conservation and as well as arranging “normal” scuba trips they also organise volunteer trips with NGO’S like Marine Megafauna Foundation in Mozambique, Blue Ventures in Timor-Leste and Belize. We talk a lot about marine conservation scuba programmes over on Girls that Scuba so it’s great to see another company support these NGO’S.
Sign up and meet new friends!
“Create your profile and dive resume. Browse trips, see who’s going there and go dive together!”
We love making new scuba friends, and Girls that Scuba Together Facebook page is our go-to to see if there are any girls in our area, but SeaCrush have also created a way to see who else is interested in joining the same trip as you so you can go together. It’s a great way to see if there will be other girls on your trip too!
Sign up to SeaCrush today and dive with reef-safe organisations and make friends along the way!
