Threat to wreck diving
Anthony Peacock
Have a look at how wreck diving is being portrayed in the press:
http://www.westpress.co.uk/rip/content.html
This worries me a lot!
Ann
This is a distorted and media hyped report but perhaps we divers should use
it has a prompt to stop and consider how the non-diving public may view
wreck diving. Perhaps now is the time to consider some form of self
regulation through the diving authorities to both protect our maritime
heritage and improve our public image. Before the government moves in to ban
wreck diving altogether.
Ann
Keith S.
The Western Daily Press has always been a bastion of 'Little England'
mentality. I'm surprised they're not advocating hanging divers.
Best start writing to your MPs to counter this media hysteria...
- Keith
David George
others) to educate divers to look and not touch but the coverage that the
WDP are giving these is VERY distorted.
It is time to write to our MP's explaining why we like wreck diving and how
it is a very very very (etc) small number of sport divers who are pillaging
these wrecks.
IMHO Banning diving around a war grave would be similar to locking the
graveyard gates at the Church.......
I think this whole matter is becoming very serious.
Does anyone know of an MP who is a diver and could help "unskew" this
debate??
Regards
Dave
"Ann" <a...@new-horizon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:zDA76.1389$IX3.27978@NewsReader...
Anthony Peacock
Sorry, was that written 'tongue in cheek'?
Have you heard of the Respect our Wrecks initiative?
I.M. Smith
> Does anyone know of an MP who is a diver and could help "unskew" this
> debate??
"Two-Jags" Prescott?
Iain
Vic
"I.M. Smith" <im...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> > Does anyone know of an MP who is a diver and could help "unskew"
this
> > debate??
>
> "Two-Jags" Prescott?
You have got to be kidding...
Even if he were a diver (and, having seen pictures of him in the water
& read the tales of how he had to be rescued from a life-threatening
mask flood, I have certain nagging doubts...) is Jabba the Gut really
the sort of bloke we want on our side?
Vic.
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
I.M. Smith
> You have got to be kidding...
>
> Even if he were a diver (and, having seen pictures of him in the water
> & read the tales of how he had to be rescued from a life-threatening
> mask flood, I have certain nagging doubts...) is Jabba the Gut really
> the sort of bloke we want on our side?
>
> Vic.
I'll take anyone who's prepared to be rational about it, and leave aside
the emotive hyperbole and misrepresentation.
Iain
John Kendall
you have said Iain.
See ya
John,
(Bored at work, so trying to think of intellegent things to say in letter to
MP, any suggestions welcome!)
"I.M. Smith" <im...@cam.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:3A5F2402...@cam.ac.uk...
Vic
"I.M. Smith" <im...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> I'll take anyone who's prepared to be rational about it, and leave
aside
> the emotive hyperbole and misrepresentation.
So why bring Jabba into it? ;-)
I.M. Smith
>
> > I'll take anyone who's prepared to be rational about it, and leave
> aside
> > the emotive hyperbole and misrepresentation.
>
> So why bring Jabba into it? ;-)
Hope, and my fingers getting ahead of my brain? :-)
Iain
Mark Williams
news:zDA76.1389$IX3.27978@NewsReader...
> This is a distorted and media hyped report but perhaps we divers should
use
> it has a prompt to stop and consider how the non-diving public may view
> wreck diving. Perhaps now is the time to consider some form of self
> regulation through the diving authorities to both protect our maritime
> heritage and improve our public image. Before the government moves in to
ban
> wreck diving altogether.
>
> Ann
If we make a bandwagon out of rusty steel and plunded portholes William
Vage will soon jump on....
change nospam to scuba to reply
"Ann" <a...@new-horizon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:zDA76.1389$IX3.27978@NewsReader...
Gavin W-B
"Keith S." <ke...@peardrop.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3A5ED89E...@peardrop.demon.co.uk...
