Scuba diving news from South Africa and Worldwide destinations

Pelago Adventura dive company and lodge for sale in Mozambique

2007-08-31T11:34:00.000+02:00

Urgent sale of an established lodge property and scuba dive company in Mozambique.

All the dive equipment, boats, quad bike, a Dhow, a piece of land and the rights to Pelago as well as full ownership is included in the sale.

The website is also included in the sale: www.pelago-mozambique.com

This is a fantastic opportunity for someone to snitch it up.

Any interested parties can contact Jonathan Symmonds at nojule@hotmail.com

The Permit Battle... Continued

2006-12-13T10:16:00.000+02:00

http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3590601

Divers get legal opinion

Rule on scuba permits 'is beyond powers of MCM'
December 13, 2006 Edition 2

Melanie Gosling

Legal opinion obtained by Cape Town scuba divers is that the
government is acting beyond its powers in compelling them to buy
permits before they may dive in marine protected areas, which cover
the entire coastline of the Peninsula.

The R75 permits come into force on January 1 and will be valid for a
year. Monthly permits cost R45.

The legal opinion is that the Department of Environment's Marine
Living Resources Act does not allow the government to make rules to
control recreational uses of the sea that do not entail the
consumption of marine resources. Examples are swimming, surfing and
scuba diving.

Scuba divers were advised they could get the new permit legislation
overturned, but that this would require high court action that could
take three years and cost R500 000.

Monty Guest, chairman of the False Bay Underwater Club, said repeated
requests, made over three years by diving businesses, clubs, divers
and tourism organisations, not to introduce the permit system had been
ignored.

"MCM has just gone ahead with this hugely flawed system. We've lodged
a complaint with the Public Protector.

"Fishermen kill sharks in marine protected areas and nothing happens
to them, but we cannot even swim underwater to watch marine life
without buying a permit.

"There are sewerage outfalls pumping effluent into the marine
protected area and nothing is done ... but scuba divers must have
permits.

"I believe they're doing it to collect money, because everyone knows
MCM is bankrupt, and to control poaching. But poachers by definition
operate outside the law, so they're not going to get dive permits. But
even if they did, how would that stop them poaching?"

Alan Boyd, of MCM, agreed that the act did not permit MCM to
promulgate legislation controlling non-consumptive recreational use of
protected areas, but said MCM might do so if the activity was causing
damage.

He conceded there was no evidence that scuba divers damaged the
Peninsula's kelp forests. He said permits were necessary to enable MCM
to "manage" the scuba diving industry, and was not an attempt to
control poaching.

Liquid Edge Diving - A new independent technical training choice in Johannesburg

2006-10-17T08:40:00.000+02:00

Liquid Edge Diving (LED) (http://www.tekdiver.co.za) has opened shop in Northcliff, providing an independent, alternative choice to technical training in Gauteng.

LED is run by Gerhard du Preez (formerly of IANTD South Africa) and offers the full range of IANTD Courses, both sport, lite technical and full technical.

This is a bubble friendly school that focuses on entry level, open circuit technical diving well as the more advanced technical courses (Trimix and cave) and re-breathers.

Equipment and courses are competitively priced and structured to accommodate busy lifestyles without compromising the quality of training.

Gerhard is an avid deep cave diver whose passion is exploring and passing on his knowledge, creating new explorers.

Services include mixed gases and boosting (a booster enables LED to give you a 200bar fill as well as pure Trimix fills).

Gerhard can be contacted on gerhard@tekdiver.co.za or 0794935384.

Source: http://www.tekdiver.co.za

Where in the world am I?

2006-05-11T12:32:00.000+02:00

The AfriOceans Conservation Alliance is hosting a competition which ends on the 15th of July 2006. They released Dee the Raggie in March and you get to guess where her satellite transmitter will surface around the 15th of July.

Before being released, Dee the Raggie was an aquarium inhabitant. If you can guess where her transmitter will surface, you stand in line for winning one of three great prizes. Get more details at:

Where in the world am I?

Hundreds of Dolphins dead

2006-05-11T12:14:00.000+02:00

Hundreds of dolphins washed up on the shores of Zanzibar at the beginning of May. Scientists are still baffled but suspect it may have something to do with the very low tide, red algae poisoning or Sonar Bursts originating from US Navy patrols. For more info visit national geographic Hundreds of Dolphins dead

DAN Awards Equipment to Rescue Organizations

2006-03-16T08:42:00.000+02:00

DAN has awarded an oxygen unit and an automated external defibrillator (AED) unit through its Oxygen Grant Program and AED Matching Grant Program, respectively.

Texas EquuSearch (TES), a nonprofit volunteer organization that specializes in search, rescue and recovery in the United States and around the world, recently received a Dual Rescue Pak Extended Care valued at $669. And Winston-Salem Rescue Squad Inc. of North Carolina received a DAN FR2+ AED Kit. The equipment is valued at $2750. The Winston-Salem Rescue Squad will use the AED kit on its dive vehicle.

Based in Dickinson, Texas, TES, is the dive organization that supplied divers in Aruba during a recent search for a missing American woman. It is a nonprofit organization composed of volunteers trained in various rescue and life saving skills such as CPR, advanced lifesaving skills and field craft. Members include business owners, medics, firefighters, housewives, electricians and students.

The Winston-Salem Rescue Squad offers a variety of technical rescue services, which include vehicle extrication, high-level/low level rescue, water rescue, dive rescue and recovery, confined space/trench rescue, building collapse and land searches. Most members are certified as Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) and many are certified Emergency Rescue Technician (ERT) levels. The squad was one of the first rescue units certified at the N.C. Department of Insurance standard for heavy rescue.

In a dive emergency in which a diver is suffering from decompression sickness or an arterial gas embolism, the primary first aid treatment to offer is oxygen first aid. Through the Oxygen Grant Program, DAN provides emergency oxygen units to deserving departments and organizations. Oxygen grant requests are decided case by case. Training in the use of the equipment by attending a DAN Oxygen First Aid for Scuba Diving Injuries course is a mandatory requirement to being considered for the grant.

Through its AED Grant Program, DAN recognizes the life-saving potential of AEDs; accordingly, the AED Matching Grant program assists individuals, businesses or organizations in the United States. Grant recipients must have a connection to diving or aquatics and demonstrate a genuine need of AED technology in the course of their normal operations.

Source: www.diversalertnetwork.org

DAN Insurance - Update

2006-03-16T08:41:00.000+02:00

Here are a few related articles on the latest from DAN

DAN America Insurance Dumped at 10 Popular Dive Destinations; Cozumel, Belize, Bahamas, Galapagos...
In a news release dated March 9, 2006, hyperbaric chamber operators from some of the world's most popular dive destinations have announced they will no longer accept DAN America insurance. The destinations include The Bahamas, Baja California, Belize, Cancun, Cozumel, Galapagos, Phuket (Thailand), Playa del Carmen, Samui (Thailand), and the Yucatan (Mexico).
Source: www.underwatertimes.com

SSS announce Chambers not accepting DAN America insurance
SSS (Sub-aquatic Safety Services) Chambers continue their lawsuit against DAN America by issuing a statement on which chambers are not accepting DAN America Insurance.
Source: www.deeperblue.net

Important Public Statement from Divers Alert Network
DAN responds to latest unfortunate email blast sent to the dive industry.
Source: www.divenewswire.com

DAN Addresses SSS Insurance Issue - official release
DAN ensures that all members with dive accident insurance are covered for recompression.
Source: www.diversalertnetwork.org

SCUBA Theory: Snorkels aren't evil

2006-03-16T08:24:00.000+02:00

I really enjoyed this post by Will O'Brien on Divester. Divester is beginning a new series on SCUBA diving theory starting with this fantastic article. There are some good reader comments posted on this page as well.

Quoted from Divester: We're beginning a series on SCUBA diving theory. Not only will we explore techniques and best practices in safety, we'll talk about the reasons behind them. Bad puns will abound as we dive into everything from using and maintaining your gear to compartmental decompression theory. Today, snorkels: they aren't evil.

Do you carry a snorkel on your dives?
I've met several divers lately who leave the snorkel at home when they go SCUBA diving. The snorkel has become percieved as dead weight that tugs at the mask strap. Today I'll talk about the importance of strapping that tube to your head.

Snorkels are annoying
They add extra drag to your head. They poke you in the chin. You forgot the one that isn't pink...
Yup, they're just obnoxious, until you need them.

I'm diving, not snorkeling
According to reports by DAN(The Divers Alert Network), the majority of diving deaths at the surface in 2005 were due to exhaustion. In one case a diver drowned at the surface after he dropped his regulator because his tank was empty at the beginning of his dive.

That boy's head is like Sputnik
In full diving kit, keeping your head above water is very exhausting. The human head averages about 12 pounds. That's a big weight to keep out of the water. Oh, and don't forget that the top of the tank and your regulator are poking out of the water. Lets make that 20 to 25 pounds of dead weight. Inflating your BC will offset the weight of your noggin, but todays BCs are not designed to keep the divers head out of water.

Please sir, make them smaller
It's not entirely the diver's fault that snorkels are being left behind. It has become difficult to find a simple, streamlined snorkel in a dive shop. Purge valves certainly make clearing a snorkel very easy. Unfortunately adding a purge valve makes the snorkel bigger and heavier, resulting in more drag on the divers head. My favorite, trusty, valve free SCUBAPRO snorkel isn't even made anymore. Purge valves are simple devices, but they can fail. A piece of sand in the right place can turn that spiffy valve into a water inlet. Aside from children's gear, my local dive shop doesn't even carry a snorkel without a purge valve.

You're still not convinced?
For the local Advanced Open Water course, we have a skill designed to prove the importance of the snorkel. In full gear, the divers swim laps around the pool with everything but a snorkel. In a class filled with 20 year olds in good physical condition, most hit exhaustion between 5 and 8 laps or 250 to 400 yards! After a break, we give them back their snorkel. Once their heads is comfortably in the water, previously exhausted students easily swim the same distance and more with very little energy use. This skill is designed to produce exhaustion, DO NOT try it without an instructor to keep you safe.

Failure is not an option
Have you really considered what happens if you experience an equipment failure at the surface? An aborted dive can easily result in surfacing away from the dive boat. BC failure, broken fin straps, an un-recoverable free flowing regulator all become more serious problems if you left your snorkel in your bag. Even in an out of air situation, most people take their regulators back once they get you to the surface.

Gearing up?
Every year, several diving deaths occur at the water surface. The majority of these deaths are due to exhaustion. Snorkels may be a drag, but carrying your head out of the water is even worse. Swimming at the surface in full gear without a snorkel will quickly exhaust even the most physically fit diver. The snorkel is sort of a secret seat belt for divers at the surface.

Me? I carry my snorkel on every dive.
I'll even take the pink one.

Source: www.divester.com

"Shark Parks?" Oceans said in need of protection

2006-03-16T08:22:00.000+02:00

With tracts of the ocean as little known as Mars, discoveries of a stunning richness of life in the depths are spurring calls for more protection from trawlers, oil drillers and prospectors.

Only about 0.5 percent of the oceans are in protected areas, compared to about 12 percent of the earth's land surface set aside in parks for creatures ranging from lions in South Africa to polar bears in Alaska.

A United Nations meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Brazil from March 20-31 will review calls to extend protected areas into the high seas to help safeguard marine life ranging from seaweeds to sharks and from starfish to corals.

Scientists say the issue is pressing because life is being found in parts of the ocean long thought barren -- in the sediments of abyssal plains on the ocean floor, around subsea mountains, deep sea corals or hydrothermal vents.

"Great attention gets paid to rainforests because of the diversity of life there," said U.S. oceanographer Sylvia Earle, an executive director of Conservation International. "Diversity in the oceans is even greater."

"We should have at least as much of the oceans protected as of the land," she said. Most existing protected sea areas are close to coasts, such as around Australia's Great Barrier reef, Ecuador's Galapagos Islands or in the Mediterranean.

"We need better international cooperation and marine protected areas are one way forward," said Kristina Maria Gjerde, an expert at the Geneva-based World Conservation Union which groups governments and environmental groups.

CATCHING SQUIRRELS WITH A BULLDOZER
"Key areas for protection are deep sea coral reefs and seamounts which are being strip-mined by bottom trawl fishing," said Simon Cripps, director of the Global Marine Programme at the WWF environmental group.

Fishing fleets are trawling ever deeper international waters in search of new commercial species, like the orange roughly, as traditional stocks, such as cod or tuna, dwindle due to over-exploitation.

Unregulated fishing is by far the biggest threat to marine biodiversity because trawlers dragging nets over deep corals, for instance, may be destroying nurseries for fish.

Earle said deep-sea trawling was like trying to catch squirrels in a forest with a bulldozer.

New technologies are also opening up the ocean depths: Exxon Mobil Corp. says it can drill for oil in waters approaching 3,000 meters (9,840 ft) deep. Deep water sponges have uses in fiber optics and heat-loving bacteria from thermal vents have promise in helping produce ethanol fuel.

Yet much of the ocean remains as mysterious as Mars.

"We still can't begin to say what's down there," said Ron O'Dor, chief scientist of the Census of Marine Life, a 10-year $1 billion international effort to map life in the seas.

"We've only explored an area the size of 10 football fields of the abyssal plains," he said, referring to the flat sediments on the seabed covering 60 percent of the planet's surface at an average depth of 4 km (2.5 miles).

One recent expedition off Angola turned up more than 400 new species in abyssal sediments, mostly tiny single-cell organisms.

And only 250 of about 15,000 seamounts, rising from the plains but not tall enough to become islands, have been sampled.

Scientists went to the Arctic last year to explore two seamounts marked on charts. "We discovered they weren't even there," O'Dor said. "How much do we know about seamounts? Obviously not enough."

And scientists were stunned in 1977 by the discovery of deep sea hydrothermal vents, leaking acidic water heated by subsea magma and sustaining heat-loving bacteria, tube worms and crabs. Many more such vents have been found since.

Many experts say implementation of existing laws, drafted before the deep-sea marine finds of recent decades, is insufficient to protect the high seas -- the area beyond the 200 nautical mile territorial waters.

HIGH SEAS
Yet many countries fear restrictions and experts say the Brazil talks are unlikely to resolve the tangle -- many nations say the U.N. Law of the Sea is the proper forum while the Convention on Biological Diversity should just advise.

One huge headache would be how to enforce any marine protected areas.

"A simple approach of blue-helmeted U.N. police on the high seas is never going to happen," WWF's Cripps said, adding it would be unworkable despite satellite surveillance.

Still, the very existence of a protected area on a map would allow the world to "identify and vilify" violators, he said.

Some parts of the high seas have some forms of protection.

The Indian Ocean has been a no-go area for whaling since 1979 and the Southern Ocean was added in 1994. Wrecks like the Titanic can be protected under rules on cultural heritage.

And since 2002, a U.N. convention has begun restricting trade in endangered species of commercial fish -- the great white shark, the humphead wrasse, basking sharks, whale sharks and seahorses.

Source: today.reuters.co.uk

No serious coral reef damage after tsunami

2006-03-16T08:18:00.000+02:00

Most Indian Ocean coral reefs which were hit by the December 2004 tsunami escaped serious damage, but their full recovery could be hampered by humans, the World Conservation Union warned on Wednesday.

A small number of damaged reefs may take two decades or more to bounce back, while some individual reefs may never recover at all, said the union and the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network in a joint report.

But most of the ocean's remaining tsunami-affected coral reefs could recover within five to ten years, provided the damage from human activities can be reduced, the report said.

"These human activities include over-fishing, deforestation and climate change," said Clive Wilkinson, an expert from the Australian Institute of Marine Science and one of the editors of the report.

The tsunami disaster, triggered by a 9.3-magnitude earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra on December 26, 2004, killed about 220 000 people in 11 Indian Ocean countries.

It also wreaked enormous economic damage.

However, the report said, the physical impact on coral reefs in the Indian Ocean was patchy, depending on factors including the distance of the country from the source of the tsunami and existing condition of the reef.

Most of the damage to coral reefs resulted from backwash of debris and sediment from land, including from waste disposal sites, it said.

The report raised concerns about potential damage caused by efforts to revive the economies of tsunami-affected areas near coral reefs, particularly fishing communities.

In the aftermath of the disaster, the focus was on potential tsunami damage to coral reefs and the associated livelihoods for millions of people who lived and work near them, but unsustainable reconstruction efforts are now moving into the spotlight, the report said.

It pointed in particular to fears that replacement boats, motors and general fishing equipment often use different technology, often leading to inappropriate use and increased fishing, to the possible detriment of the reefs.

Source: www.iol.co.za

Climate change - Our oceans and reefs are in danger

2006-03-16T08:02:00.000+02:00

Global warming, CO2 emissions, pollution and climate change - call it what you will, our planet is suffering. Here are a few articles I found ralating to these issues.

CO2 emissions damaging seabeds
Carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere are harming the world's seabeds, stunting the growth of coral reefs because of rising acidity levels in the water, according to a study due out in Norway this week.
Source: cooltech.iafrica.com

Coral bleachings haunt the world's reefs
When marine scientist Ray Berkelmans went diving at Australia's Great Barrier Reef earlier this year, what he discovered shocked him - a graveyard of coral stretching as far as he could see.
Source: today.reuters.co.uk/news

Coral reefs stunted by too much pollution
Carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere are harming the world's seabeds, stunting the growth of coral reefs because of rising acidity levels in the water, according to a study due out in Norway this week.
Source: www.iol.co.za

Tower of London on climate list
UN experts are meeting to determine the risks which climate change poses to some of the world's special places. The UN's cultural and scientific wing Unesco says climate change threatens World Heritage Sites such as the Great Barrier Reef and the Tower of London.
Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Indian Ocean coral may die in 50 years - researcher
Rising sea temperatures caused by global warming could kill off the Indian Ocean's coral reefs in the next 50 years, threatening vital marine life, a marine researcher said on Wednesday.
Source: today.reuters.co.uk/news

Shark cage diving and shark encounters without cages

2006-03-10T09:30:00.000+02:00

Most people have heard of shark cage diving. But now try this: diving with the Cape's sharks with no steel cage for protection.

