They are an exact location that divers can return to time and time again without disturbing the environment they come to visit or study. The mooring buoys have become a non-destructive portal into another world. A world that can have a great affect on our realm of cars, investments, dinners out, rushing about, and our whole life style. This effect goes beyond a missing fish species or a dead reef, rather my concern is a slow and steady disabling of the web of life in BC waters. I do not want to sound like an alarmist or keep anyone up at night, but to just slowly start people thinking about the ocean and how to conserve them.
Divers can help by being an early detection system for reef and ocean life damage.
Permanent mooring buoys become their non-obtrusive paths to that end. The trick here, is not to change the value you are measuring, by the act of measuring it. The mooring buoys allow us to study, document, and report on the reefs without damaging them. At the same time dive charter operators can take numerous groups of divers out on the reefs over and over again knowing that they are returning to an unblemished site that has not been torn apart. Also, a somewhat hidden benefit of transporting groups to the reefs, is the ocean awareness that is being produced.