If you want to understand what humanity could and should be, don’t look to the halls of government, look at a cleaning station.
by Kramer Wimberley, Board of Directors & Founder of DWP/DWP-CARES
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HOW DO YOU DESCRIBE the majesty of a sunset to someone who has never seen light? How do you explain the vibration of a symphony to someone who has never known sound? As divers, we are often asked to translate the untranslatable. To those anchored permanently to the terra firma, we are explorers of a void. They see a dangerous, alien world. I see a mirror. I see a blueprint for a better version of ourselves.
For me, diving is not merely a hobby or a profession; it is an artistic experience of the soul. It is the only place where the laws of physics seem to bend in favor of grace. To dive is to shed the weight of the world, both the literal gravity that pulls at our joints and the metaphorical gravity of human ego, noise, and conflict. It is the feeling of flying like a bird, suspended in a liquid sky, where every breath is a deliberate, meditative reminder of life.
The Peace in the Void
People often ask me why I dive in “bad” conditions – low visibility, murky harbors, or reef sites that have been stripped of their vibrant colors. They see a wasted trip; I see a sanctuary. Even in the silence of a “dead” reef, there is a profound peace. In those moments, the ocean doesn’t hide its scars. It allows us to see, with painful clarity, what we as human beings have done.
But even in that devastation, there is the quiet, persistent heartbeat of hope. To see the damage is the first step toward the mandate of restoration. The ocean, even in its wounded state, offers a serenity that the chaotic land cannot provide. On land, the threats are unpredictable, often born of malice or misunderstanding. In the water, there is a code. There is a logic. There is a civility that we, as a species, have largely forgotten.
The Highest Form of Diplomacy
The Cleaning Station: If you want to understand what humanity could and should be, you don’t look to the halls of government, you look to a tabletop coral head in the middle of a reef.
There is a civility at the “cleaning station” that should humble every person who walks the earth. It is a society that works toward a common good without the need for a single signed contract. In this small patch of the ocean, the fundamental law of “predator and prey” is suspended. You will see tiny neon gobies and translucent shrimp creatures that would be a snack in any other context willingly entering the mouths of massive groupers or moray eels.
The large do not take advantage of the small. The predator waits its turn. There is no shoving to the head of the line, no exercise of power for power’s sake. Instead, there is a beautifully choreographed dance. The “client” fish presents itself, tilting its body or shifting its skin color to signal, “I am ready.” The cleaner knows the signal for every species – a level of cross-cultural intelligence and order that exceeds our own. They need each other. The large fish needs the parasites removed to survive; the small fish needs the nutrients to thrive. It is a perfect agreement of mutual benefit, played out in a silent, liquid theater that I could watch for hours.
Resilience in the Sand
I have marveled equally at the relationship between the goby and the snapping shrimp on the ocean floor. They are a two-member society built on absolute trust. The shrimp, nearly blind but a master engineer, builds and maintains their shared home. The goby sits at the entrance, a constant sentry watching for threats. When danger nears, the goby signals, and they retreat together. Even when the home collapses under the weight of a threat, they do not despair. From within the ruins, they simply begin again once the threat has passed. This is a testament to resilience and partnership that I rarely see on land. In the ocean, I see what humanity is capable of when we operate based on a code of mutual survival rather than individual greed.
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The Myth of the Monster
Understanding the Code: Non-divers often ask if I am afraid of the “monsters” in the dark specifically the sharks. I have to explain that I feel safer with a dozen sharks than I do in many city centers. Sharks operate on a code I understand and respect. They are not the monolithic, mindless killers portrayed in cinema; they are a diverse and essential family of over 500 species, the vast majority of which pose absolutely no threat to a human being.
The reality of sharks is far more nuanced than the myth. You have the Nurse shark, a bottom-dweller that doesn’t even have traditional teeth, but rather crushing plates designed for shellfish. You have species that never grow larger than a housecat, and many others that are merely inquisitive approaching a diver with a curious, gentle intelligence rather than aggression.
The true “monster” in this story is not the animal in the water, but the one on the boat.
The scale of the trauma we are inflicting on the ocean is difficult to wrap the human mind around. We have moved from catching and removing sharks for sport or by-catch to a much more sinister and inhumane practice: finning. Because the meat of the shark is often seen as low-value, but the fins are highly prized, fishers will haul these animals up, slice off their dorsal and pectoral fins while they are still alive, and toss the writhing body back into the deep.
They do this to save room on the boat – discarding the life to make space for the commodity. A shark cannot swim without its fins; it cannot pass oxygen over its gills. These apex predators are left to sink to the bottom and suffocate in the dark, all to satisfy the demand for shark fin soup. The tragedy is compounded by the fact that this slaughter is fueled by a lie, the myth that it acts as an aphrodisiac or a symbol of sexual potency. We are trading the stability of our oceans for a placebo.
Imagine if a foreign force entered our cities and systematically removed every doctor, every waste management worker, and every first responder. Imagine if they did this by the millions, every single year, leaving our society to rot from the inside out because the “cleanup crew” was gone. That is what we are doing to the world’s lungs. We are traumatizing a system that gives us every second breath we take.
A Call to Action: Beyond the Selfie
The beauty of the ocean is a gift, but it is a gift that carries a heavy responsibility. For too long, the dive industry has focused on the “scenery”, encouraging divers to go down, take a picture of themselves, and come back up. But the ocean doesn’t need more photographers; it needs more guardians.
To the Certification Agencies
It is time to fundamentally change the approach to how we mint new divers. We must move away from “certification for certification’s sake” and pivot toward a mission-driven curriculum. When we certify an Ocean Guardian rather than just a “diver,” we provide a purpose that outlasts the novelty of the first few underwater photos.
If we train students to enter the water with an eye toward understanding the coral reef ecosystem to identify deficiencies and recognize the need for restoration – we solve the industry’s retention problem. Divers won’t get bored after 1,000 selfies because they will have a mission. When the major agencies finally realize that the future of a healthy dive industry is dependent on creating this next generation of advocates, we will see a shift: dive shops may stop closing, lifetime divers will return to the water with renewed vigor, and the infinite pool of new divers will become an infinite pool of hope.
The Power of the Outplant
There isn’t a person who has engaged in a coral outplanting dive who doesn’t come away feeling better about themselves. There is a spiritual weight to giving back to the ocean. Planting a coral is, in many ways, like giving birth. Once you have placed that life into the reef, you are emotionally invested. You want to return to see how the “baby” is growing and developing. This is what keeps a diver coming back decade after decade.
We are all connected. The ocean is the lungs of this planet, and it is gasping for air. By shifting our industry from tourism to stewardship, the ocean may finally begin exhaling with greater ease. Let us stop being anchored to the ground and start flying for a cause.
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