That's exactly what a local tour company has been quietly offering for six years.

Chris Fallows, of Apex Shark Expeditions, has warned against hysteria after the latest shark incident.

Durban tri-athlete Peter Larcombe was training in Fish Hoek bay on Monday when a shark swam near him and he was hauled out of the water on to a fishing boat. A witness said: "The shark was moving closer to the man. It was a matter of seconds and he would have been another statistic."

Fallows congratulated the fishermen who helped Larcombe, but said humans were not part of sharks' diets.

And he opened his photographic library on the extraordinary company he runs.

Most people would consider such a venture madness.

But Fallows says: "We use cages off Seal Island in winter but we also offer snorkelling with blue and mako sharks off Cape Point in summer when the Great Whites leave Seal Island and are difficult to find.

"Humans don't form part of the natural food chain of sharks. And, as such, in most instances, they're more curious about us, even wary, than they are aggressive.

"In most instances, they shy away from us, instead of provoking an interaction."

Fallows and his wife, Monique, have worked with sharks for more than 15 years and have, for the past six years, offered snorkelling with the pelagic blue and mako sharks off Cape Point.

Pelagic refers to the "blue water" type of diving, over 1 000m deep, as opposed to close to the shore.

"Most of our dives take place (about 25km) out to sea. We use low frequency sounds to attract the sharks to the boat, whereupon the divers get into the water and, under strict safety guidelines, get to encounter them at close quarters.

"In more than one hundred dives with pelagic sharks, no shark has ever acted aggressively."

Do Great Whites generally have a different attitude?

"Although they're very curious animals and will inspect floating objects, they are very selective as to what they bite and consume.

"In all likelihood, Peter would probably have been inspected and the shark would have continued on its merry way, as they've been doing for hundreds of thousands of years in False Bay.

"Having tagged more than 600 sharks of various species within 150m of the shore off the Strandfontein beaches over the past decade, I'm sure people are regularly inspected by sharks and are complacently unaware of it.

"Human beings kill more than 100 million sharks a year and, on average, less than 20 people are killed each year by sharks.

"They certainly have a lot more to fear from us."

Source: www.iol.co.za

New Product Manager and other appointments made by Mares

2006-03-10T09:28:00.000+02:00

Mares Diving, a division of Head USA, today announces three personnel changes.

Enrico Romeo, current Product Manager of Diving for Mares Diving in Norwalk has been promoted to Sales Manager for South America and will relocate to Mares worldwide HQ in Rapallo, Italy.

Monica Sullender named Product Manager for Diving.

Monica Sullender, has been appointed Product Manager of Diving for the Mares Diving division of HEAD USA, based in Norwalk, CT. Monica has relocated from Mares worldwide HQ in Rapallo, Italy where she was formerly involved in product development for the North American market and instrumental in the development of Mares She Dives Collection, a collection of diving products specifically designed for women. Prior to joining Mares in 2004, Monica was a store Manager for Ocean Enterprises based in San Diego, California.

Sullender will report to Phil Mintz, Director of Sales and Marketing. In her role, Sullender will manage the North American product assortment and interface with HQ on product requirements specific to the North American markets.

Scott Cook has been appointed Warranty Service Technician of Diving, for the Mares Diving division of HEAD USA. In his new role Scott will handle warranty and service for diving products and respond to dealer inquiries and technical questions. Scott recently returned from HQ in Rapallo Italy where he completed regulator training and instruction to repair and service Mares regulators and conduct certification and training for our diving customers. The Mares Service Center is located in Baltimore, MD at the Head USA distribution center.

Scott's most recent position was as Senior Service Technician for La Cimbali espresso machines. He has seventeen years of experience in deep sea diving supervision and diesel mechanics and spent several years as a Deep Sea Diving Supervisor for the U.S. Naval Station and Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Scott lives in Arnold, Maryland with his wife and children.

HEAD USA is part of the HEAD NV Group, which is based in the Netherlands and listed on the New York and Vienna Stock exchanges. The HEAD NV Group is a worldwide sporting goods company that manufactures and markets products under the HEAD brand (racquet and winter sports), Penn (world's #1 tennis ball and racquet ball brand), and Tyrolia (wintersports bindings), in addition to the three diving brands (Mares, Dacor and Sporasub).

HEAD NV's Chairman is Johan Eliasch. The telephone number for the Diving Division is 203 855 0631; fax 203 866 9573; website www.mares.com. For HEAD USA information, log onto www.head.com

Source: www.sportdiver.com

Medical talks could appeal

2006-03-10T09:25:00.000+02:00

The Diving Medicine 2006 conference, to run on 23/24 March in Shrewsbury, could be of interest to sport and particularly technical divers.

Organised by the United Kingdom Sport Diving Medical Committee, the event covers such subjects as fitness for diving, heart PFOs, asthma, diabetes, DCI treatments, and the physiology and medicine of technical diving.

The venue is the Shropshire Education and Conference Centre. Full details, www.uksdmc.co.uk

Source: www.divernet.com

Dive Bar offers counter display and special discount in March

2006-03-10T09:22:00.000+02:00

Dive Bar is a delicious and nutritious sport bar made exclusively for underwater enthusiasts. Since its launch late last year, Dive Bar has made a huge splash with customers and retailers from coast to coast. And now, for the month of March, we are having a 15% OFF SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY OFFER on our Dive Bar Counter Display!

The counter display is great for last minute, add-on sales. It contains 4 boxes of 18 Dive Bars each, neatly displayed with an attractive P.O.P. header card. We also have special volume discounts on our floor displays and power centers.

Dive Bar is a high energy snack bar with enough Ginger to help settle the stomach and ward off seasickness, and Papaya and Pineapple enzymes to aid in digestion. But the best part is the incredible taste that will have your customers coming back for more. It's the perfect pre-, post- or in-between dives snack.

You always knew that your customers craved sport bars as a convenient snack while diving - now they have one created just for them!

To take advantage of this limited-time introductory offer, call 1-800-918-8714 today, visit www.divebar.com or email sales@divebar.com.

Related Articles: New 'Dive Bar' with ginger wards of seasickness

Source: www.divenewswire.com

Pre-Dive Checklist

2006-03-10T09:14:00.000+02:00

Scuba diving is full of opportunities for embarrassment, as perhaps you've noticed. Does your diving protocol include sometimes stepping off the boat without weights?

Mine too. You'd think we might learn eventually to run down a checklist of all the gear we're going to need in the water before making that giant stride. You know the kind of thing: Weight belt on? Check. Air on? Check. But somehow paper checklists get lost when you need them most. And who wants to do paperwork when there's diving to do?

PADI Course Director Ned Branch doesn't use paper checklists for recreational diving. "I tried them and forgot stuff," he says. "I'd skip something, thinking I'd get back to it later." But paper does have its place. When he dives his complicated closed-circuit rig, he uses paper and pencil to be sure he's got everything. And people differ. If you feel more comfortable making those tick marks with a pencil before every dive and have the discipline that takes, do it.

I don't. On ordinary dives, I need a substitute for the shopping list that's hard to screw up and impossible to forget: a no-pencil, no-brain reminder of all the equipment we must have and all the things we must do to avoid embarrassment--something, well, idiot-proof. And I don't mean those acronyms and trick phrases that instructors love so much. I can't remember them either.

Instead, I like the "checklist" that's always right at my fingertips because it's my own body. Each part of it--my eyes, ears, mouth, chest, stomach, hands and feet--suggests a piece of essential gear or a predive ritual. By always making a head-to-toe body scan of my predive checklist, I haven't forgotten anything important. Lately, at least.

Visit Scuba Diving's Ultimate Pre-Dive Checklist for the full article and find out how it can work for you...

Source: www.divester.com

New Zealand: Health of scuba divers to be monitored

2006-03-10T09:11:00.000+02:00

Recreational scuba divers will soon be asked to provide information about their health to prevent more deaths under the water.

The New Zealand Underwater Association has begun circulating a medical questionnaire as part of best practice guidelines.

Its head of dive safety Lynn Taylor says it is in response to coroner recommendations after several diving deaths involving pre-existing medical conditions.

She says the questionnaire will also bring overseas divers who are not required to have a medical check before gaining a certificate to their attention.

Taylor hopes the questionnaire will help stop regulation being imposed on the industry.

Source: tvnz.co.nz

San Jose diver may have drowned before shark attack

2006-03-10T09:08:00.000+02:00

By many accounts, Anthony Moore was an experienced diver. The 45-year-old San Jose engineer left a detailed "float plan" with his wife before heading out for a free-diving excursion off the south coast of Maui Thursday.

Then something went terribly wrong. When he failed to return as scheduled, his wife called 911, prompting a massive search by the US Coast Guard and Maui authorities.

On Friday morning, a kayaker discovered parts of Moore's shark-bitten body off the coast near Makena. The coroner's office received three different sections of remains: a pelvis and lower extremities. A Coast Gaurd official said Saturday that Moore's wife identified her husband by a lanyard that included his rental car key.

"We're not able to determine the cause of death," said Dr. Tony Manoukian, a coroner's physician, from the morgue at Maui Memorial Medical Center Saturday. "We can't exclude the possibility that he was dead at the time of the attack."

Manoukian, a forensic pathologist, said this was his fourth autopsy of a shark attack victim. He said the fact that the kidney was congested with blood indicated that Moore probably drowned and was then attacked by sharks, as opposed to bleeding to death while alive.

"We see shallow water blackouts and drowning more frequently than shark attacks," said Manoukian, who said that DNA testing or recovering the skull and dental records would be required to positively identify the body.

"It may have been more than one species of shark," Manoukian said. "But we have no evidence that it was anything other than a tiger or reef shark."

Moore was an engineer at Code Green Networks of Sunnyvale.

"He was very well liked, and he'll be missed," said Bob Verheecke, who recently joined the company as Chief Financial Officer.

Source: www.mercurynews.com

New shark species discovered in the Sea of Cortez

2006-03-10T09:05:00.000+02:00

A Mexican marine biologist has discovered a new shark species in the murky depths of Mexico's Sea of Cortez, the first new shark find in the wildlife-rich inlet in 34 years.

Postgraduate student Juan Carlos Perez was on a fishing boat in early 2003 studying sharks from the Mustelus family netted at depths of 660 feet when he noticed some of them had darker skin and white markings.

The sharks, slender, dark gray-brown and around 5 feet (1.5 meters) long, turned out to be a new species that Perez and his team have named "Mustelus hacat," after the word for shark in a local Indian dialect.

"What I first noticed was their color. They are dark in color, like dark coffee, and have white markings on the tips and edges of their fins and tails which jump out at you because they are so dark," Perez told Reuters on Thursday.

"I got back from the boat and the first thing I said was that I thought I had a new species, but I wasn't sure until six months on when we did genetic tests," he said, audibly elated.

Worldwide, marine biologists tend to discover two or three new shark species in any given year.

But Perez's find -- bringing to five the types of Mustelus shark found in the eastern North Pacific -- is the first shark discovery in the Sea of Cortez since the tiny Mexican Horn Shark (Heterodontus mexicanus) was identified in 1972.

"I wasn't looking for something new, but it's very satisfying. I'm very happy," said Perez, 31, who is based at the CICESE science and technology research center at the port of Ensenada in northwestern Baja California state.

His find was published in the U.S. journal Copeia in December.

"There must be more undiscovered species there but access is difficult. If we hadn't been on those boats I'd never have seen them because that's the only place they are caught. And it's not a region that attracts scuba diving."

There are some 50 to 60 species of shark in the Sea of Cortez, a narrow body of water also known as the Gulf of California that separates Mexico's Baja California peninsula from the mainland and is famous for its rich and unique ecosystem.

The Mustelus hacat lives in the ocean's depths feeding on shellfish and shrimp," Perez said, adding: "They have very, very small teeth. They are really not aggressive or dangerous."

Source: www.underwatertimes.com

New species found on Barrier Reef

2006-03-10T09:02:00.000+02:00

Scientists have found new species of fish and other sea life as part of a landmark survey of the Great Barrier Reef.

The Great Barrier Reef Seabed Biodiversity Project, conducted last year, covered 210,000sq km of the continental shelf from Fraser Island to Cape York.

Project leader Dr Roland Pitcher of CSIRO Marine today said a survey on such a scale had never been carried out before.

Data collected by survey vessels Lady Basten and Gwendoline May in several voyages over 325 days included more than 2000 hours of video footage by a remote-controlled camera.

About 15,000 plant and animal samples were collected using a small sled pulled along the seabed.

Dr Pitcher said one more voyage was planned before the end of the year to complete the mapping of seafloor life and marine habitats up to 100m deep.

The information would be analysed over the next two years, Dr Pitcher said.

These will likely include confirmation that many species on the east coast were related to species off northern Western Australia and in the waters of some Asian countries.

There would be some brand new sea creatures unique to the Great Barrier Reef such as the pipehorse – which resembles a snake-like seahorse, as well as a crab and lace-like corals.

"We think around one-third of the species that have been found might be new because these species had not been studied before," Dr Pitcher said.

The survey will help the federally funded Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA), which manages the park, to plan how the reef can be better monitored and used, and how state authorities can best manage trawl fishing.

"It's very important to have maps of where things are and what they are, what's there and where is it, so you can think about all these planning activities in the same way that we think about them on land," Dr Pitcher said.

Source: www.theaustralian.news.com.au

Atomic Aquatics presents AtomicVision line of dive masks

2006-03-07T09:03:00.000+02:00

The latest innovation from Atomic Aquatics unveiled at DEMA Show 2005 in Las Vegas.

Atomic Aquatics continues to turn the dive industry on edge with its innovative products. First came the ground-breaking Atomic regulator family, followed by the award-winning SplitFins. Now at DEMA 2005 Atomic Aquatics is pleased to unveil its new Atomic-Vision ULTRACLEAR line of professional dive masks.

Atomic engineering combined decades of diving knowledge, proven concepts, and ESPECIALLY input from Atomic retailers and dealers to create the ultimate dive masks. Customers can choose from two distinct models - the Atomic Sub-Frame and the Atomic Frameless.

The Atomic Sub-Frame mask is the strongest and most indestruct-ible two-window mask ever made. After talking to several Atomic dealers nationwide our dealers noticed that many two-window masks on the market are inherently structurally weak and susceptible to twisting and breakage. Because of this Atomic decided to build the strongest and most durable two window mask we could. Now divers don't have to worry about breaking their mask if someone sits on it, steps on it, or even if a tank falls on it.

The Atomic Sub-Frame mask is a two-window design built with an innovative patent pending three-piece frame structure. This structure provides unparalleled durability and strength. In fact, the Atomic Sub-Frame is so durable that the company is announcing a LIFETIME WARRANTY against frame breakage.

The Sub-Frame mask design's strength is due to the super strong engineering grade thermoplastic frame molded beneath the mask skirt surface. This grade of plastic is so strong it has been used in other industries as a replacement for cast metal components.

To add even more rigidity and strength to the frame structure, Atomic engineers designed into the frame a solid 316 stainless steel Lens retainer support section around the nose bridge. This makes this the Sub-Frame mask incredibly rigid in the normally weak area of a two-window mask design. The support is not just a metal accent, but a purposefully designed structural support to keep the lenses flat and parallel to the viewing plane.

The two-window design also allows changing lenses for vision-correction needs with the mask’s interchangeable lens option.

The Atomic Frameless mask is all about fit, comfort, and simplicity. A large lens and a close fitting skirt work in harmony to create one of the widest viewing angles available for a frameless mask design. The lens shape was computer designed to maximize upward, downward and side-to-side vision. It is a true low profile and very low volume design.

The squeeze to release the buckles rest behind the lens for a sleek look and true hydrodynamic function. Available in either clear or black silicone with co-molded color accents.

ULTRACLEAR Lenses
Both the Atomic Frameless and Sub-frames models offer a new standard feature never seen or “seen through” before on a diving mask. We call them ULTRACLEAR lenses.

What makes ULTRACLEAR special? Did you ever notice that normal dive mask lenses have green tint to the glass? To see this tint put you're existing mask up to a piece of white paper and see for yourself. The green tint you see is the result of iron impurities left over in lower quality “ float or window type” glass. That green tint distorts true colors and blocks out some of the light that reaches the eye.

ULTRACLEAR is a new and exciting optical quality glass with exceptional clarity and high light transmission, with no color distortion.

The exceptionally high light transmittance and lack of distortion in an ULTRACLEAR lens maximizes the light available for improved visual acuity, especially underwater in low light conditions.

Like all Atomic products, the AtomicVision line is built for performance with the added elements of comfort and style. The ultra-comfortable silicone skirt is available in clear or black and the accent colors (red, blue, yellow or black) are designed to match to popular Atomic SplitFin line.

Visit Atomic Aquatics for more information.

Hand signals used by divers approved by RSTC

2006-03-07T08:59:00.000+02:00

The recreational scuba training industry is a self-regulated industry that is responsible for development of training standards that are used as a minimum platform for participating agencies to develop their own standards.

The Recreational Scuba Training Council (RSTC) was formed in 1986 to meet industry needs and has developed training standards from open water diver level through instructor trainer level.

In November of 2005 RSTC approved standard hand signals and common hand signals used by divers. Many of these standard signals were originally an ANSI standard. They are based on the standard hand signals used by training agencies when training entry level divers.

The approved hand signals are posted on the World Recreational Training Agency (WRSTC) web site at www.wrstc.com.

RSTC consists of International Diving Educators Association (IDEA), Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI), Professional Dive Instructors Corporation (PDIC), Scuba Diving International (SDI) Scuba Schools International (SSI) and Young Men¹s Christian Association (YMCA) and meets throughout the year to deal with issues involving training in the scuba industry. RSTC is also the Secretariat for the ANSI Committee Z-375, Scuba Diving Training Standards and Safety.

For additional information on RSTC contact any member organization or contact RSTC at P.O. Box 11083 Jacksonville, FL 32239 or info@wrstc.com

Source: www.divenewswire.com

ADEX Show Announces New Exhibitors and Programs

2006-03-07T08:53:00.000+02:00

With an influx of new exhibitors and with existing exhibitors significantly increasing their booth presence, organiser Suntec Integrated Media (SIM) has announced that the Asia Dive Expo 2006 (ADEX) will be a full 60% bigger than ADEX 2004 held in Singapore.

