My buddy and I were diving at a little coave on the northeast coast called Fan Tzai Ao (番仔澳). It’s close to Long Dong Bay.
Anyway, as soon as we got out past the entrance point, we ran into a huge nylon drift net which ran for dozens of meters. It sat on the bottom with the floats still attached at the top, making it like a giant, invisible fish-killing wall.
We started carving it up, but my buddy’s net scissors broke, and he got very nervous about being so close to a big underwater net “unarmed”, so he insisted we bail.
As we went further out, we ran into even more of the horrible things. I was dying to have at them; there were already numerous beatiful puffers, butterfly fish, angelfish and what have you, hopelessly entangled and waiting to die.
Unfortunately, my buddy is married with a newly born kid, so he was on the side of safety and insisted we leave them be.
It’s still eating at me, and I beg anyone who might be out that way diving to head out to Fan Tzai Ao with a buddy or two and a pair of net scissors and destroy those heinous things.
Whoever left them there outta be wrapped up in barbed wire and tossed in the ocean as fish food, incidentally.
