During the morning's on-goings, they discovered two
significant examples of Roman history, off the Western
Algarve coastline.
In collaboration with Portimão-based diving school
PortiSub, the event saw more than 100 volunteers come
together, who from 09h00 until 14h00 jointly cleared
over 200 kilos of rubbish from the seabed and cliff
faces along the coastline.
As the first PADI-accredited dive school in the
country, Divers Cove adopted their pilot project AWARE –
Aquatic World Awareness, Responsibility and Education –
which has since seen national adherence. It was Divers
Cove's 15th year of being actively involved in the
global event, after introducing the project in Portugal
in 1993.
On Saturday morning the many participants gathered at
Caneiros beach, including 22 staff and organisers, 70
scuba divers, some from a Spanish dive association, 12
free divers, 16 helpers and rubbish collectors and four
boats.
Much to the divers' surprise, amongst the glass
bottles, fishnets, hooks, nylon lines, and other
undesirable objects that had found a resting place on
the seabed, were two large Roman anchors, believed to be
over 2000 years old. Portimão museum officials were
immediately informed and came to collected the items
with delight.
It is thought the anchors will soon be put on
display.
Stefan Bernhard Fend established Divers Cove in 1992.
It became a full PADI-recognised institution in 1993,
and over the years has trained hundreds of divers.
Ever year the school takes part in the global AWARE
project, which every year sees an increasing number of
participants.
He hopes that next year even more people will
volunteer to help in the environmentally significant
campaign.
"When we first introduced the project we were just a
few foreigners taking part" Stefan re calls, "People
stared at us as we went out diving and came back without
fish but with armfuls of rubbish. People found it weird.
"Now the local communities all come out in force to
help, and are much more environmentally conscious".
Stefan believes that, given the nature of the
rubbish, coastline fishermen and anglers can be held
accountable for a large part of the waste.
"These fishermen do not have any training or
awareness courses", he explains, "all they need to do is
pay for their licenses and they can go and fish. So
maybe introducing a day's course on how to correctly
dispose of their rubbish, or installing bins along the
cliffs would help solve the issue".
Another cleaning intervention is being planned for
locals in the winter.