This increase in the number of world-class companies taking up booths at ADEX 2006 promises to attract a larger pool of quality visitors.

The marked growth in the number of equipment manufacturers is one of the main crowd-pullers at this year’s show. Top names like Bare Wetsuits, Coltri Sub, Cressi Sub, L&W Compressors, Mares, Nitrox Technologies Inc and Ralf Tech have pledged their presence at the exhibition to expand their footprint in Asia's burgeoning dive market.

At the same time, the participation of these manufacturers and their organization of value-added events like Distributor Workshops bring in more trade visitors keen on expertise transfer. Key manufacturers like Dadriba and Mares will be conducting such workshops to equip their distributors with product knowledge, product updates, marketing support and the service and maintenance of equipment.

Said Roel van Leeuwen, Director of Suntec Integrated Media, "It's good news to see some manufacturers effectively doubling the booth space because they've recognised that ADEX is the ideal regional platform from which to do serious dive business. What makes ADEX different from other dive shows is our 'holistic' approach to the dive business.

We've created the broadest possible range of programmes designed to draw quality visitors from distributors and dive operators, to travel buyers and consumers. The interaction between these different types of visitors and exhibitors really makes our show special."

ADEX 2006 has also designed and incorporated other winning programmes aimed at drawing in quality visitors. One such programme is the Dive Certification Updates, which will be a hit with dive centres and training agencies. This module offers agencies, like PADI, an excellent opportunity to inform their members on the latest training programme, product information and promotions, new course materials and marketing support.

The Dive Travel Symposium is another not-to-be-missed event for trade visitors. It brings together regional and international travel buyers who will present on travel-related topics such as how to package dive destinations and what would interest travel buyers from various markets. Any one in or related to the dive travel business could gain insight from what the experts look for when they are out shopping for destinations. Those attending will also have the privilege of meeting Mr. Tom Ingram, Executive Director of the Diving Equipment and Marketing Association (DEMA), who will also be speaking at the Dive Travel Symposium.

"There is no better platform within the Asian marketplace for all the key players in the dive industry to come together in a mutually beneficial dialogue than at ADEX. It offers a critical opportunity for all those involved in the business of diving to grow their business and reach out to the people who matter, said Mr. Tom Ingram, Executive Director, DEMA.

"DEMA fully supports and endorses ADEX as the premier international dive exhibition in Asia. We urge all our members to participate actively in ADEX so as to reap the benefits of its excellent programmes and leverage on its pool of quality exhibitors and visitors."

Trade visitors are invited to pre-register for free entry to Asia Dive Expo at www.asiadiveexpo.com / Visitors / Trade Registration. Visitors who register before 10 March 2006 stand a chance to win an L&W Compressor worth S$5,000.

Asia Dive Expo, held from 21-23 April 2006 in Suntec Singapore, is organised by Suntec Integrated Media. Established since 1995, ADEX is the leading international dive exhibition in Asia and expects to welcome 150 exhibiting companies and 10,000 visitors. It offers companies in the dive and travel industry an integrated and cost effective marketing platform utilising multiple media such as exhibit space, print media, e-marketing and vital face to face contact time with key stakeholders. For more information on ADEX, please visit www.asiadiveexpo.com

Source: www.divenewswire.com

Diving businessman ruled liable over wife's death

2006-03-07T08:51:00.000+02:00

A US dive shop owner has been found liable for the death of his wife, in a civil case that awarded the victim's parents more than $3.5 million in damages.

A Superior Court jury found that David Swain, 50, who ran a dive shop in Jamestown, Rhode Island, killed his wife Shelley Tyre, 46, during a dive off the Caribbean island of Tortola in 1999.

According to a report by The Providence Journal, the jury accepted testimony from experts that, based on examination of the victim's scuba gear, Swain had attacked his wife from behind at a depth of 24m, turned off her air and forced her to drown. However, Swain has never been charged with any crime.

Tyre's parents were reportedly awarded $2 million in punitive damages and $1,534,943 in compensatory damages. Tyre, according to her lawyer, had given up a $70,000-a-year job as an academy principal to take a lower-paid teaching job closer to home, in trying to salvage a marriage which she believed was in trouble.

Had the pair divorced, it was reported, a prenuptial agreement would have left Swain with nothing. Upon Tyre's death, Swain reportedly collected $570,000 from policies and other sources. However, he is reported to have filed for bankruptcy last autumn.

In the USA, as in Britain, in contrast to criminal trials in which guilt has to be proved beyond all reasonable doubt, in civil hearings a jury may find a defendant liable if such a position seems firmly likely under the weight of evidence presented.

Source: www.divernet.com

Jean-Michel Cousteau at LIDS

2006-03-07T08:49:00.000+02:00

Jean-Michel Cousteau is the latest addition to a stellar cast of speakers at the London International Dive show (LIDS), which runs over 1-2 April at the Docklands' ExCeL Exhibition Centre.

Cousteau, the Santa Barbara, California-based son of legendry underwater film maker Jacques, is expected to talk about the work of his Ocean Futures Society in promoting marine exploration, education and conservation.

An element may well be the Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Adventures series which airs on America's PBS TV channel this Spring. The intention of the series has been as a modern version of his father's famed diving exploration films of the 1960s and 70s.
Like Jacques Cousteau's original films, the series follows the adventures of a specific band of people voyaging aboard a vessel to different parts of the globe in such of wondrous experiences, knowledge and understanding of the marine world.

The series was produced by Ocean Futures Society and KQED Public Broadcasting. Following completion of the US screenings, it is to be hoped that repeats will be agreed for Britain and other countries.

Other LIDS star speakers include Peter Scoones, John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, Richard Lundgren, Leigh Bishop and Teresa Telus, Rick Stanton, Monty Halls, John Boyle and Guy and Anita Chaumette. More than 250 exhibitors will fill the main hall.

Admission is £10.50 on the door, or £7.50 by advance booking. Children enter for £2, whether by advance booking or on the door. Call 020 8977 9878 or go to www.diveshows.co.uk

Source: www.divernet.com

Crowded dive site in Maldives

2006-03-07T08:46:00.000+02:00

The Maldives is claiming a new Guinness World Record for the most people diving together at one time.

On 25 February 979 divers, aged 10-73 and drawn from Maldivians, tourists and expatriates, are reported to have got into the water together at Sunlight Thila on North Male Atoll.

Organised by the Maldives Tourism Promotion Board, the event involved divers brought to the site through a joint effort by 37 resorts, nine dive centres and 14 safari vessels, with support from the Coastguard.

The President of the Maldives, His Excellency Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, attended the dive with other governmental officials. Post-dive celebrations included a beach barbecue at Kuda Bandos.

The current Guinness world record for the category Most People Scuba Diving Simultaneously is 722. The Maldives claim is being processed.

Source: www.divernet.com

South Africa: Spear diver hit by boat propeller

2006-03-07T08:41:00.000+02:00

A diver in South Africa was injured after a boat ran over him.

The incident, in Melkbossstrand on the country's Western Cape, reportedly involved a 71-year-old diver who suffered lacerations to his buttocks after the helmsman of a motorboat failed to see him and drove over him.

The diver, who was reported to have been spear-fishing with two others, was airlifted to hospital, where he was described as being in a stable condition.

Source: www.divernet.com

Grey Nurse Shark species at risk of extinction, says genetic survey

2006-03-07T08:39:00.000+02:00

Grey nurse sharks are in danger of becoming extinct, according to a genetic survey of the fish in their natural habitats.

Scientists analysed DNA from small populations of the sharks off the western and eastern coasts of Australia and South Africa to see how much the groups mixed and how diverse their genes were.

They found that grey nurse sharks living around the Australian coast are isolated from other small groups of sharks, suggesting that their dwindling numbers will not be boosted by sharks migrating from other waters.

The survey also discovered that each individual population of sharks had a very small range of genetic diversity, making the group vulnerable to dangerous infections and changes in habitat. "Low genetic variation lowers the potential for a species to adapt to environmental change such as global warming and also increases the risk of disease," said Adam Gow, of Macquarie University in Sydney.

Grey nurse sharks have been in rapid decline, particularly during the 60s and 70s, when they were hunted for sport using explosives. The species, Carcharias taurus, is now listed as critically endangered. "Although it has rather menacing needle-like teeth on display, it has become clear that they really are not people eaters. Their tooth structure is suited to grasping slippery fish rather than large mammals," said Dr Gow.

The decline of the grey nurse shark is exacerbated by its slow ability to bounce back from overfishing. The sharks take up to 10 years to reach full maturity and each female has a maximum of only two live young because the firstborn attempts to eat all of its siblings in the uterus, leaving only a single "pup" in each of the two fallopian tubes. "The population is so low now that with their slow recovery rate, they really are particularly vulnerable to extinction unless all mortality due to fishing and other human impacts is removed," said Dr Gow, whose study appears in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

"Along with the negligible migration into the critically endangered east Australian population, our finding of low genetic variation shows that the risk of extinction is higher than previously thought," he said.

The finding reinforces efforts to conserve the sharks' habitats and protect their current populations, which in Australia amount to no more than 400 in the wild. But more will need to be done, according to Dr Gow. To broaden the shark population's genetic diversity, sharks from distant waters will have to be introduced to those elsewhere in the hope that they breed young.

Mixing sharks from different regions should produce a more sturdy population, although there are risks to the welfare and migration behaviour of those chosen for transferring.

Source: www.sharklife.co.za

Study warns of threat to sharks

2006-03-07T08:37:00.000+02:00

Sharks could be more vulnerable to the fishing industry than was previously thought, research has revealed.

Marine scientists led by Aberdeen University have discovered that the deepest oceans of the world appear to be shark free. One possible reason, they tell a Royal Society journal, may be lack of food.

The researchers warn that the findings mean all shark populations are within reach of human fisheries and could be at greater risk than was thought.

In their paper published on Wednesday - The absence of sharks from abyssal regions of the world's oceans - the international team of researchers reports that sharks have failed to colonise at depths greater than 3,000m.

Sharks are found throughout the world's oceans and it had been hoped new species would be discovered as exploration went deeper. However, 20 years of exploration combined with analysis of records over the past 150 years, has convinced the scientists that the world's oceans are 70% shark-free.

The average depth of the oceans is 4,000m and bony fish - relatives of cod - thrive down to around 9,000m depth.

The scientists do not know why sharks are absent there but suggest one possible reason could be a lack of food resources.

Professor Monty Priede, director of Oceanlab at Aberdeen University, said: "Sharks are apparently confined to around 30% of the world's oceans. "All populations are therefore within reach of human fisheries, near the surface and at the edges of deep water.

"Sharks are already threatened worldwide by the intensity of fishing activity.

"But our finding suggests they may be more vulnerable to over-exploitation than was previously thought.

"As far as we can see, there is no hidden reserve of sharks in the deep sea. All we see is all there is - it's highly unlikely we are going to find any more."

The scientists based their conclusions on a wide range of data, which includes information gathered during a major expedition along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Iceland and the Azores in 2004.

The team also used findings built up over the last two decades when the university's Oceanlab started developing landers - remotely operated vehicles - which have been used in deep waters all over the world.

Expeditions using landers visited deep areas including the South Atlantic off the Falkland Islands.

The shark paper is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Source: www.sharktrust.org

New Zealand: More of Great White Sharks to be tagged

2006-03-07T08:32:00.000+02:00

An international team of marine scientists returns to the Chatham Islands next week hoping to fit satellite tags on up to 13 great white sharks. The tags will allow the scientists to track the sharks’ movements for up to nine months.

The team is led by Dr Ramón Bonfil of the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (funded by National Geographic), Dr Malcolm Francis of the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, and Clinton Duffy of the Department of Conservation.

White sharks are long-lived and slow to reproduce. They have a ferocious reputation, but their population numbers are low and have declined drastically in some parts of the world. Better information on the behaviour and distribution of white sharks will help inform management decisions about their protection.

In April last year, the same team of scientists used satellite tags on New Zealand great whites for the first time. They tagged four sharks using pop-up archival tags (PAT tags) which record information about the depth, temperature, and light levels as the animals swim through the water. The tags then detach at a pre-programmed date, float to the surface, and transmit the data via satellite. One tag detached prematurely, but the others provided unexpected results.

All three sharks travelled great distances to tropical regions. "We knew white sharks turned up in the tropics on occasions," says Dr Malcolm Francis, "but to see all of them travel there was a surprise. If anything, we thought they'd move closer to mainland New Zealand." This year, the team plans to follow the sharks for a longer period, programming their tags to stay on for up to nine months (rather than a maximum of six). They are keen to check whether other sharks make similar long distance journeys and whether any of them return to the Chathams.

The team hopes to tag eight sharks with the PAT tags, and to tag five sharks with the more sophisticated 'SPOT' (Smart Position Or Temperature Transmitting) tags. This will be the first time SPOT tags have been used on sharks in New Zealand waters.

The SPOT tags are attached to a shark's dorsal fin and have an aerial. They will transmit data to satellites whenever the shark's fin breaks the surface of the water. "During their long distance journeys, the three sharks last year spent 60-70% of their time in the top few metres of water, so we're quite hopeful that we can get almost real-time information about shark movements from the SPOT tags," says Dr Francis.

To do the tagging, the team are again working with Tim Gregory-Hunt, Chatham Islands cage diving operator and skipper of Tessa B. PAT tags can be attached using a long pole. SPOT tags are more challenging because the shark has to be caught and partly hoisted out of the water onto a 'cradle' or stretcher at the side of the vessel. Water is continuously run over the shark's gills, and a vet monitors all parts of the operation. Dr Bonfil has successfully used SPOT tags on sharks in South Africa.

To read the original press release click HERE

Source: www.sharktrust.org

Shootout 2006

2006-03-02T15:27:00.000+02:00

The 2006 underwater shootout at Sodwana is provisionally set for Tuesday 9 May to Saturday 13 May 2006. Entry and other administration will take place on the evening of the 9 May.
The competition consists of two days of on-site shooting at Sodwana Bay, judges' presentation and a prize-giving dinner. There are categories for Slide, Digital and Video entries as well as levels from Novice to Advanced. This popular event has grown considerably and, you never know, you could walk away with some of the great prizes given by the sponsors. More information about the shootout can be found on the shootout website: Shootout 2006

Pretoria Sub Aqua Website

2006-02-27T10:13:00.000+02:00

Check it out! PSA has a newly revamped website at www.pretoriasubaqua.co.za . Comments are welcome!

Dive South Africa to present workshop at Dive Ireland 2006

2006-02-24T09:06:00.000+02:00

From great whites on the West coast to the sardine run on the East coast, South Africa is not to be missed for diving. Dive South Africa will be flying in just for the weekend to give a flavour of what's on offer!

Dive South Africa will be presenting the workshop in the 'Birch Room' at 13:35 on Saturday 25th February 2006 and again at 13:45 on Sunday 26th February 2006.

About Dive South Africa
Dive South Africa is a family owned business specialising in scuba diving safaris and holidays to Southern Africa and Mozambique.

Owners, Reon and Karin Coetzee, have lived and dived in South Africa and Mozambique for all of our lives and know the dive sites, charters, lodges, sharks, wrecks and reefs like the back of our hands - always safe, and always conserving the reefs and animals.

"We are not fancy people; just ordinary divers with a passion for our country and customers. Our local knowledge ensures that your safaris are safe, fun and memorable".

"As a recognized BSAC dive safari operator we make use of local BSAC, PADI, NAUI, CMAS and SSI recognized dive charters and resorts in South Africa and Mozambique".

"As members of the Tourism Business Council of South Africa and South African Tourism we are bound by the professional ethics and standards of the organizations.

We conduct our business in an eco-friendly way, and contribute to nature conservation and community upliftment in word and in deed. As such we are members of several organizations of which the Shark Trust, The Endangered Wildlife Trust and The East Coast Fish Watch are the most notable.

You are welcome to visit them at www.divesouthafrica.co.za

About Dive Ireland 2006
The first ever all-Ireland dive conference due to take place in Belfast on the 25/26 February 2006.

Venue: Ramada Hotel, Shaw's Bridge, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Tickets are just £6 for the full weekend when bought online!

The aim of this 2-day conference is to bring together divers from all diving agencies (CFT, BSAC, PADI, SAA, TDI, IANTD) to promote scuba diving in Ireland as a sport for everyone, irrespective of qualification or geographical location.

The conference aims to provide a list of high profile speakers and practical workshops that will cater for a diverse range of diver interests such as photography; wreck diving; overseas diving; mixed gas and technical diving.

Present at the conference, together for the first time, will be two of the largest recreational diver training agencies in Ireland - the British Sub Aqua Club (BSAC) and the Irish Underwater Council (CFT). Also present will be NIFSAC (Northern Ireland Federation of Sub-Aqua Clubs) who are the governing body of the sport in Northern Ireland.

The BSAC and CFT will use the conference as a platform to update and inform their members about recent developments, including technical and training changes, in their respective organisations and any impact these may have on their local branches. CFT will also host their annual conference and delegate meetings while BSAC will host their first regional meeting with the newly appointed regional coach. In addition a trade area will provide opportunities for purchasing that must-have new equipment or checking out the top holiday destinations.

Such an event, involving divers from all corners of Ireland, will serve to raise awareness about diving as a sport in Ireland and inject a much needed boost of publicity into the area.

An evening social event should ensure that this 2-day conference is one not to be missed!!

*Tickets purchased on the door are £10.

Visit Dive Ireland 2006 on-line at www.diveirelandshow.com

Source: Dive South Africa

Important new materials released by Technical Diving International

2006-02-24T08:59:00.000+02:00

TDI announces all new Advanced Wreck Student Manual and support materials.

Topsham Maine Technical Diving International (TDI) released new teaching and training materials today for its popular Advanced Wreck Diver Course. These materials include a newly designed student manual, knowledge review, instructor guide and PowerPoint® presentation conforming to the agency’s new training materials guidelines and presenting the most up-to-date information available to technical divers.

