Palau Pledge/Friends of Palau National Marine Sanctuary (FPMNS) and Sam’s Tours collaborated together this winter break to launch the 4 th Palau Pledge Dive Camp. Held from December 28th to December 30th, the dive camp aims to excite the young to re-engage with the environment in support of high value, high return tourism. In the camp, children took an online “e-learning” course. During the 3-day experience, dive instructors at Sam’s Tours took the children through their skills courses and practiced in the water before two official tank dives. The last day of the camp was Palau Pledge day, where they learned about the importance of taking care of our environment, what the work in the tour operation entails, and what they can do now to protect and care for Palau’s fragile environment in a presentation by FPNMS.
Palau Pledge/FPNMS and Sam’s Tours would like to thank all the sponsors who made this program available to the young participants. It is through their financial support that we were able to provide the camp free of charge. We also thank the volunteer professional dive masters who helped the children earn their Junior Open Water diving certifications and the boat captain for taking them on their two-tank dive. Shout out to Kramer’s for the highly discounted lunches each day. A special thank you to Director of NEA, Ismael Aguon, for the inspirational speech about life and career choices.
