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Placencia Mooring Masters (PMM) - September News Update
Following the success of the fundraiser at this year’s Placencia Lobsterfest, PMM has spent the last 3 months planning & raising the additional funds needed to send a long overdue maintenance and inspection trip out. The delays getting a crew sent out have been numerous.
Finance has been a big concern and getting a large enough live aboard was also important. PMM mooring buoys are installed from Lagoon Caye all the way out and South to North Wall, a very large area to cover. PMM relies heavily on the donation of live aboard vessel that can accommodate 5-8 crew members to base upon for 3-5 days at a time, so trips revolve around the times when a suitable catamaran is available to use. To enable safe diving PMM crews needs at least 3 days of good working weather, something that has been in short supply lately. Good weather doesn’t necessarily mean crystal clear and calm seas but 8ft waves and torrential rain make it almost impossible to safely work on cleaning surface lines and buoys or operate the hydraulic drill. Since the project begun 3 years ago Ed Carr, a member of the PMM steering committee, has been donating his skiff as the site boat used during inspection & maintenance trips. Unfortunately the theft of the outboard engine in August from this boat, created yet another delay, while waiting for another site boat to be donated.
Despite all these delays on September 15th, PMM was finally able to send out crew of six to inspect and conduct maintenance on the PMM mooring buoys installed. This included reinstalling any buoys which were missing and replacing the down line* on some of the buoys which need to be replaced annually, as required under International standards on buoy maintenance. The crew comprised of veteran PMM volunteer divers Louis Godfrey, Mark Tucker & Tulu Villanueva and Erwin Westby, PMM’s operations manager, on the steering committee as dive team leader. Martin Westby operated the site boat as captain/snorkeler and Ed Carr was the catamaran captain/snorkeler. The crew often worked from 6:30am till 5pm over 4 days, with some divers making up to seven dives per day. Anyone who has ever cleaned buoys properly will tell you it is very tiring, hard work which includes scrubbing lines and cracking off the mollusks buried in the ropes. To cover as much area per day as possible the boats worked as two teams. Those onboard the catamaran before moving onto another location cleaned the buoy that the vessel had moored at the previous night with snorkelers scrubbing the pickup line and buoy while the divers scrub the down line and inspect the shackle, meanwhile the other crew on the site boat did the same at other mooring buoy locations.
If not for the support & donations made from local businesses in the community this inspection and maintenance trip would not have been possible at this time. PMM would like to acknowledge and thank the following businesses for their donations – The Moorings Charters for the donated catamaran, Erwin Westby for the donation of his skiff as site boat, Paradise Resort & Dive Shop for the donation of 20 dive tanks, Joy Tours for donation dive gear & SEA for donating a roll of 7/8” poly plus rope. PMM also thanks the following supermarkets, vendors & people for their generous donations of food supplies for the crew – Peninsula Store, Western Horizon Store, and David Perez Vegetables – all of Seine Bight Village, Everyday Market, Wallen’s Market, and South Waters Resort – all of Placencia Village, as well as Greg De la Fuente – the vegetable vendor, & Ilsa Villanueva for donating paper towels. Thanks also to the ongoing support of the Placencia Fishing Coop for donating ice, as well as Whipray Caye for also donating additional ice on this trip. All unused non perishable food items are stored and resent out on subsequent PMM trips. PMM also thanks everyone who has made a donation to the project via purchasing our fundraising wristbands and dive mask slap straps.
As of 18th September eleven anchor mooring buoys within the inner reef area are now fully operational. Five dive site mooring buoys - North Wall 2, White Hole, Pumpion Wall, Coral Gardens at Laughing Bird Caye (LBC), a great location for teaching and the wreck at LBC are also operational. Dive operators are reminded the dive buoys are not designed for long term anchoring and are to be used as a tool to safely drop off and pick up your divers. All boat owners using the non dive site mooring buoys are reminded that they are designed for vessels no heavier than 40 tons. As part of ongoing working relationship with Southern Environmental Association (SEA), while at Laughing Bird Caye PMM’s crew also repaired & refurbished 2 SEA mooring buoys and cleaned 4 more within the park.
If you find a PMM buoy adrift please bring it in to Placencia and contact anyone of the PMM steering committee. If a PMM buoy is found but cannot be brought back into Placencia, please report the location to anyone on PMM steering committee, SEA office or Placencia Tourism Center. We will arrange for the buoys to be brought back in. PMM would like to take this opportunity to thank The Inn at Robert’s Grove & SEA for assisting with the return of PMM buoys recovered during the last 2 months.
Placencia Mooring Masters – Where Do We Go From Here?