TDI's Advanced Wreck program provides students with the training and hands-on experience to competently conduct advanced wreck dives. The program includes penetration skills and introduces participants to the proper techniques, equipment requirements and hazards of conducting complex wreck dives. The new-look student manual is lavishly illustrated with diagrams and photographs presenting these techniques in a straight-forward, thorough way. The manual is perfect-bound and contains 112 pages.

This release of TDI's Advanced Wreck materials includes a new PowerPoint® presentation which was designed to assist instructors in delivering the course content in a structured, uniform manner and to help students comprehend fully the complex topics covered in the program.

"TDI Advanced Wreck materials are available for immediate shipment" stated David Burroughs VP of Sales and Marketing. He went on to say "This is another in the series of TDI manuals being rewritten and reworked for release during 2006".

To purchase the Advanced Wreck Materials email worldhq@tdisdi.com, call 1 207 729-4201 or contact your regional office.

For more information on TDI visit: www.tdisdi.com

Source: www.divenewswire.com

Egypt promotes Red Sea causeway!

2006-02-24T08:55:00.000+02:00

Egypt is promoting a $3 billion causeway across the Red Sea linking Sharm el-Sheikh resort with Saudi Arabia's northwestern Duba port in the wake of another ferry tragedy.

The causeway or bridge would begin north of Sharm and cross the Straits of Tiran.

The project was first made public two years ago when the Egyptian transport minister at the time said the two countries were planning to establish a causeway across the Red Sea to facilitate transportation of pilgrims, tourists and cargo. The minister added that the project would cost $3 billion and its implementation would depend on technical studies.

The building work involved would spell danger for reefs already under pressure from hotel building on the Sinai coast. The reefs around Tiran Island are currently the most pristine in this part of the Red Sea.

Source: www.bsactravelclub.co.uk/news

Visit BSAC World at LIDS 2006!

2006-02-24T08:50:00.000+02:00

LIDS 2006 will, for the second year, feature BSAC World. You can find out everything you want about the BSAC and have the total BSAC Experience!

Meet BSAC HQ
There will be a main BSAC stand where you can meet BSAC HQ staff from every department. Membership staff will be there to answer any Branch queries and can renew your membership or join up new members while you wait. The Diver Resources Team will be available to tell you all about the latest Skill Development Courses and what is going on in diving. Why not book on one of our SDCs while you are at the show? The BSAC Mailshop will have all the latest BSAC merchandise, including the increasingly popular Seamanship for Divers book.

Branch Marketing
If your Branch is keen to increase its membership, attract new divers and learn any Marketing tips, the BSAC Marketing Team will be at the show. If you have any success stories, we'd love to hear them so bring them along and tell us all about what you are doing in your Branch.

Project Neptune
Why not take the opportunity to find out all about Project Neptune? Chris Horan the Project Manager will be on hand to answer any questions you may have about the installation of the new system and what it means for you and your Branch.

BSAC Coaches
Some of our BSAC Coaches will be at the show to speak to you. The Coaching Scheme is there to help you and your Branch, so please do take the time to visit the Coaches and speak to them. They are always happy to visit your Branches and take the time to help sort out any training problems you may be experiencing.

Try A Rebreather Dive
Alongside the BSAC stand, BSAC World will feature the Rebreather pool. Once you have experienced a Rebreather dive you can talk to one of our Technical Rebreather Advisors who will be on the BSAC Stand and discuss how you can progress Rebreather diving with the BSAC.

Why not bring a friend?
The BSAC will also be actively encouraging divers who have trained with other agencies to go diving with the BSAC and experience the unique friendly, social Branches of the BSAC. Why not bring along a friend to find out about the BSAC?

Advance tickets are only £7.50! Call 020 8977 9878 by 27th March or visit www.diveshows.co.uk to book your space. We are looking forward to seeing you there!

Source: BSAC

Landslides hit popular dive destination

2006-02-24T08:48:00.000+02:00

Torrential rain has triggered floods and landslides around the popular dive destination of Manado in Indonesia. Rescue officials said at least 26 people were killed by falling mud in the North Sulawesi provincial capital on Wednesday.

According to latest reports, parts of the city were flooded in up to a 1m of water following torrential downpours. Hundreds have been left homeless and dozens injured after waters swept away houses, schools and bridges.

The Meteorological and Geophysical Agency said the current rainfall was more than double the average for this time of year.

Manado is one of the most popular diving destinations in Indonesia because of the rich diversity of marine life in its waters. Two particularly celebrated diving areas off Manado include the Bunaken National Marine Park and the Lembeh Straits.

It is not yet clear how much damage the landslides have caused. Last month, around 130 people were also killed by landslides on the nearby island of Java.

Source: www.divemagazine.co.uk

Peter Benchley - The man who loved sharks

2006-02-24T08:46:00.000+02:00

Peter Benchley, who died at age 65, was the very model of a pulp writer. The grandson of Robert Benchley, the humorist and Algonquin troubadour, and the son of Nathaniel Benchley, the novelist, Peter had one truly inspired idea that he proceeded to pound into the ground for nearly three decades.

The idea, of course, was Jaws, which spent more than 40 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list when it was published in 1974. A year later it served as a rough outline for the Steven Spielberg film that became the highest-grossing movie in history and rang in the era of the summer blockbuster. On the occasion of Benchley's death, it feels like an apt moment to survey Jaws in its pre-evolutionary state—to re-read the novel and discover what made its dark heart tick.

Jaws is a pulp collage—a how-to guide to writing airport literature. Start with heavy-handed symbolism: The seaside town the shark will terrorize is called Amity. Next add ungainly metaphor: "The past—like a bird long locked in a cage and suddenly released—was flying at her, swirling around her head, showering her with longing."

Finally, throw in a charmingly awkward lovemaking scene: A couple "thrashed with urgent ardor on the cold sand." The novel opens with that ardor, and after its climax, the still-naked woman slips into the ocean, becoming an opening course for the shark circling below. At first, the shark takes a rather leisurely approach to its meal. It moves slowly beneath her, as if surveying a chandelier. Then its jaws close on her right foot, snapping it off at the bone. The woman screams once, then is pulled below. Game on.

The shark will strike four more times, but Jaws' most pitched battle takes place on land. It's between local police chief Martin Brody and Matt Hooper, a visiting ichthyologist smitten with Brody's wife—the two men who (wouldn't you know it?) must make common cause to fight off the predator. For Benchley, their conflict is a microcosm of life in Amity: the salt-of-the-earth locals, the "real people," versus the blithe summer visitors, who come in their Lacoste shirts to spend money and get laid. Benchley has nothing but contempt for the latter group. "These were not Aquarians," he writes. "They uttered none of the platitudes of peace or pollution, or justice or revolt.

Privilege had been bred into them with genetic certainty." Growing more jaded, he continues, "They had no body odor. When they sweated, the girls smelled faintly of perfume; the boys simply smelled clean. None of which is to say that they were either stupid or evil." (Jaws is nothing if not a 1970s guilt-trip.) During the book's final pages, the shark will claim two more victims: the oversexed Hooper and then, appropriately enough, the old seaman Quint, a kind of Ahab knock-off who is allowed a Melville-like death.

Academics have bravely tried to pin all kinds of meaning on Jaws. (My favorite theory, found in a Web search, ventures that the shark is the embodiment of the vagina dentata myth). But the moral (and morality) of Jaws seems pretty straightforward: The preppies are gonna get it. They've been sitting out the 1970s, Benchley is saying, practicing free love on Long Island when they should have been marching with protesters in Harlem. ("Nothing touched them—not race riots … not police corruption.") The shark—like a thousand horror villains before and after—is nature's revenge for their carefree debauchery, their unwillingness to get with the program of equality and universalism. "People who are sexual outside of marriage get punished," says Stefan Fleischer, a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo who teaches Benchley's novel. "And if it's society as a whole that has loose morals, it'll get eaten up by a shark."

It's an appropriately wicked conceit, and it might have worked better if Benchley had a sense of humor. But there's hardly a flicker of comedy in Jaws. The Associated Press reported this week that Benchley's initial 100-page book draft was filled with puns. His editor, Thomas Congdon, wrote in the margins "NO JOKES," and when Benchley returned the book it was a merciless, headlong affair. Steven Spielberg, who had a keen sense of humor, was appalled at how unrelenting it all was, how Benchley's character sketches bordered on misanthropy. When Spielberg read Benchley's film script, "he rooted for the shark," Peter Biskind reports in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. Universal enlisted script doctors, and the film's humor—the macho one-upmanship that develops between the men on the Orca; lines like, "You're gonna need a bigger boat"—feel like the work of Hollywood rewrite men, not the author.*

What makes Jaws the novel worth pausing over? It's the author's scientific affection for his titular great white. Benchley might have had no time for humans—his puritanical views on sex are the stuff of pure pulp—but he loved sharks. He was a lifelong enthusiast of sea life; he got the idea for Jaws after writing a series of oceangoing magazine articles. Whether because of his amateur scientific interest, or just the dizzying amount of detail he inserted into the book, the appearance of the shark in Jaws allows Benchley to unplug his pulp impulses while remaining firmly in the realm of plausible horror. Benchley gives the shark no supernatural powers, nor a fierce native intelligence. Even at its most gruesome, the shark remains a simple fish—"a dumb garbage bucket," Quint calls it—and a sum of its biological impulses.

A hundred yards offshore, the fish sensed a change in the sea's rhythm. It did not see the woman, nor yet did it smell her. Running within the length of its body were a series of thin canals, filled with mucus and dotted with nerve endings, and these nerves detected vibrations and signaled the brain. The fish turned toward shore.

The fish turned toward shore. It may be a dull passage, but in the middle of an ocean of pulp, it's an arresting one. The shark—all leathery and dead-eyed—is such a bewildering creature that it can't be shoehorned into genre conventions, can't be reduced to stereotype. Benchley and Jaws established sharks as an all-too-ordinary menace. Benchley, a committed conservationist, later expressed his dismay for having created a worldwide shark-frenzy. It was his greatest literary achievement.

Addendum, Feb. 20, 2006: Thanks to readers for pointing out that the line "You're gonna need a bigger boat" was ad-libbed by actor Roy Scheider—not, as I implied, inserted by re-write men. The point about Benchley's negligible sense of humor stands.

Source: www.slate.com

Australia: Researchers tag grey nurse sharks - to protect the endangered species

2006-02-24T08:44:00.000+02:00

Researchers are tracking two grey nurse sharks in the waters off south east Queensland in a bid to protect the endangered species.

The researchers believe a fishing exclusion zone around where the sharks live is already helping the species and hope tracking data will aid protection measures.

Sea World's head of marine sciences Trevor Long said two female sharks - up to three metres long - were tagged in the past fortnight to monitor their movement in and around Wolf Rock off Double Island Point.

Wolf Rock is a rocky formation of volcanic pinnacles popular for scuba divers and home to a variety of marine life, including the endangered grey nurse shark.

In 2003, the Queensland Government established an exclusion zone banning recreational fishing in parts of Wolf Rock because sharks were dying after biting on fishing hooks.

"The idea of the tracking is to prove how the sharks utilise the rocks and to determine that they don't go further than half a nautical mile away from the rock," Mr Long said today.

"The exclusion zone will protect the grey nurse but will allow fishermen to come in and fish on the extremities (of Wolf Rock) without endangering the sharks.

"There has been some opposition to the exclusion zones, but I think people are more comfortable with it if they know there's good science and reasoning behind it."

Mr Long said from observations while diving off Wolf Rock this week, it appeared the exclusion zone was working.

"We normally see a lot of hooks in the mouths of the sharks where they've bitten on the fishermen's lines and ended up dying from it," said Mr Long, who said there were only about 500 grey nurses left on the east coast of Australia.

"It's interesting to note lately that none of the grey nurses - and it's the largest congregation of sharks I've seen up there in 35 years - had any hooks in them.

"That's saying the exclusion zone is working. Not only that, there's an abundance of marine life thriving in the area."

Mr Long believes more fishing exclusion zones are needed along the New South Wales and Queensland coasts to help protect marine life.

Source: www.heraldsun.news.com.au

Sharks' future in doubt as they shun ocean depths

2006-02-24T08:36:00.000+02:00

Fears for the future of the world's sharks have been raised by research which suggests their territory is smaller than previously thought.

Experts at Aberdeen University have discovered the highly-adapted predator does not go below about 9,000ft.

This means there is unlikely to be any unknown species in the deep ocean abysses and that fishing fleets are already exploiting the last populations left on the planet.

The average sea depth is more than 12,000ft, so the research suggests about 70 per cent of the ocean depths are free of sharks.

Professor Monty Priede, of Aberdeen University, wrote a paper for the Royal Society, along with colleagues from England, Norway, the United States and Germany, which is published today.

He told The Scotsman: "The deepest recorded shark was a humble thing called a Portuguese dogfish. The deepest specimen was caught off the south-west coast of Ireland.

"This species is now considered to be severely reduced and endangered - we have almost exterminated the world's deepest shark before we knew it was the world's deepest shark."

One theory for the sharks' preference for staying within 9,000ft of the surface is that there is too much competition for food from other fish, such as grenadiers.

Source: news.scotsman.com

Shark attacks down in 2005 but up over long term

2006-02-24T08:28:00.000+02:00

Worldwide shark-attack numbers fell in 2005 for the fifth year in a row.

Last year 58 confirmed "unprovoked" shark attacks occurred in natural ocean habitat, according to a report from the International Shark Attack File (ISAF), an organization based at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

That's down from 78 in 2000 and 65 in 2004.

Incidents in which the animals are provoked—such as during shark-feeding operations, in aquariums, or when fishers try to remove sharks from a net—aren't counted in ISAF's annual survey.

Four people were killed in unprovoked attacks last year, down from seven in 2004 and a bit below the 2001-to-2005 five-year average of 4.4 per year.

Last year's deaths included two in Australian waters, one in Florida, and one from the South Pacific island of Vanuatu.

Shark-attack fatality rates continue to drop decade by decade as improving medical treatments help boost the odds of survival in the rare event of an attack.

Long-Term Trend: More Attacks
Despite the media frenzy they spawn, unprovoked shark attacks are so rare that annual trends must be viewed with a grain of salt. The ISAF believes that decade-by-decade comparisons give a more accurate picture of trends.

Unprovoked attacks became more frequent with each decade of the 20th century. The first decade of the 21st century will likely continue that trend.

Yet those rising numbers don't likely represent any change in shark behavior.

Most shark specialists agree that the big-picture rise in attack numbers has more to do with humans than with sharks—namely the steadily increasing numbers of people living near and frolicking in the world's coastal waters.

In fact, fisheries data reveal that many shark populations are declining at serious rates or holding at lower than historic levels. The sharks' decline could be one of several factors in the recent dip in attacks.

"The decline in shark populations has occurred for a decade or two, but it may be that it has reached a critical level in [terms of] influencing the number of attacks," said George Burgess, director of ISAF.

"In certain geographic areas the decline is very severe. In other places, less so," he said.

"The areas that are overfished most quickly and easily are nearest shore. So, as a result, in many areas the population of larger sharks is very low in the near-shore areas where most people enter the water."

Burgess adds that falling shark populations could be just one of several factors influencing attack frequency.

Other shark specialists say that population numbers play a minimal role.

"I think it's a dangerous thing to try to correlate shark population numbers with attack statistics, because much more than the number of the sharks in the water goes into the resulting number of attacks," said Bob Hueter, director of the Mote Marine Laboratory's Center for Shark Research in Sarasota, Florida.

Hueter cites the example of the blacktip shark, which is responsible for many nonfatal bites on swimmers in Florida's waters.

"By all scientific assessments that population has been recovering over the last four or five years," he said.

"There's no reason to believe that their numbers are less at this point in time than they were five years ago. These animals were responsible for so many of the [Florida attacks] recorded every year, yet the numbers of recorded instances are dropping."

"In my mind it's due less to the size of shark populations than it is related to what people do," Hueter continued.

"Through the years one thing that has stood out clearly in terms of trends is that increasing human populations have put more people in the water."

ISAF's Burgess agrees that human behavior is perhaps the key factor.

The decrease in attacks could be due to fewer people in the water last year. Beachgoers are influenced by many variables that limit the number of beach days in a given season.

Tropical storms hammered Florida and other southeastern U.S. states in 2004 and 2005, reducing the number of people in the surf. Economic conditions may have also played a role, not to mention a drop in tourism in the post-9/11 era.

"In areas such as Florida there have been noticeable reductions in tourism, and that means less people entering the water," Burgess said.

"There have been low-contact years between sharks and humans in Florida, and that's reflected [in the data]."

Florida is a shark-attack hotbed, with huge importance for global shark-attack data. Trends in the Sunshine State are likely to significantly affect global statistics.

Beachgoers may also be getting smarter about when and where they enter the water, experts say.

"I think the work that people have done since 2001 to get the word out about the realities of shark attack and the guidelines of when and where to swim is paying off," said Mote's Hueter. (See "Shark Attack Tips.")

"Avoid the time periods [near] dawn and dusk, when sharks feed," Burgess added. "Don't swim near fishers or bait, or if you see sharks."

"If people followed these guidelines, we could probably cut down shark attacks by half," he said. That change would be welcome, but won't do much to change a person's chances of being attacked, Burgess says. "That's from an infinitesimal chance [of being attacked] to half of an infinitesimal chance."

North America Site of Most Shark Attacks
A closer look at the data reveals that 64 percent of 2005's attacks occurred in North American waters—continuing a trend of recent years.

U.S waters, including Hawaii, saw 38 attacks. Australia had ten and South Africa four. The Bahamas, Fiji, Mexico, South Korea, St. Martin, and Vanuatu each reported a single unprovoked attack.

Florida remained the top U.S. shark-attack spot, with 18 attacks last year. Additional U.S. incidents occurred in South Carolina (five), Texas (four), Hawaii (four), California (three), North Carolina (two), New Jersey (one), and Oregon (one).

Some activities, such as surfing and windsurfing, place humans at greater risk of attack. The popularity of such water sports may partially account for the increasing attack frequency seen over the past century. In days gone by, seaside recreation was commonly limited to wading.

