Croatia: A deep dive to clean the SS Vis

From June 19-23, 14 volunteer divers carried out several ghost net cleanups in Istria, Croatia. They focused on both a wreck and a reef where a lot of fishing gear has been lost in recent decades.

A sardine net measuring 100 meters was recovered from a depth of 60 m from the seabed where the SS Vis wreck lies . This is quite an achievement for the team since usually ghost gear cleanups happen between 30-40 meters. The operation was quite complicated, and we needed to connect two boats to be able to lift the net to the surface.

Several hundred meters of trammel net and lobster cages were removed from the reef. The team managed to release various animals from the nets: an octopus, a grouper, crabs and catfish among others.

The divers who joined came from Croatia, Germany, Austria, Italy and the Netherlands.

We would like to thank Hyundai Motor Europe for their support in the making this project possible but also the Media that joined us to raise awareness about our work.

Jenny Ioannou
Communications Manager, Healthy Seas