Plombkemon Go - Sinker/lead cleaning from the ocean

Hey!

I've been diving and surfing for as long as I can remember, eating fish has always been the norm around the dinner table during the summer months, with experience i've realised spearfishing is the most sustainable way to catch fish because you really get to choose what you bring home for dinner, or not...

But these days I hear and read that eating fish more than 3 times a week can be dangerous because of all the toxic waste we humans have been dumping in the oceans all over the world, well guess where it all goes ... in our dinner plates that's right. Pretty average isn't it ? Not the kind of world you want to leave for future generations is it ?

As these sinkers get eroded, they let some nasty stuff get into the food chain.... and you now know where it goes...

Those are not rocks and pebbles in the photos, I wish they were, makes them even harder to find down there ....

Now compare to a brand new sinker ..... You get my point ....

So that's why i decided to act and hopefully raise a bit of awareness about what's going on , and to tell you the truth, I can't really sit and do nothing knowing what's happening so I pick, clean, recycle and upcycle all the sinkers I can find underwater.

I catch a lot more lead than fish these days....

My goal : 1 ton !

Starting Now............ Plombkemon Go!!!

1 ton might sound like a lot but in fact, I pick up around 15 kg each time I go (about 2 hours). I could catch more, but I get to the hotspots on a pushbike and the ride back up the hill is a real killer so I only bring back what I can carry...

There's no way I'm going to pretend that stuff isn't down there, and just continue killing fish (only the big ones mind you).

Because if you start reading about it, lead is seriously nasty....

Wikipedia it ..... I don't want to scare you myself.... Just a couple of facts:

146 kilos of it pumped out in the world every second .... that's more than 4,5 million tons a year... Yuck....

It s poisonous , cancerous , go on, read about it ....

I reckon it's got nothing to do on the bottom of our beloved oceans....

I'm not a superhero so I won't pretend I can clean all the coastlines in one lifetime, but here's where I could use some help....get me as close to a superhero as possible, some gear would help a lot, like a metal detector, new wetsuit for winter a little electric boat motor, a decent camera and computer so that I can share this with as many people as I can and sound the alarm so that people can act and be part of this project, I'm hand sowing the cape....

Once I've got people's attention, I'm going to organise the 2017 Plombkemon Go Challenge :

Where all divers, spearos and freedivers can all join in and cleanup the bottom to make a better place for the resource we need to protect in order to let future generations enjoy what we got to love before it's too late .

I keep finding new ways to recycle or upcycle the finds, making dive harnesses, ankle weights, medals and much more!

I've made my own "pimp my kayak', with a hand sowed sail made of a shower curtain and other bits and pieces.

Finally got myself a "drifter" (sailing dinghy) to reach new heights...

Born and bred in the coastal town of Biarritz, my life has always been centered around the ocean and all the great things you could do with it...Thanks to my mum who did everything in her power so that we could live near the beach...

For my 3rd birthday I asked for a mask and snorkel, for my 4th, i begged, for my 5th, I finally got what I considered the most advanced bit of technology a man could need : sight underwater..... WOW ! Actually spent the first year diving in the bathtub...i was already hooked...that summer I got to go and see for real what was down there , I can still remember that first school of seabream I came across.... 27 years later....

Yes the board in the first photo is the same as the one in the last ....

My Australian dad was away 9 months of each year, surfer, he used to tell my brother and I stories of huge waves and huge fish in far far away places...

We used to spend months watching photos backing the stories... dreaming one day we 'd be charging the same places ...

Till we eventually started ourselves, in doing that, I came across people living the life a normal human being (I think) should be living , healthy, non polluting, sustainable way of farming , hunting and gathering, unaware of what the rest of the world is doing.... well these poor people are now poisoning themselves and their families because we humans have trashed the planet...

So I'd like to , in my own scale, do my bit to help this planet recover from the abuse we been giving it, by turning that lead into something better, and with your help, who knows , turn it into gold...