In 2005 surfers and windsurfers were involved in 54 percent of the attacks in which victims' activities at the time of attack are known.

Swimmers and waders accounted for only 37 percent, though many more people swim or wade than surf or windsurf. Divers and snorkelers were involved in just 7 percent of the incidents.

Related Article:
World shark attacks dipped in 2005

Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Pretoria Sub Aqua Club Day

2006-02-21T09:59:00.000+02:00

The Pretoria Sub-Aqua Club for Scuba Divers, Spear Fishermen and Underwater Hockey Players is hosting a fun Club day at their clubhouse at the Tjaart van Vuuren Swimming Pool in Pretoria on Saturday 25 February 2006 at 14:00.

Please confirm attendance. More information about the club activities can be found on the PSA blog: Pretoria Sub-Aqua Club

Visit Ponta Mamoli in Mozambique with Monty Halls

2006-02-21T09:46:00.000+02:00

Cross north over the border of South Africa into Mozambique and there is a point where the road ends and the adventure begins.

The smooth ribbon of baking-hot, black tarmac gives way almost immediately to a sand track, a physical representation of the yawning financial gulf between the two countries. On the South African side your exit routine is completed in an air-conditioned office and recorded on a shiny computer. A short walk takes you through the border, where your entry visa to Mozambique is stamped in a wooden hut by a man wielding a rubber stamp beneath a creaking ceiling fan.

As you drive along the first few miles of sand track, it is worth reflecting that only a few years ago this stretch of road would have been a very dangerous place indeed. For decades Mozambique was a truly troubled country, wreaked by a civil war that destroyed communities and laid waste the nation’s industries. Finally, in the early Nineties the madness stopped, and now there is a sense of optimism in the air as tourists return to one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in the world.

As I revved my way past alarmed-looking residents of the huts that lined the route, hoping to beat the setting sun to my destination, I saw ahead of me a majestic dune rolling to a wide sweep of beach. The sun was hovering just above the crest, showing the first hint of the deep red of a classic African sunset. This was too good an opportunity to miss, and I pulled the vehicle over, reaching for my camera.

Walking a little way off the track, I stood and watched the lower edge of the sun sinking into the dune, being absorbed by the horizon. So overwhelmed was I by the visual signals I was receiving, that, unfortunately, I was choosing to ignore the powerful nasal ones that were arriving with increasing potency. It was only when I dragged my gaze away from the spectacle of the sunset that I looked down and became aware of alarmingly large amounts of toilet paper on the ground around me. I was standing in the midst of a huge communal toilet – in flip-flops!

In the fading light I attempted to ‘Riverdance’ my way out of trouble, skipping my way back to the vehicle. My flip-flops were gingerly removed and draped over the aerial, and the rest of the drive completed with my head sticking out of the side window, driving with one hand and trying not to think about anything below shin level.

I arrived at the camp at the resort at Ponta Mamoli in complete darkness, to be greeted by a small man carrying a lantern. There are times for protocol, and times to walk wordlessly past someone and dunk your feet in the sea – I decided this was a time for the latter, and emerged considerably later to let him lead me to my chalet above the beach, where I crashed into bed.

I was woken by the sun streaming through the shutters, and the unmistakable sound of big surf crashing on an open beach. I stepped out of my villa, and before me lay a broad, white beach, stretching far into the distance to the north and ending in a cupped bay, topped by a green headland a few hundred yards to the south.

This stretch of coastline south of Maputo is the most convenient from which to access Mozambique directly from South Africa, and I had been assured that it was one of the busier regions of the country in terms of visitors from the south. The real wilderness was said to be in the far north of the country – but for now this would do me very nicely. The beach was broad and wild, and a glance at a map the previous day had shown me that it stretched more than 60 miles from where I was standing. Huge rollers raised their glassy shoulders as they charged at the beach – set after set running parallel to the beach as far as the eye could see. No footprints broke the clear line of the sandy foreshore, and as I inhaled, I could smell salt and heat and earth – it was like opening a bottle marked ‘Africa’ and taking a huge breath.

I was on a mission to dive with the local bass, thumping great monsters which have a presence that is all their own. Bass in this part of the world could not be more of a contrast to bass off the coast of the UK. The difference between the two pretty much personifies the difference between England and Africa. Our bass is a silver bar that reaches a couple of feet in length – respectable enough, and a fine sight for those lucky enough to see one. The African version is the size of a small hatchback, with an eye like a baseball and a mouth like the lid of a wheelie bin. By whatever name it is known, all I knew was that I wanted to see one – a big one, close up, today!

An hour later I was thundering over the clear blue water behind the surf line, hanging onto the lines strung along the hull of Ponta Mamoli’s splendid RIB. There seems to be a simple theory to the RIBs out here – take a medium-sized boat and put a rather large engine on it, enough to hurtle it through big surf like a rubber dart. Then put another big engine alongside the first one for good measure and good fun. I don’t care who you are or how seriously you take your diving, as you skim over the tops of clear Indian Ocean waves, with the outboards bellowing and the sun on your back, if you don’t end up smiling like an idiot then you don’t have a soul.

The RIB slowed a short distance from the headland and we swiftly kitted up and rolled into the warm water, led by Ponta Mamoli dive centre manager Kevin Collins. The characteristic of the reefs in this region seems to be low areas of coral interspersed with overhangs, small craters and caves. This is an uninterrupted stretch of coastline and as such, the currents can really barrel a diver along, creating quite a ride as the water undulates down into hollow and up over ridge. After enjoying this roller coaster for a few minutes, Kevin indicated that we should drop towards the sea floor, leading by example as he banked towards a low ridge of coral and tucked in behind it.

Following suit, I found myself lying on a flat, sandy area with the reef stretching away on either side, with the main coral head in front of me. What was also directly in front of me was one of the largest lionfish I have ever seen – eighteen inches of bristling fins. Moving back a few inches, I saw the fish relax slightly, its fins moving back into the ‘just passing the time of day’ position, as opposed to the ‘one more inch pal and you’re going to have a very emotional afternoon’ position.

Kevin tapped me on the shoulder and pointed up at what I thought was a small freighter passing overhead. The freighter then turned towards me, opened its mouth, and revealed itself to be a massive bass!

Whenever confronted by a large animal in the wild, the modern man in us all thrills at the encounter – such events being something of increasing rarity nowadays. The primaeval man then leans forward and taps us on the shoulder with a knotty club, and politely asks us if this thing can eat us, and if so, should we both run?

Obviously the prospect of being bitten by a huge bass is remote to say the least, but nonetheless this is a top predator on the reef – something a great many divers forget when they pet and feed big groupers around the world. The bass was now hovering in front of me, inspecting me in stereo vision, and presenting me with a lower lip the size of a car tyre that stopped about three inches from my own. A slight gape revealed hundreds of serrated rows of tiny backward-facing teeth, a fiendishly fine piece of design meaning that anything inhaled into that cavernous maw will not get out. Kevin had told me stories of divers trying to feed bass who had the skin stripped off their unwary hands. The great fish sculled slowly backwards, and drifted along the coral ridge, occasionally circling back to me for another quick once-over.

These big bass are one of the truly dominant predators on these reefs, and Kevin had told me stories of watching them bulldoze into a pack of feeding sharks to snatch tidbits, confident that their bulk and brawn would win over speed and stealth. This was reflected very much in the confidence of this magnificent animal as I swam alongside, its shadow passing over the reef below, master of its own watery domain.

The sun was once again dipping low over the dunes behind Ponta Mamoli as we raced back towards the beach, and the lights of the lodge glowed as another day on this great, wild strip of coastline drew to a close. Should you want to step off the beaten track, experience a heady mix of tranquillity on dry land and exhilarating diving offshore, then Ponta Mamoli should certainly be the next entry in your logbook.

By Monty Halls

Source: www.divemagazine.co.uk

Why do you love South Africa?

2006-02-21T09:37:00.000+02:00

I know this is not scuba related but since I live in South Africa, I thought I might share this with the world. Why are South Africans so patriotic? What makes them so passionate about their country? Why do the hairs on the back of their neck stand up?

It's a simple question, yet everyone has their own answer, and all for very different reasons.

Some people have a sense of freedom that was missing for a long time, some people simply like the scenery, whilst others feel that it's a sense of home that you just can't replace with another.

Some people are more political and enjoy the new democracy, some people love it because of the business opportunity, and others just like the lifestyle which they know is unique.

It's an interesting question, and we'd really appreciate it if you'd share your reason with us.

Click here to tell us why you love South Africa?

Here are the comments already posted: http://www.ilovesouthafrica.org/2006/02/06/why-do-you-love-south-africa

Source: Gareth Knight - I love South Africa

Scuba diving in Mauritius

2006-02-21T09:27:00.000+02:00

With its lush vegetation, sandy coastline, and coral-circled lagoons, Mauritius might as well be a purpose-made luxury holiday destination. But does that necessarily make it a divers’ holiday of a lifetime?

Purely in terms of its diving, the Mauritius experience is enjoyable rather than spectacular. But marry the sub-tropical marine scene with the sumptuous allure of the islands and the presence of gold standard hotels, and you have a genuinely unique package.

The republic lies 855km to the east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean and is comprised of the largest island in the group, Mauritius, and includes the Agalega Islands, St Brandon and Rodrigues; these islands, along with the French island of Réunion, form the Mascarenhas Archipelago (or Mascarene Islands). Mauritius is 1,865 square km in area with 330km of coastline almost entirely surrounded by coral reefs. It is these coral reefs that have made Mauritius such an interesting prospect from a diver's point of view, there's a lot of good diving to be had, from sinister caverns visited by sharks, to high energy drifts accompanied by giant trevallies and eagle rays.

British holidaymakers have traditionally thought of Mauritius as an exotic destination out of the reach of most budgets. However, an increase in the number of hotels around the island, combined with regular flights has made it a more accessible destination.

Divers rgularly report big pelagics around Mautitius, and the marien scene is defined by different currents to the ones that fuel the Maldives. If you think you know the Indian Ocean, underwater Mauritius will hold many surprises for you.

The distance from the UK, it's exotic flora and fauna – particularly underwater – and some of the best holiday hotels in the world mean that this remains a place where you can truly have the trip of a lifetime.

Belle Mare Plage
Sited on a sandy beach on the eastern side of Mauritius, the resort of Belle Mare Plage offers excellent accommodation and an interesting mix of diving. Most visitors come to take advantage of the beautiful beach and two world-class golf courses, as well as fitting in some watersports, including diving.

The Legend and Links golf courses (designed by the voice of golf Peter Alliss) are the pride of the resort, with snooker table greens and intimidating water features. Even if golf is not your bag, you'll be tempted to hit a few balls during your surface interval.

There are 235 rooms and 20 villas, each with its own private pool. If you feel like really busting your budget, then a villa (available in two or three-bedroomed versions) is the thing to go for. They come with your own villa master to look after all your needs, from taking your breakfast order to organising one of the resort buggies to come and collect you. These are at the top-end of holiday accommodation. While it takes a couple a days to get used to being waited on, you'll find that by the time you get home you'll struggle to find your way to your fridge – "Where's my Champagne?"

A dizzying range of treatments is available at the spa, from reflexology to ylang ylang massage. The prospect of donning a paper thong might not appeal to all, but the end result is well worth savouring. You feel like liquid ready to be poured into a comfy chair to watch the sunset.

There are several restaurants offering something for every palate, from buffet-style sushi to European and Thai, all with a touch of Mauritian flair thrown in.

While the resort is undoubtedly luxurious, for some, its large scale might be off-putting, in which case plump for the more intimate Le Prince Maurice.

Le Prince Maurice
As you step into the lobby of the Le Prince Maurice, the view is quite simply breathtaking. Standing there in plane-rumpled clothing, there's a tendency to think "I'm not worthy", but this soon gives way to a gleeful "Yes! I've arrived!"

Opened in 1988, the hotel was designed by a Mauritian architect with no expense spared. There are 89 suites, but you would be forgiven for thinking there are far fewer, given the number of empty sun loungers by the infinity pool, which sits between the beach and the lobby and is flanked on either side by the restaurant and bar.

If watersports are your thing, then you'll be well catered for. There is a dedicated watersports centre on the beach, providing windsurfing, Hobie cat sailing, waterskiing, Laser boats, kayaks and glass-bottomed boat trips. Diving is available from the centre at Belle Mare Plage, the centre will send a boat to collect you from the pier at Le Prince Maurice and then it's a ten-minute boat ride to the centre.

As with the Belle Mare Plage, golf is available to guests at both the Legends and Links courses. The beach itself is long and wide, opening out on to a sheltered lagoon which is good for watersports; and with the hotel's propensity for weddings – it hosts 60 weddings a year – you will often see photographs being taken of happy couples down on the beach or perhaps a candlelit dinner for two laid out at the water's edge.

As well as a modern gym and spa, the hotel offers a number of massage treatments in double rooms where couples can receive the benefit of two masseuses each – the ultimate in stress relief.

The food is a fusion of Indian, French and modern European, with some touches of Africa thrown in. The Barachois is a floating restaurant on five barges that specialises in seafood. Sited above a fish reserve, the serene atmosphere is only broken by the occasional plop of a fish in the water or the pop of a Champagne cork as another couple toast their good fortune to be here.

There's little to criticize – younger visitors might feel that the resort is little too quiet and the service (which is a lesson in discretion) too polished, in which case I'd recommend they visit the Belle Mare Plage. However, if you're looking for excellent service, stunning beaches, excellent food and drink then Le Prince Maurice could be your trip of a lifetime.

Belle Mare Plage

Villa package:
Prices from £1,495 per person for seven nights, based on six adults sharing a three-bedroom pool villa on a bed-and-breakfast basis, including return flights with British Airways. Based on travel between 1 May to 14 July 2006.

Standard package: From £1,380 per person for seven nights, based on two adults sharing a "prestige' room on a half-board basis including return flights with British Airways. Based on travel between 1 May to 14 July 2006.

Le Prince Maurice

Standard room package: Prices from £1,840 per person for seven nights – two adults sharing a "junior suite" on a bed-and-breakfast basis, including return flights with British Airways.Travel between 1 May to 14 July 2006.

Princely Suite package (pictured above) Prices from £10,800 per person for seven nights based on two adults sharing a "princely suite" on a bed-and-breakfast basis, including return flights with British Airways. Based on travel between 1 May to 14 July 2006.

To upgrade to BA Club World costs £1770 return or £900 one-way.
To book, phone Aspire on 0845 345 9096, www.aspireholidays.co.uk

For more information about the diving on Mauritius, email Blues Diving on bluesdiving@intnet.mu or see the website www.bluesdiving.net

THE DIVING

The Blues Diving Centre, run by the irrepressible French-Mauritian Jean Michel Langlois, services both the Belle Mare Plage and Le Prince Maurice. Diving is available all around the island, but Blues tends to concentrate on sites near the hotels on the east coast. The centre is serviced by two semi-rigid inflatable boats and most of the diving takes place within a few minutes" boat ride of the centre. However, trips further afield can be arranged and night dives are available when weather permits.

The coastline is characterised by a fringing reef a few hundred metres out to sea. Within the boundary of the reef, the water is calm, with excellent training spots for novices. Once you get close to and beyond the reef, the water gets a bit choppier, but as most sites are within ten minutes' Zodiac ride from the resort, it's not too uncomfortable.

Visibility is mixed, on our dives averaging 15 to 20m, perfectly adequate, although not up to Red Sea standards. The same could be said of the reefs, which are rocky in parts and coral growth can be patchy. However, the existing coral is healthy, with mature table corals, fans and plenty of anemones.

Many of the reefs have small gullies, with sandy bottoms full of nooks and crannies. The Castle site drops to a maximum depth of 23m and consists of lots of these small gullies, where we saw soldierfish, angelfish and butterflyfish, as well as some large grouper.

However, what really stood out were the nudibranchs, which were a wonderful variety of colours, so much so I was tempted to think that Jean Michel – who paints underwater scenes while underwater – might have flicked a few with his paintbrush! In addition, there were trumpetfish, striped goatfish, blennies, parrotfish, and bird wrasse. We also saw large triton and cowrie molluscs.

La Passe de Belle Mare is a stunning dive only a short ride from the dive centre. The maximum depth is 17m. We dropped in at 3m and slowly moved through a number of boulders and gullies. Turning a corner, the current picked up dramatically and we were joined by a large number of huge jacks, dogtooth tuna and giant trevallies, which milled around us as an eagle ray glided past. Moving on, the dive became something of a rollercoaster as we bounced between rocks, one moment fighting the current, the next hovering in mid-water. Emperorfish, goatfish and unicornfish were all in attendance, but it is the abundance of large fish that make this dive a winner.

Another notable dive was Middle Rock, where I was stalked by a great barracuda while I floundered around at the surface trying to recover a rogue fin. Here we were joined by schools of yellow snapper and striped barracuda, as well as seeing jacks, emperor angelfish and a large eagle ray. We ended the dive watching a porcupinefish puffing itself up before moving off.

There is plenty of other diving to be had around the island, but the eastern side gives visitors a good taste of Mauritius diving as a whole and, combined with good food, accommodation and activities makes for the complete holiday experience.

KEY dives

La Passe de Belle Mare
Sharks, jacks and eagle rays all make an appearance at this current-fuelled site.

Sea Fan Forest
This forest of gorgonian fan corals is home to lots of parrotfish and is renowned for its abundant marine life and good visibility.

Lobster Canyon
Clown triggerfish, moray eels and, of course, lots of lobsters are among the highlights of this dive, where the interesting topography makes for arches and channels.

Weather

Mauritius is near to the Tropic of Capricorn and has a sub-tropical climate. Summer is from November to April, when air temperatures average 30ºC and water temperatures average 26–28ºC. Winter is from May to November when air temperatures can still be a pleasant 24ºC, dropping to 17ºC at night, with water temperatures averaging 22–25ºC. Cyclones can occur between January and March, bringing a lot of rain which soon clears. Good diving is available all year, but you are likely to see more eagle rays in summer.

Source: www.divemagazine.co.uk/news

A Look at the Giant Squid - Cannibals or Kinky?