Having read a lot from you all over the past week and checked out the links
to various newspapers it seems to me that the press and politicians are
looking to penalise us, British ocean divers, for acts of robbery and
desecreation carried out in the south China seas on the HMS Repulse and HMS
Prince of Wales. What has been done out there sounds quite sordid but once
printed in a national, the locals will pick it up and run with it 'cos it
sell papers. Obviously this can be very damaging to our sport, especially as
not everyone has the same opion on the *take it, leave it* subject. War
grave *desectation* invokes very strong feelings, which inturn provides a
huge wave of support and strenght to a newspaper's campaign.
The topic is *war graves*, Royal Navy to be presise. I personally find it
hypacrictal of the press and government to be bantering on along these lines
when none of them are prepared to recognise Merchant Navy war graves in any
context. How many of us have dive the SS Thistlegorm? It's a MN war grave.
Having dived it a number of times, I have yet to see a British diver remove
anything, but this cannot be said for our european friends. A week after I
last dived it an european diver suffered a hole in his leg from a bullit
that exploded in his wet suit pocket as he assended. Can you hear me crying?
I suppose one side of it is to be thankful that they are only concerned
with Royal Navy war graves and not including all the civilian deaths at sea,
war time or otherwise - yet!
So what can we do? We can all write to our local MP, as has already been
suggested. Tell them why we dive on wrecks, regardless of its status.
Instead of banning divers for diving, why not suggest the responsability be
put on the people who take us to the wrecks. Build it into their licence
that they will ensure, to the best of their ability, that no diver will
surface with anything deemed as a *no no* from a designated Royal Navy war
grave site. Sussex registered boats are already limited as to how much
marine life is allowed on board. A destinction between commercial salvagers
and recreational divers would be good, can anyone posible imagine 10 divers
on a RIB or small hard boat bringing up an 8 ton prop! There are very heavy
penalties for the boat owner, captain and diver who is found by the Egytpian
coastguard to have removed anything from the SS Thistlegorm, it's just a
pity they don't inforce it very often. Can our web site incorperate a
petition to support our cause, where by hitting it, it regesters our e-mail
address as a signature of support?
The fact of the matter is that the majority of wrecks in UK waters have
already been stripped by others over many years. Now that a new sub has been
found *we* can't be trusted not to strip it, I find this very sad. We don't
have tropical waters to dive in, we have turbulant seas and 2 World Wars to
provide us with 250,000 registered wrecks. This is our staple diet, fight to
keep it, just like those who died to keep our freedom did, but above all
respect it and them.
May the viz be with you
Gavin
spelling? - dyslexia rules ok
Keith Lawrence
> > http://www.westpress.co.uk/rip/content.html
> There already is a joint initiative involving PADI, BSAC
> and SAA (and maybe others) to educate divers to look and
> not touch but the coverage that the WDP are giving these
> is VERY distorted.
> It is time to write to our MP's explaining why we like wreck
> diving and how it is a very very very (etc) small number of
> sport divers who are pillaging these wrecks.
> IMHO Banning diving around a war grave would be similar
> to locking the graveyard gates at the Church.......
> I think this whole matter is becoming very serious.
Dear All
** EVERY ** diver should read, in full, what is being written about us and
what is happening with the WDP campaign mentioned above.
I was not aware of the WDP campaign when I posted on this issue earlier this
week, I would especially ask the very small minority who consider it their
"right" to remove items from wrecks to read it. Perhaps then they will begin
to realise the damage they are doing to the image of diving.
I agree with everything that David has said, it is a very distorted view
given by the WDP - but that is the view that is being believed by MP's and
others. This has now gone well past the stage of reasoned debate amongst
ourselves, we must take some positive action to correct the misreporting
that is going on and put our side of the story.
Here's some ideas...
+ Put Our Side of the Story
Write to the MP's listed in the WDP articles, write to your own MP, visit
your own MP at a surgery, write to the WDP. Point out that the vast majority
of divers are responsible and respect the sites that we visit. Point out
that the UK diving organisations already have a code-of-practice as praised
on the House Of Commons. Point out that us visiting a ship wreck is no more
"ghoulish" than the Royal British Legion arranging visits to war cemeteries
and battle sites.
