By Matt Standal
Photos courtesy Larry Benvenuti

Taking the plunge to prove they care about corals, volunteers from A Deep Blue Dive Center on Key Colony Beach picked-up their underwater playground last weekend. Working in pairs, the 12-person team scanned both the coral-covered wreck of the Thunderbolt and the shallow, old-growth reef known as Coffin's Patch.

Located just offshore from Marathon and frequented by fishermen, boaters, and divers, both popular sites can sometimes resemble trash piles after a weekend of irresponsible use.

The event was sponsored in part by the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Project Aware and the Ocean Conservancy.

"You can think of it as being nice to the environment, or you can think of it as job security," explains A Deep Blue Dive Center owner Jeff Niedlinger.

"It's our way of cleaning up the reefs and protecting what we do."

Tidying up both areas late into the afternoon, Niedlinger and his submersible stewards returned to dock with a miniature mountain of submerged junk, including 300 pounds of discarded concrete, countless rusted out pieces of discarded lobster traps, enough fishing line to choke a goliath grouper, and a single, unopened bottle of Heineken Beer.

The actual time spent on the bottom gathering trash: less than two hours.

Both excited and disgusted by the amount of trash gathered in such short time, Niedlinger chocks the quick work up as a cleanup record.

 Shaking his head in disgust, he says this year’s cleansing barely beats the 8 worn-out truck tires he found last year.

"That's our resource out there — it's beyond me why people do this," Niedlinger says.

Volunteer reef sweeper Cindy Field agrees.

A Marathon resident who loves to dive and spearfish, Fields has been diving the Keys since 1982, and relishes any opportunity "to clean up my own playground" as she says.

And although she's never participated in an organized underwater cleanup before, Fields says she always takes time to pick up any garbage she discovers on the reef.

"Diving can't always be about fun; you have to work too," she says.

However, proving that both work and play can be combined underwater, a closer look at the work performed by these volunteer reef sweepers is a true example of how closely the Keys’ culture and economy are tied to the environment.

The Thunderbolt Wreck
One of the most important tasks the divers faced was removing roughly 50 pounds of fishing line from the wreck of the Thunderbolt, Marathon's signature dive site. Lying on her keel at 130 feet, the T-Bolt is also a popular fishing spot and often sports huge schools of permit, jack, and barracuda.

Unfortunately, because thousands of fish are attracted to the ship, thousands of fishermen are too. Upon close inspection, evidence of their jigging and deep-dropping can be found on the rails and decks of the sunken hulk. Look closely, and you'll find the line so heavily draped it actually poses the threat of entanglement to divers. Poke a finger at its fibrous, algae-covered mass, and you even realize the line is often tangled inches deep.

According to Niedlinger, the wreck's messy condition actually inspired him to organize the dive when he first arrived in Key Colony Beach and opened up his shop.

So after making dozens of trips to the T-Bolt to gather fishing line and ensure diver safety, the veteran instructor says he simply got tired of doing it on his own, and the idea of the underwater cleanup was born.

Sometimes hovering in impossible positions, Niedlinger and his divers now regularly kick up tiny clouds of silt with their fins while combing the wreck and snipping entire spools of dangerous line from the crusty rails.  

A unique challenge they face is figuring out what can be cut and what can't, since much of the line covered sponges, delicate tunicates, and small encrusting corals.

Coffins Patch Special Protected Area
 "This is why we live here" says volunteer diver and lead cleanup coordinator Michele Adams before gearing up to slip below the surface for a quick bottom scan at Coffin's Patch.

Adams quickly adds that she picked Coffins Patch to clean because of its beautiful old-growth coral and everyday boater use.

"Coffins Patch is designated by the National Marine Sanctuary as a Special Protected Area, but some people still litter here" she says.

Responsible for the grounding of several Spanish galleons, the heavily encrusted shallow reef lies in 7 to 25 feet of water and is perhaps one of the best dive and snorkel sites in the middle Keys.

Here the cleanup group snagged roughly 300 pounds of concrete, several rusty metal grills from poorly placed lobster traps, and perhaps the oddest find of all — an unopened bottle of Heineken Beer.

In the background, a few friendly mutton snappers and several sleepy nurse sharks watched in amusement as divers carted away the trash stacked up near their once-pristine underwater homes.

For more information on how you can get involved in an underwater cleanup call A Deep Blue Dive at 1-800-978-DIVE, or visit www.projectaware.org.