2006-02-21T09:25:00.000+02:00

Until now experts believed that Giant Squid were cannibalistic. This conclusion was based on the fact that they discovered pieces of other Giant Squid in the stomachs of specimens studied.

But a new report seems to shed a new and rather different light on the behavior of this mysterious deep sea creature...

New Zealand based marine biologist Steve O'Shea theorizes that instead of a food source, the pieces of fellow squid point to some rather unusual mating methods.

According to O'Shea when mating the female squid accidentally bites off pieces of her mate and then ingests them. "It's not intentional cannibalism, it's certainly inadvertent," O'Shea told the New Zealand press.

For the complete story visit: Giant Squid Mating Behavior

Source: www.divenews.com

Food for thought - Don't miss breakfast before diving

2006-02-21T09:09:00.000+02:00

Is breakfast the most important meal of the day? Well, according to evidence unearthed by doctors in the US, eating breakfast is the secret to staying healthy.

Firstly, US doctors believe skipping the first meal of the day increases the chances of becoming obese, developing diabetes or even having a heart attack.

Their study found that people who eat whole-grain cereals every morning are among those most likely to see the health benefits.

They found that people who ate breakfast every day were a third less likely to be obese compared to those who skipped the meal.

In addition, they were half as likely to have blood-sugar problems, which increase the risk of developing diabetes or having high cholesterol, which is a known risk factor for heart disease.

The researchers believe that eating first thing in the morning may help to stabilise blood sugar levels, which regulate appetite and energy.

They suggest people who eat breakfast are less likely to be hungry during the rest of the day and are, therefore, less likely to overeat.

Read more on this article at news.bbc.co.uk

How does this affect a scuba diver?
Based on these findings I would agree that not only is it healthy but it decreases the chances of experiencing seasickness during and between dives. I disovered this article by Kyle Leitch who experienced the same affects and thought I'd share it.

...
I learned to dive about six months before a club trip to Mallorca. I was with a good BSAC branch which took me open-water diving every week, and which meant I soon passed my ocean diver qualification. All our diving was done in the cold, low-visibility water of Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland.

When I heard the branch was organising a dive holiday to Mallorca, I jumped at the chance. To fully appreciate 35m-plus visibility and 27ºC water, I reckon you need to experience Strangford’s 2–3m visibility and 8ºC of water first.

The day after arriving in Mallorca, we were up at 7am. In the rush, I only managed to grab an extremely small bite for breakfast. On the two-mile journey to the dive site, however, I felt my stomach grumble from a lack of food. I began to regret missing breakfast.

The minibus pulled up outside the dive shop and we went in to get our kit. We then walked to the harbour. On the way down, my stomach had stopped growling and it was no longer painful. Nevertheless, I knew I needed to eat something – it was just that I couldn’t be bothered and I thought it might make me sick.

We jumped aboard the small hardboat and began to assemble our kit. The first dive site was called BMW, because it had two caves beside each other which resembled a BMW car grille. I couldn’t wait to jump into the water, but there was one problem: on the way out I began to feel seasick and the increasing movement of the boat was becoming unbearable. I got my kit on, however, and entrusted myself to the old theory that seasickness clears up as soon as a diver jumps into the water. To my amazement it worked, and we were all able to enjoy a colourful dive. It lasted 45 minutes and I saw lots of new creatures that I had never seen before.

Back on the boat, I suddenly felt a wave of seasickness. This time it was a lot worse. I was feeling the heat and couldn’t bring myself to eat anything. All I wanted to do was get back in the water, enjoy the dive and then get straight back onto dry land.

We swapped our used bottles for full ones and prepared for the next dive. The boat tossed and turned on the way to the next dive site, making the seasickness worse.

I managed to get my kit on and we did our buddy checks. I could hardly walk with the weight of the kit and seasickness combined; nevertheless, I inflated my jacket and jumped in. Once again, I was hoping that the sickness would clear up when I got into the water. It didn’t, but I made my descent anyway, expecting it to clear at any second. Every metre seemed to make my stomach tighten even more and become increasingly painful. Then my throat began to tighten and I couldn’t clear my ears. It grew tighter and tighter – I knew I had to get out.

At first I thought I was going to cough or splutter, but suddenly the absence of breakfast came back to haunt me and I vomited through my regulator. It was the strangest and most frightening thing that had ever happened to me. Visibility was suddenly reduced as the little amount of food I had eaten surrounded me in a cloud. It was as though I was back in Strangford Lough – I literally couldn’t see a thing. Luckily, my buddy and about four other divers from the group rushed over to help. Within minutes I was back on the boat, recovering.

It took only a couple of hours to recover. I bought some seasickness tablets and made sure I had a proper breakfast the rest of the time I was there. The diving went really well for the remaining six days of the holiday.

My advice to other divers is never to miss breakfast, and always have at least a small snack in between dives. I should have thought carefully before going on the second dive. I was lucky that I was not too deep and had a good group of divers around to help me.
...

Source: www.divemagazine.co.uk

Thousands of giant squid wash up on Chilean beach

2006-02-21T09:07:00.000+02:00

Authorities began removing hundreds of tons of squid that washed up on a beach in southern Chile and were in a process of decomposing, police said Friday.

Since these sea creatures began arriving on the beach of the town of Tome Thursday night, police and local authorities estimate that a total of some 500 tons of the squid have washed ashore.

Known by the scientific name "Dosidicus gigas" or popularly as the Jumbo, or Humboldt, Squid - this type of mollusk is found in almost the entire Pacific coast and can grow to a size of between 50-140 centimeters (20-55 inches) and a weight of between 20-50 kilos (44-110 pounds).

The large number of squid on the beach initially provoked curiosity and surprise among tourists and residents of the area, but their presence became a growing nuisance, as the animals' remains rapidly decomposed in the summer heat. Local authorities organized cleaning crews, who used several trucks to remove the squid.

Although experts are unsure of why the squid washed up on the beach, it is believed that high water temperatures were the cause.

The regional health ministry has begun distributing notices to tourists and residents of the affected coastal areas, warning them not to consume the squid and dead fish that washed ashore.

"The consumption of these products, which have already begun decomposing, could cause food poisoning and outbreaks of gastroenteritis. For this region, people are warned not to consume any of these marine species," regional Health Ministry official Hugo Rojas said.

Source: www.mercopress.com

Australia: Ningaloo reef may go 'World Heritage'

2006-02-21T09:03:00.000+02:00

Western Australia is closer to asking for World Heritage protection for Ningaloo Reef, one of the world's most pristine marine environments.

The state government is consulting with the community to decide what boundaries of the world-renowned tourist destination will be nominated for inclusion on the world heritage list.

The process followed the release of an independent report, commissioned in June 2004, which nominated the North West Cape Ningaloo area, Environment Minister Mark McGowan said.

"The state government has identified Ningaloo Marine Park, Cape Range National Park and key areas of the North-West Cape next to the reef to be included in the nomination boundary and is seeking further input from stakeholders," Mr McGowan said.

"Ningaloo Reef is world renowned for its biological diversity, superlative beauty and outstanding geological values and it, along with Cape Range National Park, is one of the State's greatest nature-based tourism attractions," he said.

The reef is a habitat to more than 200 species of coral, 600 species of shellfish and other molluscs, 500 species of fish and several threatened species such as dugong and turtles.

It also is an important migratory path for humpback whales and important aggregation and feeding area for whale sharks.

World Heritage listing would help save the whale sharks by bringing their plight to international attention, Mr McGowan said.

The consultation phase would be an important step in determining what nomination boundary was proposed to the federal government before the end of the year, he said.

Source: news.ninemsn.com.au

South Africa: Poachers beat legal fishing - by millions

2006-02-21T08:45:00.000+02:00

The perlemoen and Patagonian toothfish poached in South African waters and sold illegally in Asian markets are worth more than the country's entire legal fishing industry.

The perlemoen and Patagonian toothfish sold illegally in south-east Asia each year fetch at least R4,4-billion - compared with the R4,1bn annual value of our legal fishing industry.

These shocking figures were revealed in a paper by Shaheen Moolla of Feike, a company that advises on marine regulatory law and environmental management.

Up to 10 times the total allowable catch of perlemoen was being sold in Asia, at a conservative value of R1,8bn.

And while the total allowable catch for Patagonian tooth fish was just 450 tons, it was believed that an annual 32 000 tons valued at R2,6bn was sold in Asia.

Moolla called for the urgent introduction of pro-active measures to stop poaching, particularly closing trade loopholes to block illegal exports.

South African anti-poaching strategies mostly came into play after the resource had been taken out of the water, he said. This resulted in reduction of stocks and damage to the marine ecosystem.

"Although South African abalone quota holders can lawfully only export 237 tons, it is credibly believed that more than 10 times this amount is traded and consumed on south-east Asian markets," he said.

The 237-ton quota was down from 600 tons six years ago.

The collapse of the perlemoen fishery was largely because of what is known internationally as "IUU fishing" - illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

Sought-after Patagonian toothfish are caught off South African-owned Marion Island.

So IUU fishing in these two fisheries alone, where the combined total legal catch was just 687 tons, was worth more than the entire landed value of South Africa's commercial fisheries.

Moolla said that in 2004 Marine and Coastal Management had uncovered "massive" amounts of illegal fishing in the small pelagics (anchovy, pilchard) fishery.

"It is estimated that some 200 000 tons of pelagic fish - or one-third of the total allowable catch - was illegally harvested in one year alone."

IUU fishing affected almost every commercial fishery in South Africa, from traditional linefish to rock lobster and mussels, although on a smaller scale.

South Africa had substantial tools to combat poaching, including four new patrol vessels, modern monitoring systems which can plot the position of every fishing vessel in our waters, and good relationships with other organisations such as the police, Moolla said.

Closing trade loopholes was the key to successfully fighting IUU fishing, Moolla argued.

Perlemoen needed to be listed in terms of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), because any trade of any listed species required a permit and greater levels of regulation.

China had indicated a willingness to put a separate (non-Cites) permit system in place to regulate the import of perlemoen and any other South African fish into China and Hong Kong, and the Department of Environmental Affairs needed to engage the Chinese on this.

"What is required is a paper trail linking the exporter to the fishing boat that landed the fish," Moolla said.

Other proactive anti-poaching measures included expanding the "no-fishing" zones in marine protected areas along the coast.

Two long-planned marine protected areas had not yet been promulgated - including one around the Prince Edward group of islands, which would help protect collapsing Patagonian toothfish stocks.

The 2004/5 annual report of the Department of Environmental Affairs laid out a plan to prevent IUU fishing by the end of last year, and although a draft report was completed late in 2004, it has yet to be tabled in the cabinet or released for public comment.

Source: www.iol.co.za

Mozambique: New diving resort opened by Seablue Scuba Safaris

2006-02-17T09:29:00.000+02:00

A Brand new diving resort has been opened in Mozambique. It is situated south of Inhambane, in between Guinjata Bay and Paindane. You just have to follow the bright orange sign with the manta on it!

The chalets, five at present, are nestled in the dunes and surrounded by beautiful indigenous bush, each with a view of the sea and as secluded as possible. All the chalets are self-cater and have brand new amenities such as fridge, freezer, gas stove, crockery, cutlery and linen, electricity and hot water. The smallest chalet sleeps 4 to 6 people and the remaining chalets can accommodate up to 9 people.

The dive centre is a short walk away, clean and spacious with plenty of equipment for hire. Showers, clean toilets and large rinse tanks are provided to keep your equipment in top shape.

Seablue Scuba owns two 8m semi rigid boats which can take 16 divers although we prefer to dive smaller groups, especially when photographing. Bauer compressors take care of the air fills.

Our aim is to keep the resort peaceful and relaxing, free of irritating noise and to maximise your diving experience safely. We specialise in photographic dives and have some secret spots for unusual creatures. There is a computer on site so you can burn your pics to disc.

Fly-in packages are popular with the busy business executives who don't have time for the drive up. Direct flights from Nelspruit to Inhambane starting in April. Special packages on offer.

For more information please contact Ollie or Catherine on:
Tel/Fax: +27 13 7440357
Cell: +27 834473668 or +258 846448370
Email: seablue@telkomsa.net
Website: www.seabluescuba.com

DAN Research Newsletter February 2006

2006-02-17T09:28:00.000+02:00

DAN releases their Safety Stop for February 2006

In this issue of the DAN Safety Stop:

* Jodi Hoppes Continues her studies in the UK
* Wiley writes about DAN Internship on the freediving website "Deeper Blue"
* Q&A: "I just found out I am pregnant. When do I have to stop diving?"

Additional Resources:
Feb06.pdf

Source: www.diversalertnetwork.org

Australian wreck attracting record number of scuba divers

2006-02-17T09:22:00.000+02:00

THE Sunshine Coast now has another tourism ace up its sleeve with the wreck of the former HMAS Brisbane attracting divers in record numbers.

Dive operators have reported significant boosts to their businesses since the ship was scuttled last July.

The prolific growth of the artificial reef around the wreck has taken everyone by surprise, attracting about 800 dives a month.

The wreck has found favour with international and interstate divers, with local operators reporting a huge increase in visitors heading to the Coast specifically to visit the ship.

Blue Water Dive employee and experienced dive instructor Rebecca Turner said she chose to look for work on the Sunshine Coast over more established dive destinations in north Queensland because of the HMAS Brisbane.

"I think where once you would get people from overseas who would fly into Brisbane and then head straight up to the Great Barrier Reef, now they're coming here first because it's a lot closer," she said.

"It's not as commercialised or sausage-factory-like down here either, and I think that's one of the big things going for it – divers can still get that personalised experience."

Mooloolaba's Scuba World employee Michael McKinnon said the wreck had been sunk in an ideal position that protected it from severe currents and tides, making it the ideal dive destination for experienced divers and those just starting out.

"We used to be going out most weekends and maybe once during the week if the weather conditions were right," he said.

"Over the summer we were going out six days a week.

"There are a few wrecks off Sydney but they're around 60 metres down and more for advanced divers.

"The Brisbane is a 20-minute trip from Mooloolaba and 27 metres down, so even people who have just done their course can still go down and at least hang around the deck level, which is about 18 metres down."

Sunreef Dive Centre co-owner Greg Riddell was also happy to report the boom in business had been "phenomenal".

He said he had taken a number of former crew members of the HMAS Brisbane on dives to visit their former ship and felt the wreck had finally delivered the underwater destination the local dive industry had needed.

"The corals and the colour on the Gneerings Shoals at the local reef was where most people used to go but there was no big icon like a cave or a sinkhole that draws divers to a location," he said.

"Just because you have a nice reef, it doesn't mean people will travel halfway round the world to see a coral, but they do come to see something like the Brisbane."

Source: www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au

7 deadly sins of scuba diving

2006-02-17T09:12:00.000+02:00

DIVE Magazine asked their specialist writers to consider the conventions of modern diving and come up with a new set of seven deadly sins for 2006. This makes for very interesting reading.

The fundamental rules of diving – the ones that keep us alive underwater – are written in stone. But there are other rules that are too subtle for the course books – unwritten codes of consideration, good taste and common sense.

According to DIVE's writers, the new set of seven deadly sins for 2006 are:

1. Being a numpty
2. Bearing false witness
3. Ignoring advice
4. Breaking the dress code
5. Hyping the dive
6. Snoring for Britain
7. Worshipping false idols

This article is too long for this posting, so head over to www.divemagazine.co.uk

DIVE contributors report back on best dives of 2005

2006-02-17T09:06:00.000+02:00

What was your best dive of 2005? That was the question we put to DIVE's contributors, and they've reported back on a vintage year.

The Bestly Chamber, Yucatan, Mexico
The thought of dragging all the dive gear far into the jungle to photograph yet another cenote [water-filled sink hole] when there were perfectly good ones near the road wasn't really appealing, but Steve insisted. He'd found it the year before and kept telling me it was the most spectacularly decorated cenote in Mexico – a pretty radical claim, given the competition. After an hour's hike through the jungle being eaten alive, the muddy pool we arrived at didn't improve my mood.

Following my fellow divers, Robbie and Steve, into a tight underwater passage, the visibility soon turned to zero. After ten minutes we entered a bigger passage where the visibility reached 100m; and as the average depth was only 3m, we could see tree roots hanging from the ceiling. An hour later we still hadn't dropped below 5m and finally reached our destination, the Bestly Chamber. Without warning the unspectacular cave suddenly changed into a jaw-dropping wonderland of stalagmite formations, and a reluctantly undertaken dive became one of my best ever. Pristine white towers stretched as far as our lamps would reach. An hour photographing the chamber passed in minutes, and all too soon we turned for home.

To be able to see and photograph such pristine places is a rare privilege. Mexico is justifiably famous for its underwater caves but most suffer badly from the intrusion of divers. Hopefully the remoteness and obscure location of the Bestly Chamber will protect it from that fate, and those who do make it there will leave it as they find it.

Gavin Newman
-------
Socorro Islands, Pacific Ocean
I was hovering in wild, blue water, darkness stretching away 5km beneath my fins. Next to me was a sheer rock face, swept by huge mid-ocean currents and battered by percussive swells as they smashed into the craggy volcanic pinnacle overhead.

I was on a quest to see the famous mantas of the Socorro Islands, a cluster of remote Pacific islands south of Baja California. Glancing around me, all I saw was the vast wall patrolled by the occasional silky shark, the sharks in turn being eyed warily by the rolling school of jacks that hung 50m off the rock face.

Suddenly I saw a darkening of the water beyond the jacks, the unmistakable silhouette of a big manta. Inclining one elegant wing-tip, it drifted towards me, neatly stalling only feet away to peer at me with genuine curiosity. Gently swaying the tips of my fins, I rose up to meet it – man and manta, eye-to-eye off a mighty oceanic rock face. For the next 40 minutes we pirouetted around one another, the manta enjoying the contact as much as the man. When finally I had to leave, the great ray accompanied me all the way to the surface, my final glimpse a flash of white belly as it turned back into the dark waters beneath it.

Monty Halls
-------
SS Leopoldville, Normandy, France
The late Keith Morris [one of the UK's pioneering technical divers] called me about a place on an expedition to dive the protected wreck of the SS Leopoldville. After learning more about the ship's history and the expedition's aims, I seized the chance.

