Divers swap shopping bags for scuba tanks as a grassroots alternative to the Black Friday shopping madness starts to spread worldwide
Every year, the day after Thanksgiving sees millions of people stampede into shops for Black Friday bargains. In 2021, however, one Northern California diver decided there was a better use of the day — and far healthier for the planet.
Kenneth Carter, a member of the Sausalito-based Marin Scuba Club, woke up one morning, booked every available reservation at California’s Point Lobos, and took his newly certified son for a post-holiday dive. Visibility was excellent, crowds were non-existent, and the experience was good enough to become a tradition.
Blue Friday — with the simple slogan ‘Don’t shop. Dive.’ — was born.
Five years on, what began as a local outing has grown into a worldwide event, with divers in dozens of countries planning to get in the water on 28 November to mark Blue Friday 5.0.
This year, Marin Scuba Club has partnered with Sun Divers Roatan and The Reef-World Foundation, the charity behind the Green Fins sustainable tourism programme. The collaboration has helped Blue Friday spread far beyond California, with dive operators, clubs and conservation groups across four continents joining in.
‘Blue Friday transforms awareness into collective action,’ says Dev Albao, Programmes Manager at Reef-World. ‘It shows the power of the Green Fins community — when we share ideas and pool our expertise, we can move beyond consumption and make a tangible difference for reefs around the world.’
The list of Blue Friday participants now spans the globe. This year, Australia’s Dive Queensland will be heading into the Coral Sea, and New Zealand’s DivePlanit travel and Dive Pacific plan to encourage their communities to join in.
NECO Marine and the Black Pearl in Palau will host some drift diving activities, and Marin Scuba Club will charter a boat with Jack’s Diving Locker on the Big Island, Hawai’i.
In Northern California, two local dive clubs will go shore diving at Point Lobos, while #UnderwaterPaparazzi plans to dive in San Diego, and Jeffrey Bozanic is planning dives in either Southern California or Florida.
Meanwhile, High Plains Scuba Center in Colorado will sponsor a coldwater lake dive, and divers from the 216-member Chicago Undersea Explorers Society will be using Roosevelt High School’s facilities for a Blue Friday celebration.
Sun Divers Roatan will host its third Annual Blue Friday Dive Against Debris at its PADI Adopt The Blue dive site, followed by a community beach and bay clean-up with the Roatan Marine Park.
Amigos del Mar will participate in Mahahual, Mexico, while Beyond the Diving Course author Carlos Lander will dive at Chichiriviche de la Costa in Venezuela, and AMIT Marine Services’ Sameer Chettri will join in the warm waters of the United Arab Emirates.
In addition, CORAL.org is now on board, and NAUI Worldwide and PADI have both said they will reach out to their instructors and dive centres.
Organise a Blue Friday event
Anybody taken with the idea of swapping the shopping for the underwater world can easily organise their own Blue Friday celebrations.
If you are able to head out diving on 28 November, post your photos, videos, and descriptions of where you went and what you saw on Marin Scuba Club’s Facebook page. All Blue Friday activities will be recapped in a follow-up blog.
Dive shops, liveaboards and resorts that want to lead a Blue Friday group dive event can use the Reef World Foundation’s Blue Friday 5.0 toolkit to help promote the event.
Those not able to get into the water might want to consider taking a Green Fins environmental diving e-course instead.
