As family friendly divers, we like to teach our children the importance of preserving our reefs. In tropical hot locations, all too many people are buying highly chemical toxic sunscreens because of the convenience of a spray can. Without realising it these swimmers, divers, snorkelers are killing the coral reefs. One drop of Oxybenzone can continamate an area of the reef equivalent to six olympic size swimming pools. Between 6,000 and 14,000 tons of sunscreen washes off into our coral reefs every year and accelerates the process of coral reefs bleaching, as well being toxic to certain reef fish species.
So what's is the solution? The answer is simple Mineral Based Sunscreens. They contain Titanium Dioxide or zinc oxide which acts as a natural block against the sun and are harmless to corals. We tested the product on our last diving trip to Turks and Caicos and loved it. As it is a thick based cream, we found that you had to rub it thoroughly but then it protected the Childrens skin well. We also liked the SPF 30 tinted skin colour cream, a more natural way of getting a tan :-). There are more and more companies now selling reef friendly products, but we loved Stream2Sea (https://stream2sea.com), due to their reef safe quality testing, proving that their sunscreens are harmless to the ecosystem.
Check out our review on our You Tube video: https://youtu.be/hkOYMnRCAok