The tragedy of the Leopoldville was covered up for years, governments embarrassed by the needless deaths of so many of the American troops on board. She was carrying 2,200 GIs to Normandy on Christmas Eve, 1944, but the German submarine U-486 lay in wait only five miles outside Cherbourg. Although the ship took more than two hours to sink, shameful delays and errors in the rescue meant that more than 800 men died within sight of land.

Today, the Leopoldville is still a beautiful ship. The bow sweeps up majestically, the anchor chain still running from a hawse pipe and the wooden deck, and the gun and rows of portholes all make this a memorable dive. The damage from the explosion is a stark reminder of the ship's end.

At the request of survivors and relatives, our team raised an American flag on the wreck, and posted letters through a porthole. The simple ceremonies brought a human context to the gloomy decay of the shipwreck itself.

Guy Middleton
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Fakarava Atoll, Tuamotus, French Polynesia
While not as well known as Rangiroa, Fakarava is one of the largest atolls in the Tuamotus Archipelago, French Polynesia – 56km across, with passes at the northern and southern ends.

We drifted with the incoming current and settled upon a coral rise at a depth of 25m in the wide pass at the southern end of Fakarava Atoll. The sun shone brightly through the clear water as far as 30m. Our bubble streams danced and dispersed as they ascended and were drawn into the lagoon. Through this curtain of bubbles they appeared: grey reef sharks, black-tip sharks, and white-tip reef sharks. Not a few, not dozens, but hundreds. The scent of blood from the fish carcasses carried by dive master Sebastien Bertaut preceded us as a calling card, and a-calling the sharks did come!

Three hundred-plus noses focused upon the source of the scent and ventured to investigate further. The sharks flowed as a fast-moving current in concentrated waves, as their hardwired competitive instinct triggered them to strive to outperform their rivals. Every shark for itself.

When dozens of fast-moving and highly agitated sharks are at arm's length distance, there is a frisson and an overwhelming sensation of awe, but no fear – sensory overload for even the most seasoned diver. A dive of a lifetime. We had orchestra seating at the predators' ballet and the performance lasted 30 heart-stopping, time-arresting minutes. As we made ready to leave, Seb offered a fish carcass up to some impatient and voracious grey reef sharks, who competed among themselves and reduced a 10kg snapper to fish flakes in a matter of seconds.

At a time when long-line fishing and shark finning threaten extinction for many species of sharks, it was obvious to all of us on that dive that we were seeing the best of the last. The shark action at South Fakarava on that day will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Douglas David Seifert
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Giannis D wreck, Red Sea, Egypt
Like most of us, I don't get to dive as much as I'd like, but as a consolation I do get to think about diving every day. My favourite dives are inevitably the ones I have been anticipating most keenly. So, without a doubt, my top dive of 2005 was the wreck of the Giannis D in the northern Red Sea.

I try to do at least one Red Sea liveaboard trip every year but for three years running, poor weather, mechanical problems and even the European Championship had stopped me diving the Giannis. For those wondering, I should explain that it is hard to get a TV signal at Abu Nuhas. I and Egyptian crews are always reluctant to wander too far from coverage during major football tournaments! However, this year my luck changed. The Strait of Gubal was glassy smooth and we ended up diving the wreck direct from the rear platform of our liveaboard.

The Giannis D, a Greek-owned cargo ship that sank in 1983 after striking the Abu Nuhas reef, is a classic wreck. Although the ship is broken in half, the bow and stern sections are largely intact, and I feel it looks exactly as a non-diver would imagine a wreck to be. Perhaps what I enjoy most is that the Giannis D doesn't attract the crowds of bubble-blowers found on the Thistlegorm, so you still get that buzz of discovery, which for me is such an essential ingredient of wreck diving.

Alexander Mustard
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Trawler wreck, Ras Banas, Egypt
It was a morning dive on the wreck of an unidentified trawler in southern Egypt – the wreck didn't have any guns or remarkable features and there weren't any big fish, but there was something very special about it that day.

Not many people know about the trawler, so we had it all to ourselves. Group leader Peter Collings located the wreck, but we had a long wait on the RIB because his buoy was blown off the site. It was a pleasure to finally drop into the water and follow the debris trail down to the wreck.

It lay upright on a slope of pure white sand that dropped away at a 45-degree angle. I swam down to the bow and gazed up at the skeletal structure, finely dusted with undisturbed sand and illuminated by the gentle light of an Egyptian morning. Floating just above the bottom at 50m, I watched my friends from the liveaboard MV Hurricane swimming along this peaceful scene with slow, graceful fin strokes.

The dive made me feel great. I didn't feel any noticeable narcosis on the bottom, but I'm sure it played a part in my perception and enjoyment of the scene, a placid contrast to the bucking sea above. The feeling of assurance and wellbeing stayed with me long after the dive, and I still recall it vividly as I write these words.

Simon Rogerson
-------
Kelp forests, Catalina Island, California
It doesn't particularly matter where you pick your spot to dive around Catalina Island, the underwater marine life is just as good wherever you submerge. Admittedly, some reefs are more predictable for observing soup-fin and leopard sharks and other sites almost guarantee the giant black bass, but for me the bright-orange Garibaldifish take centre stage. They contrast superbly against the greens and blues of the clear Pacific waters and are complemented by the browns of the giant kelp. Very few marine environments support a plant that regularly grows to more than 30m in length.

Even more bizarre is that the giant kelp uses all of its extraordinary length not to spread out horizontally but to grow from the deep cool depths to the warm surface. This unique environment gives rise to a whole host of critters that adapt the kelp throngs for their home. These range from tiny bryozoa, through juvenile mackerel, to the palm-sized kelp bass. All are perfectly camouflaged to avoid detection. Then you have the strangest of them all, the iridescent Garibaldifish. It breaks all the rules. It positively advertises its presence. It's a feisty, fiery tempered fish, which makes it ideal for photography – rather than have to spend hours finding them, they quickly find you.

In a diver's relatively monochromatic world of blues, greens and greys, the bright-orange Garibaldifish has an almost hypnotic effect on any dive.

Charles Hood

Source: www.divemagazine.co.uk

World shark attacks dipped in 2005

2006-02-17T09:02:00.000+02:00

Assertive and even aggressive human behavior could explain why shark attacks worldwide dipped last year, continuing a five-year downward trend in close encounters with the oceanic predators, new University of Florida research suggests...

Greater safety precautions and in-your-face responses to confrontations with sharks went a long way in reducing the total number of attacks from 65 in 2004 to 58 in 2005 and fatalities from seven to four, said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File housed at UF’s Florida Museum of Natural History.

In contrast, there were 78 shark attacks — 11 of them fatal — in 2000, the all-time high record year for attacks since statistics were kept, he said.

There also were simply fewer sharks to attack people, a result of a decline in populations caused by overfishing of the carnivorous creature, which generally is slow to reproduce, Burgess said.

"It appears that humans are doing a better job of avoiding being bitten, and on the rare occasion where they actually meet up with a shark, are doing the right thing to save their lives," he said.

In one such case, a surfer bitten by a great white shark off the Oregon coast on Dec. 24 had the presence of mind to drive it away with a well-timed punch to the nose, he said.

"That gentleman did precisely what he should do under those circumstances," Burgess said. "A person who is under attack should act aggressively toward the shark and not follow the advice given to women who are having their purses snatched in New York City, which is to lie on the ground, play dead and give up the purse."

Despite the worldwide decline, the number of attacks in the United States rose slightly, from 30 in 2004 to 38 in 2005. But that is still considerably lower than the recorded high of 52 in 2000, he said.

The same pattern emerged in Florida, the U.S. shark attack capital, where the number of attacks increased from 12 to 18 but was still well below the 2000 record of 37, he said.

The 2004 numbers were the lowest in more than a decade, however, and were probably due to Florida's unusually active hurricane season, which kept people out of the water, he said.

In addition to last year's 38 U.S. attacks, Burgess tracked 10 in Australia, four in South Africa and one each in the Bahamas, St. Martin, Mexico, Fiji, Vanuatu and South Korea.

Compared with previous years, the number of attacks in Australia was relatively high last year and in 2004, when there were 12, prompting some people to call for the installation of nets to barricade sharks from beaches, Burgess said. But the per capita rate of shark attacks has not risen over the past century, with apparent increases coinciding with a rise in population and Australia's growing attraction to tourists in recent decades, he said.

The number of shark attacks at any particular time depends on a variety of factors, including oceanographic and meteorological conditions, abundance of prey items, and very important, the amount of time people spend in the water, he said.

"We need to remember there have been huge changes in how humans use the water over the last 20 to 30 years," Burgess said. "When our parents and grandparents went into the water, they maybe wiggled their toes, or if they were very daring, jumped in and swam. People of our generation are surfing, diving, sail boarding, scuba diving, skin diving and engaging in all kinds of activities."

Of this year's four fatalities, two were in Australia, one in the Indo-Pacific island of Vanuatu and one in the United States. The U.S. attack occurred June 25 along Florida’s Gulf Coast, when 14-year-old Jamie Daigle was attacked by a bull shark while swimming off Sandestin. It was the state's first death from a shark attack in four years.

Two days later, also in the Florida Panhandle, 16-year-old Craig Hutto lost his right leg to a shark while fishing in waist-deep water off Cape San Blas.

Five of the state's 18 shark attacks last year occurred along Florida's Gulf Coast, which is a greater proportion to the Atlantic coast than previous years, Burgess said. "It's unusual to have only 13 attacks on the state's eastern coast," he said.

Elsewhere in the United States, five attacks occurred in South Carolina, four each in Texas and Hawaii, three in California, two in North Carolina and one each in New Jersey and Oregon.

Surfers were the most frequent victims, accounting for 29 incidents, followed by swimmers and waders, 20, and divers, four.

Source: www.divenews.com

New Zealand: Diver's survival of 3 days in ocean defies all logic

2006-02-17T08:58:00.000+02:00

While the country celebrates an extraordinary feat of survival, many experts are saying Robert Hewitt has defied all logic by surviving 75 hours adrift in Cook Strait.

Dive New Zealand magazine editor Dave Moran said Mr Hewitt's survival was the stuff of maritime legend.

"It's just a fantastic story and we're all intrigued as to how he managed it – he should not have lasted that long in the water."

Mr Moran said Mr Hewitt's navy training, seven-millimetre-thick navy wetsuit and supply of crayfish and kina would have helped him stay alive, as would his solid build. "Personal insulation helps. If he was a skinny bloke he wouldn't have had much of a chance against the cold.

"But in saying that, it's hard to imagine anyone lasting much longer than 36 hours floating out at sea," he said. "We all assumed he died on the bottom and if he was on the surface he would have been a long way away."

Mr Moran said Cook Strait was subject to strong currents and was considered one of the most changeable and ferocious passages of water in the world.

Helipro chief executive Rick Lucas said he was gobsmacked by Mr Hewitt's survival. "It's just incredible – I was out there on the Tuesday when the conditions were idyllic and we were looking down at schools of kahawhai and you could see the fish. If he was down there we would have seen him."

Mr Lucas joined the search on Monday. "I figured, given the conditions of the day, that he was . . . going to be somewhere between Kapiti Island and Mana Island and way out to sea."

Wellington police search and rescue spokesman Sergeant Bruce Johnston likened Mr Hewitt's ordeal to accounts of World War II pilots who crashed in the deserts of North Africa and walked for days to safety.

"It all comes down to the will to live," he said.

Mr Johnston said that in the days after Mr Hewitt went missing, calculations of tide and current flows put him in a region 30 nautical miles behind Kapiti Island, spanning down to Makara.

Mr Hewitt is thought to have drifted about 40 kilometres north, off the coast of Waikanae, till currents brought him back to near Mana Island, where he was rescued on Wednesday.

Mr Johnston said the search had covered more than 150 nautical square miles of ocean, from behind Kapiti Island down to Makara. Dive squads had scanned the seabed around Mana Island.

Choppy conditions probably caused aerial searchers to miss Mr Hewitt in the sea, he said. "With his black wetsuit they could have gone over the top of him and not seen him."

Related Articles: Scuba diver found alive against the odds - adrift for 3 days

Source: www.stuff.co.nz

For divers, sinkholes along Yucatan peninsula are popular spot

2006-02-17T08:50:00.000+02:00

I thought I'd share with you a diver's perspective on diving the sinkholes along the Yucatan peninsula. I have not been there yet, but it sounds like paradise.

Taking in the surroundings more than 30 feet below the earth's surface, I was astounded at the stark, silent beauty of the Mayan underworld.

To my left were what appeared to be giant snow boulders; around the corner, an overturned scale model of a Roman city next to a full-sized, engraved stone column. Gleaming icicles dripped from the ceiling, and - whoa! There's a sculpture of the Madonna holding the baby Jesus.

No way this could be Hell, I thought happily, shining my light through the darkness. The icons are all wrong.

In fact, this place is about as close to heaven as you can get if you're a scuba diver - although it's rumored a similar environment might exist on Mars - but more on that later.

Maggie Martorell, Erika Hernandez, Victor Rosado and I were swimming in an underground river called Dos Ojos (two eyes) on the Caribbean coast of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula known as the Riviera Maya. To get there, we had to climb down a ladder through the narrow opening of a cenote, or sinkhole, and have our heavy scuba gear lowered to us on a rope. It sounds like a lot of effort, but the eye-popping sights in what the Mayas call tzonot, or 'sacred well', are worth the trouble.

Just gearing up on the wooden dive platform was a treat. We stood in the middle of a wide, water-filled limestone cave decorated with stalactites and stalagmites - limestone projections that extend from the ceiling and up from the floor. At our feet, the water was so clear that it appeared nearly invisible. We felt its coolness - 72 degrees - through our thick, neoprene wet suits when we got in.

The cenotes of the Riviera Maya, little-known to anyone outside cave-diving circles 10 years ago, attract thousands each year. What keeps them from becoming overrun is their numbers. Of the nearly 500 cenotes registered among the 100-mile coastline between Cancun and Felipe Carrillo Puerto, explorer Sam Meacham said nearly 150 underwater caves and cave systems covering 380 miles have been mapped and surveyed, including the ninth-longest cave on Earth - the 440,000-foot Ox Bel Ha (Three Paths of Water).

HISTORY LESSON
What riddles the Yucatan with sinkholes, according to explorer/dive operator Robbie Schmittner, is that in prehistoric times, it was a coral reef. After the last Ice Age 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, water levels dropped, leaving dry limestone caves. Rain, which contains carbonic acid, dissolved the limestone layers - some faster than others. Cave roofs and walls collapsed or eroded, leaving dripstone formations on floors and ceilings in subterranean rivers. The nature-made sculptures are nothing short of spectacular.

Unlike North Florida's network of underwater caves - which are often deeper than 300 feet and subject to the powerful flow of underground springs - the average depth of the Mexican cenotes is about 45 feet and little to no current. Hundreds of feet of caverns can be explored safely without straying out of sight of surface light, or making decompression stops.

Unlike the colorful reefs of nearby Cozumel, the cenotes do not offer much in the way of marine life. At the rims, you'll find a few catfish and cichlids, and back in the darker chambers, there are small, blind fish and crustaceans that have evolved to live off the water chemistry.

Bil Phillips, 51, a Canadian transplant and renowned cenote explorer, says it's possible similar creatures might exist in underwater caves on Mars.

"That's why I should be the one who gets to go to Mars and go diving," Phillips said.

The cenotes also are rich archaeological sites, yielding artifacts ranging from thousands-year-old human and animal bones to pottery shards.

Schmittner and Phillips guide divers into the 38-foot-deep Cenote de los Huesos (bones) in Tankah Park to see remains of ancient mastodons, tapir and deer.

"Kind of an underwater museum," Schmittner said.

Most cenote explorers appreciate the importance of the tunnels to the economy, culture, and environment of the Riviera Maya. But they fear that others - Mexicans and visitors - do not.

Meacham, 40, a native of Texas who has lived in the region for 12 years, worries that burgeoning development along the Caribbean coast could poison the cenotes that - however porous - make up the foundation of life in the region. He cites statistics to back up his contention:

POPULATION THREAT

Playa del Carmen, center of the Riviera Maya, has seen its population grow 500 percent since 1990. Tourist visits have risen from less than 400,000 annually in 1996 to 2.1 million in 2004.

Seventy percent of the drinking water for cities in Mexico comes from groundwater, yet many of the large resorts along the Riviera Maya use deep injection wells to dispose of sewage, threatening to contaminate the aquifer.

Future plans call for a new airport at Tulum, at the southern end of the Riviera Maya, sitting atop the region's largest concentration of underground rivers.

Meacham is organizing a nonprofit educational foundation to get his message to residents, tourists and politicians.

"We have to be extremely careful in our development plans, or we run the risk of killing the goose that laid the golden egg," he said. "If nobody teaches these [people] what's under there, we don't have a chance of saving it."

If you go
Advanced open-water scuba divers might be qualified to dive in Riviera Maya's cenotes in small, guided groups, although cavern certification is preferred. Guided dives cost about $100 per person for a one-tank dive. Some cenotes are suitable for snorkeling. Here is a partial list of dive operators:

Xibalba Dive Center, Tulum; www.xibalbadivecenter.com.

Yucatek Divers, Playa del Carmen; www.yucatek-divers.com.

Go Cenotes, www.gocenotes.com

Dive Aventuras, Puerto Aventuras, www.diveaventuras.com

Hidden Worlds, Tulum, www.hiddenworlds.com

For nondivers, Alltournative Off Track Adventures offers kayaking, rappelling, biking, hiking, zip-lining and tours of Mayan villages. Go to www.alltournative.com.

For bonefishing and snorkeling in the Sian Ka'an biosphere, go to www.ragatours.info.

For lodging in the Riviera Maya, go to www.rivieramaya.com.

Source: www.mercurynews.com

Two Japanese divers rescued after 30 hours at sea off Palau

2006-02-17T08:48:00.000+02:00

Two Japanese divers survived the threat of dehydration, hypothermia, sunburn and sharks while drifting for more than 30 hours in the open waters of Palau earlier this week.