Due to the current economic slowdown, community projects like PMM’s have a hard time surviving, as 100% of our operational funds come from cash donations, funds raised from the sale of fundraising merchandise and other fund raising events like the recent PMM raffle end of this June. For the past 2 years PMM’s material and equipment needed to install & maintain mooring buoys related to this project have been financed by micro-grants from CORAL Reef Alliance & World Wildlife Fund. The only grants available to PMM this year have been for the production of educational materials which enabled PMM to produce “Guidelines For Safe & Proper Use Of Anchor Mooring Buoys” laminated half letter size flashcards & laminated posters in English & Spanish (also available to download at www.placencia.com). 90% of the PMM anchor mooring buoys installed under this community project are outside the marine protected areas (MPA), this is the area of the reef PMM’s steering committee originally agreed was the area most vulnerable to anchor damage as it has no rangers or protection. Unfortunately for PMM all of the grants available for anchor mooring buoy projects this year, which PMM had hoped to apply for, have been beyond our reach as they are specifically for marine protected areas. These grants would have helped to finance much needed materials such as buoys, rope, marine adhesive resin also polymer welding rods and heat gun needed to repair damaged buoys, equipment & fuel for the project. PMM haves friends who help support our project out there though - Rich Wilson (formerly from CORAL) organized & hosted a fundraiser in California, USA for the PMM project. A total of $480USD was raised which Rich Wilson will use to purchase directly from Environmental Moorings Inc (EMI) located in Florida, USA on PMM’s behalf some of the urgently needed materials for the project. Placencia Mooring Masters also wishes to extend a huge thank you to Tropic Air for their ongoing support and donation of freight services related to the Placencia Mooring Buoy Project. Not forgetting a huge thank you to The Placencia Breeze for donating free advertisement space for the last 3 years.
We are still in need of more donations for materials to be purchased in USD by the donor directly from EMI or other source indicated for the project, when all materials are consolidated then it will be shipped onto PMM in Belize via Hyde Shipping. If you or your business wishes to support and help this project by donating in this manner, please contact Marion Carr, PMM’s project coordinator on 501 523 3563 or email: muzamanzie@gmail.com for information on how you can to do this and to ensure you or your business are given credit for your donation.
Our current urgently needed materials list comprises of the following items:
6 off 24” polyethylene mooring buoys $1050.00USD Total ($175.00USD each)
1 off 600 ft roll 7/8” Poly Plus rope $395.00USD/roll (Used for down lines and through buoys) source EMI, Florida.
1 off 600 ft roll 7/8” POLYPROPYLENE rope $270.00USD/roll (Used for pick up lines) source EMI, Florida (Rich Wilson donation)
100ft chaffing hose - $175.00USD (Used to prevent chaff of rope through buoy & on pick up line) source EMI, Florida
Underwater adhesive resin – -supplied case of 12 $300.00USD (needed for putting in threaded anchor mooring eye in hard substrate) source EMI, Florida
5 gal environmental hydraulic fluid $110USD (special biodegradable in salt water for hydraulic pump) source EMI, Florida
4 off Manta ray mooring anchors Model MR-SRM - $1000.00USD total (for anchor pin in soft substrate i.e. sand - $250USD each) source EMI, Florida.
4 off 5/8” anchor eye threaded – $340.00USD total ($85USD each) source EMI, Florida
10 off 7/8” safety bolt galvanized anchor shackles - $147.00USD total ($14.70USD each) source Miami cordage, Florida.
10 off 7/8” heavy duty thimbles galvanized approx $109.50USD total ($10.95USD each) source www.discountmarine.com, USA
1/8”& 5/32” & 3/8” white high density polyethylene welding rods $9.95USD each size 30 -15 rods. (used to repair damaged buoys) source Hejet.com, USA (Rich Wilson donation)
HJ-500X hot air welding gun for use with plastic welding rods $135.00USD (for repair of damaged buoys) source Hejet.com (Rich Wilson donation)
$400BZD Fuel credit - Placencia Mooring Master project has an account at Placenica Shell Gas Station which we try & keep in credit to cover fuel used on inspection/installation & maintenance trips.
If you are interested in helping to support this important project helping PMM to protecting Belize’s reef through the use of mooring buoys, please contact Marion Carr project coordinator - muzamanzie@gmail.com or Patti Ramirez for Fundraising/Donations - splashbelize@yahoo.com, or any of the other steering committee Erwin Westby, Louis Godfrey, Dwayne Young, Carlton “Patu” Young Jr, Arthur Westby Jr, Kristine Small and Elysia Dial (PTC) financial manager for the project.
* Rope which goes from the topside buoys to the anchor pin on the sea floor.