We MUST combat this misreporting of all divers as "pillagers and looters",
we are not, we need to say so.
+ Get Some "Good News" Going
Are you a diving club? a shop/school? a charter boat operation? If you are
then do you support the Respect Our Wrecks campaign? If you do - THEN SAY SO
AND TELL PEOPLE ABOUT IT. Tell the local press, tell your MP, tell the
diving press.
We must now be SEEN to be acting responsibly, words and debate are no longer
enough.
+ Organise and Coordinate
Steps are already under way to coordinate our campaign information on the
UKRS web site, if you would like to contribute and help with this you will
be welcome. We need to set up a "press watch", post to this group any
references to this issue that you find in the local and national press - we
need to know that it's there so that we can all respond.
+ Be VERY Careful
Remember the first rule of journalism - never let the facts get in the way
of a good story.
Be VERY careful about what you post to public forums, the press are after us
and any comments are likely to be taken out of context and misquoted. The
WDP are already very active in this field. If approached by the press it is
probably advisable to refer them to the Respect Our Wrecks coordinator of
your agency. You have been warned.
+ Get Involved
You can post to this and other groups as much as you like about this issue,
you'll probably be wasting your time. Get writing, individual letters to
MP's and the papers.
This is the most serious issue facing diving in this country for many years,
it is now up to us - you, me, the individual divers to build on the work
that has already been done by the agencies. We must all work together.
Good night, I've got some letters to write...
Regards
Keith L
[Header is false, real address is kei...@ukrecscuba.org.uk]
[The uk.rec.scuba web site is on www.ukrecscuba.org.uk]
Ioan Elwick
California for Christmas and the boat operators operating off San Diego are
very strict about enforcing the 'take nothing but photos' policy in their
underwater parks. Surely it is better to compromise in this way than to
allow the ill-informed to vote us out of wreck diving entirely. I think
that most of us do feel the reverence for wrecks that Nigel mentioned
earlier rather than seeing them as treasure troves, so lets try to get the
point across to our non-diving neighbours.
Ioan
p.s. Gavin, if you are using Outlook Express there is an option to check
your spelling automatically on sending :o)
Mark Williams
news:3A5ED89E...@peardrop.demon.co.uk...
> Best start writing to your MPs to counter this media hysteria...
Ok I will start with the link for the Labour party cos there are the best
http://www.ukpol.co.uk//email1.shtml
and Liberal party
http://www.ukpol.co.uk//email3.shtml
SNP
http://www.ukpol.co.uk//email4.shtml
Plaid Cymru and Independent
http://www.ukpol.co.uk//email5.shtml
members of the european parliament
http://www.ukpol.co.uk//email6.shtml
and finally and almost certainly least the Conservative party
http://www.ukpol.co.uk//email2.shtml
All info can be found at http://www.ukpol.co.uk
H
> graveyard gates at the Church.......
It's also the same as banning people from the areas which were the
battlefields of the 2 wars eg the Somme, where people were killed and not
all were recovered. Bodies are still being found in those areas....
- h
Steve Jones
Gavin W-B <Gavi...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:93o51d$1qn$1...@uranium.btinternet.com...
> > The Western Daily Press has always been a bastion of 'Little
England'
> > mentality. I'm surprised they're not advocating hanging
divers.
> >
also amazed at the hypocrasy of some of the views. Many war vets
were very vociferous in criticising divers for removing things
from war graves.
However many war vets also have a German Luger, or helmet in
their private collection. How did they come by those artifacts??
Granted that this may be a small proportion of vets that have
these "trophies", just like its only a small amount of divers who
remove things from war graves.
I think that it is about time that common sense prevailed and
everyone worked towards a solution acceptable to all concerned.
Steve
David harrison
porthole!
Gavin W-B
"David harrison" <davidh...@bpss.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3A608D66...@bpss.demon.co.uk...
> Why is dyslexia so hard to spell? As for me I would sell my soul to Santa
for a
> porthole!
>
> Gavin W-B wrote:
>