Hazime Telei, Palau's director of Public Safety, said dive master Masahiko Murakami, 23, and tourist Hirokomi Nakayama, 35, began their dive around 11:30 a.m. Sunday.

But upon surfacing, the men were not spotted by the boat operator, said Navot Bornovski, dive operator for the Ocean Hunter and owner of Fish 'n Fins dive shop in Palau. Bornovski was among those that helped with the extensive search.
"They were in the open space. The weather was not good. The waves were strong. It is like looking for a needle in a haystack. This is a miracle that we found them," Telei said.

He did not know the name of the tour company and said the incident is being investigated.

Police were notified at 5:40 p.m. that the men were missing, he said. A search effort involving several vessels and aircraft lasted through the night and the next day, Telei said.

The men were dropped in the water to dive at Peleliu wall, which is roughly 27 miles south of Palau's capital city of Koror, said Bornovski.

The duo drifted 16 miles and was found 8 nautical miles south of Angauar, said Lee Putnam, a U.S. Coast Guard Guam search and rescue specialist.

The divers were wearing wet suits and had a camera and a flotation device, but no mirror or flashlight to signal search planes, he added.

Dive shop owners on Palau organized a search that included more than a dozen boats scouring the waters of Peleliu.

"With 6 to 7-foot swells, it is very difficult to spot people in the water because most of the time they are between wave crests," Bornovski stated.

The men were found spotted around 5:30 p.m. the following day by the Japanese research vessel, Keifu Maru, Bornovski said in an e-mail to the Pacific Daily News.

Telei said after the divers were hauled aboard the Keifu Maru, they were checked by a doctor and determined to be OK but very sunburned.

"They were a little dehydrated and cold a little. I think one of the factors that really saved them is that they never lost hope," Telei said.

Source: www.guampdn.com

UK diving incidents in 2005 highest ever recorded

2006-02-17T08:45:00.000+02:00

Diving incidents in 2005 were the highest ever recorded, but the number of fatalities was reduced from last year, according to the BSAC's Diving Incidents Report.

Delivering the report at BSAC's Diving Officers' Conference, safety and incidents officer Brian Cumming revealed that there had been 17 fatal incidents in the UK, compared to 25 in 2004.

Of the 17 fatalities recorded between October 2004 and September 2005, two were double fatalities. Five of those who died were BSAC members.

Brian spoke out strongly against the practise of solo and trio diving, which together attributed to six of the deaths. He said trio diving often led to separation.

"Pair diving clearly saves lives," Brian said. "Four of the year's fatalities involved solo diving and to throw more light on these events I conducted a study of the database. The current database goes back to 1998 and it contains 138 fatalities, giving a total of 146 deaths. Of this total, 19 related to solo diving. This means that 13 per cent of our fatalities were solo divers and we can be sure that this is significantly higher than the fraction of dives that are conducted solo."

As well as solo and trio diving, Brian highlighted non-diving-related medical problems, deep diving, rebreather diving, equipment failure and rapid ascent as the main factors in all of 2005's deaths.

A total of 441 diving incidents were reported in the UK, the highest-ever recorded. Brian said it was not clear if the increasing trend was the result of more incidents, more diving, better data capture or a combination of these factors.

Of all diving incidents, 98 were ascent-related, the highest number ever recorded, and a 23 per cent increase on 2004 figures. Brian echoed his comments from the previous year's conference about the rising number of incidents, which 'clearly indicated' poor buoyancy technique and training.

"Incidents associated with abnormal ascents have risen dramatically," he said. "These are avoidable problems and instructors should make this a priority area for attention." Boating and surface incidents continued to decline, said Brian, adding that the 2005 figures indicated a 'levelling out' at around 90. However, he highlighted the 'worrying' number of cases where divers were struck by boats.

UK incidents involving the coastguard agency and RNLI increased slightly on last year. Praising the emergency services, Brian emphasised the importance of divers reporting incidents to the coastguard early.

He concluded that reported incidents and numbers of fatalities were in line with the trends of recent years but warned against complacency.

"As has been stated many times before, most of the incidents could have been avoided had those involved followed a few basic principles of safe diving practice," he said.

For full details of the Diving Incidents Report, see the BSAC website www.bsac.org.

Source: www.divemagazine.co.uk

Great Barrier Reef: Climate change threat not overstated

2006-02-17T08:44:00.000+02:00

The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) says the threat climate change poses to the Great Barrier Reef cannot be overstated.

Federal Tourism Minister Ian Macfarlane has been reported as saying the threat to the reef has been exaggerated.

Ray Berkelmans from AIMS says while the reef is generally in good health, climate change poses a significant threat.

"Most scientists as well as the reef managers would agree that in the medium to longer term, climate change is a real threat to the reef, not just ours but to reefs globally but how that impacts on tourism is a totally different thing," he said.

Related Articles:
Australia: Reef shade structures almost a reality
Australia: Bleached coral reefs force marketing twist
Great Barrier Reef: Coral severely bleached
Great Barrier Reef may need shade cloth to prevent coral bleaching

Source: www.abc.net.au/news

Worldwide shark attacks down in 2005, continuing trend

2006-02-17T08:38:00.000+02:00

The number of fatal and nonfatal shark attacks worldwide dropped in 2005, continuing a five-year trend, researchers said Monday.

There were 58 attacks in 2005, compared to 65 in 2004, while the number of fatal attacks dropped from seven to four, said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File, housed at the University of Florida's Museum of Natural History.

In contrast, there were 78 attacks in 2000, 11 of them fatal, the record year for attacks.

Surfers were the most frequent victims last year, accounting for 29 attacks, followed by 20 attacks on swimmers and waders and four attacks on divers.

"It appears that humans are doing a better job of avoiding being bitten, and on the rare occasion where they actually meet up with a shark, and are doing the right thing to save their lives," Burgess said.

Burgess said swimmers need to fight back aggressively if a shark attacks, pointing to a surfer who survived a Dec. 24 attack off the Oregon coast. He saved his life with a well-timed punch to the shark's nose. Punching the gills and poking the eyes also work.

Despite a worldwide decline, the number attacks in the United States rose slightly from 30 in 2004 to 38 in 2005, but well below the record of 52 in 2000.

Florida remained to U.S. shark attack capital, where the number of attacks increased from 12 to 18, but below the record of 37, Burgess said.

One of last year's four fatalities occurred in Florida, two were in Australia and one on the island of Vanuatu.

The Florida attack occurred June 25 along the Gulf Coast, where 14-year-old Jamie Daigle was attacked by a bull shark while swimming off Sandestin. It was the state's first fatal shark attack in four years. Two days later, Craig Hutto, 16, lost his right leg to a shark while fishing in waist-deep water off Cape San Blas, also in the Florida Panhandle.

Five of Florida's 18 attacks occurred on the Gulf Coast and the remainder occurred on the state's Atlantic coast. Five attacks occurred in South Carolina, four each in Texas and Hawaii, three in California, two in North Carolina and one each in New Jersey and Oregon.

The number of shark attacks depends on a variety of factors including ocean and weather conditions, abundance of prey and the amount of time people spend in the water, Burgess said.

Source: www.myrtlebeachonline.com

Why do tiger sharks eat more loggerhead than green turtles

2006-02-17T08:28:00.000+02:00

Which turtle would you attack: the "lumbering tank" or the "fighter jet"? Take a dive with researchers in Australia's Shark Bay to find out why tiger sharks make more meals of the sleek, high-flying loggerhead sea turtle than its slower bottom-swimming cousin, the green sea turtle.

Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Shark Diving in South Africa

2006-02-15T09:25:00.000+02:00

John Dwyer visits Gansbaai and combats his fear and comes face to face with a Great White shark.

My fascination with the Great White shark began when, at the age of ten, I first saw the film "Jaws". I believe the craziest people in the world are those who actually climb into flimsy cages with monsters swimming around them. Yet there I was on the road to Gansbaai in South Africa, paying good money for the privilege of getting in the same flimsy cage with these beasts in a feeding frenzy around me. Had I gone mad?

The fishing village of Gansbaai is only two hours drive from Cape Town. Dyer Island, just off the coast, is home to a large colony of over 50,000 seals and is thus a favourite feeding ground for the Great White shark. The area is known as Sharks Alley and is acknowledged as one of the best places in the world to view the Great White. The small, sleepy village of Gansbaai has turned into a mecca for thrill-seekers from all over the world because of this.

Piet Smal of Shark Diving Tours has been running shark cage diving trips for years and has appeared in many National Geographic documentaries featuring the Great White. For 1,000 Rand (approximately €120), you can spend a day at sea with the sharks, both watching them tear tuna bait apart and also getting in a cage to see them up close. No diving experience is necessary and you can simply use a snorkel and mask to view the sharks from within the cage. Before setting out to sea that day we all had to sign an unsettling legal waiver of the form, "I will not press legal charges if I get an arm or leg bitten off..." Not what my nerves needed. We boarded the fishing boat and headed out of the harbour in search of Jaws.

Once out on the ocean, Piet cast fish and blood into the water in order to attract the sharks. The Great White's acute sense of smell can detect blood in the water from over five kilometers away. It didn't take long for the first of the sharks to appear. A group of four started to circle the boat, the largest of them being about four meters long and well over two tonnes in weight. Piet put a huge tuna head in the water attached to a rope and splashed it about. One shark circled the bait for about five minutes before it unleashed its attack. In an awesome show of attacking frenzy, it tore the tuna to pieces in seconds with its powerful jaws. We all swallowed hard as Piet pulled in what was left of the mangled fish. "Right", Piet smiled, "time for you lot to get in the cage".

The cage was not the reinforced-steel fortress that I had expected. Rather, it looked as if it were thrown together from old shopping trolleys. Piet lowered the flimsy-looking cage into the water, threw some blood and fish around it, and beckoned me to jump in. My knees were weak. "Don't worry", he shouted, "the shark may brush his nose against the cage but he'll never attack it. They're just curious." Cold comfort for me. With wet suit on, I climbed into the cage. Piet shouted at me to dive down and look left. I was just in time to see a Great White looming out of the shadows. Piet was splashing the bloody tuna near the cage and the shark passed within a few feet of me. To see this mighty and ancient creature up close in the water was a truly amazing experience. It glided through the water with the absolute minimum of effort. It was magical. Beautiful. And about to become scary.

I headed to the surface for air. Pete ordered me to dive down again and look straight ahead. I dove down in time to see a huge shadow glide past me with the same effortless ease as before. It then turned slightly and headed straight for my cage. With jaws agape, a dead cold stare in its eyes and showing rows of its deadly teeth, its nose brushed against the cage and then slowly swam away. At that point I let my bladder go. I came up to the surface with the rest of the boat gasping at what had just happened. By the time Piet helped me back into the boat, I was smiling broadly. Despite my fear, I was thrilled by my close encounter with the Great White and I wanted more. I got back in the cage twice more during the day and marveled at those amazing creatures of the deep.

It wasn't Jaws that had greeted me that day but one of the oldest creatures on earth and one of natures finest and most perfect creations. My fear of this creature was gone and had been replaced by respect. Still, I don't think I'll be swimming near Gansbaai in the near future. Just in case.

Source: Africa Shark Dive Safaris

Diver lost off Puerto Rico swims home

2006-02-15T09:22:00.000+02:00

A lost diver who was the subject of a U.S. Coast Guard search managed to swim 10 miles through heavy seas to safety, authorities said Thursday.

Marcos Calzada Colon said that at one point he followed a pod of whales because he thought they would protect him from sharks.

Colon was separated from his partner while diving for conch near the island of Culebra, off Puerto Rico's east coast, swam through heavy rain and rough waters before reaching his home island of Vieques, said Coast Guard spokesman Ricardo Castrodad.

Colon's partner reported him missing Tuesday afternoon and Coast Guard boats and a helicopter searched for the 40-year-old man until nightfall.

He said that when he got separated from his boat during the storm he ditched his diving weights and swam through the night.

"When I got to land, the first thing I said was: Thank you God," he said.

Source: www.mercurynews.com

Galapagos tour operator banned for two months following illegal shark fishing

2006-02-15T09:19:00.000+02:00

The regulatory authority of the Galapagos National Park suspended Celebrity Xpeditions from operating tours in the Galapagos Islands for two months as a consequence of an illegal shark-fishing incident.

The authority also ordered Celebrity to pay a fine equivalent to the minimum salaries of 500 crew members. No date was noted for the onset of the two-month suspension. Xpeditions operates in the Galapagos year-round.

Lynn Martenstein, vice president of corporate communications for Celebrity parent Royal Caribbean Cruises, said Celebrity has asked the park authority for a clarification of the charges. After it has received the clarification, Celebrity plans to appeal.

"The Galapagos district attorney cleared the company of any wrongdoing," said Martenstein. "Since we got the ruling, the Galapagos National Park renewed our operating license. The suspension is not final; it is a recommendation. We are entering into the appeal process."

The incident came to light in September 2005 when photographs surfaced of Xpedition crew members holding up freshly killed sharks.

Martenstein added that the crew members who were implicated were “relieved of duty as soon as we learned of the incident” and turned over to Ecuadorian police.

After a "top-to-bottom review of how it happened," Martenstein said the company came up with a list of recommendations it is now implementing.

The recommendations include increasing onboard officer watches, employing full-time security staff, installing security cameras, improving crew education and requiring crew members to sign letters of understanding after training.

Source: www.underwatertimes.com

World first? Diving instructor captures images of divers interacting with killer whales

2006-02-15T09:16:00.000+02:00

A diving instructor has recorded what may be the first ever images of killer whales interacting with humans in Argentina.

Gabriel Hermida was on a boat taking new divers out for their first ever dive off the Argentinian coast when a family of five killer whales approached them.

Carrying a camera Gabriel threw caution to the wind and dived right into the water swimming alongside the sea creatures.

He said afterwards that he was amazed how relaxed the animals were being so close to humans.

"They approached, they were very receptive because normally it's not a receptive animal that comes and approaches people," he said.

"So when they approached, I couldn't resist the temptation and I threw myself into the water.

"I didn't even think about it. I think that if I had thought about it, I wouldn't have thrown myself into the water

"But the adrenaline and how beautiful it was - words can't describe it."

Source: www.underwatertimes.com

Shark attacks fall as humans fight back

2006-02-15T09:09:00.000+02:00

Shark attacks dropped in 2005 because people are fighting back more often when threatened and the ranks of ocean predators are thinning, a University of Florida report said on Monday.

Worldwide there were 58 shark attacks in 2005, down from 65 a year earlier, and fatalities fell to four from seven, said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File housed at the university's Florida Museum of Natural History.

Attacks have been on the decline for five years, since reaching a record high of 78, 11 of them fatal, in 2000, Burgess said in the center's annual tally of shark attacks reported by scientists around the world. The center has kept records since 1958.

Human-shark encounters are dropping partly because there are fewer sharks, a decline caused by overfishing of the species, which generally is slow to reproduce, Burgess said.

Humans are also taking greater care to avoid areas where sharks gather and fighting back when they get bitten, Burgess said. A surfer bitten by a great white shark off the Oregon coast on December 24 drove it away with a punch to the nose, he said.

"If you're being approached by a shark, you certainly want to act aggressively toward the animal. They're a predator, they respect size and power," Burgess said.

"If you can smack them on the nose, certainly do so ... sharks seem to respect pops on the nose."

Those already in the jaws of a shark should "claw at the eyes and the gills to impress the animal that you're not going to go down easily," he advised.

Surfers were the most frequent victims last year, with 29 incidents, followed by swimmers and waders, 20, and divers, four.

U.S., AUSTRALIA LEAD
Despite the worldwide decline, the number of attacks in the United States rose slightly, to 38 last year from 30 a year earlier and well below the recorded high of 52 in 2000.

Most U.S. shark attacks occur in Florida. The state had 18 shark attacks last year, compared with 12 in 2004, a year in which a spate of hurricanes kept people out of the water. The record was 37 in 2000.

After the United States, Australia was the most likely spot for an unfriendly encounter with a shark. Burgess tracked 10 attacks in Australia, four in South Africa and one each in the Bahamas, St. Martin, Mexico, Fiji, Vanuatu and South Korea.

Australia has seen a relatively high number of shark attacks in the last two years, but the per capita rate of shark attacks has not risen over the past century, Burgess said. The increase coincides with a booming human population and Australia's growing attraction to tourists in recent decades, he said.

Of the four fatalities in 2005, two were in Australia, one in the Pacific island of Vanuatu and one in the United States.

The U.S. attack occurred June 25 along Florida's Gulf Coast, when a 14-year-old boy was attacked by a bull shark while swimming off Sandestin. It was the first death from a shark attack in four years in Florida.

Source: Reuters

Caribbean atoll boasts treasure trove of marine life species

2006-02-15T09:06:00.000+02:00

An underwater mountain with some of the richest diversity of marine life in the Caribbean has been found by scientists.

During a two-week dive researchers discovered scores more species of fish than previously known in the region and vast beds of "seaweed cities".

But the team says the biodiversity hotspot is in danger: oil tankers in the area threaten the fragile reefs.

The researchers are hoping to get the area protected by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

The find was made in the Saba Bank Atoll, a coral-crowned seamount, 250km south-east of Puerto Rico in the Netherlands Antilles.

New species
It is ranked as the third largest atoll in the world and has an enormous active reef.

The dives took place during the first two weeks of January, and involved a scientific team of 12 from Conservation International, the Netherlands Antilles government and the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History, as well as local fisherman.

Scientists chose to explore the area because although it was predicted to have high concentrations of marine life, only a small number of species had been reported.

During the dives, the researchers counted a total of 200 species of fish, over 150 more than previously known.

Among their find were two new species of fish, both gobies, which have the distinctive feature of fused pelvic fins on the underside of their body which forms a sucker.

"Many [gobies] live in the canals inside sponges, so we take samples out of sponges, and open the canals up to search for the small fish that can be in there," explained Dr Smith, a scientist on the expedition from Conservation International.

"When we did that, we found quite an extraordinary one. It's still known from a single specimen, and it is so very very distinctive that it is probably a new genus."

The sighting of vast and luxurious seaweed beds were also astonishing, with at least 12 new species of algae discovered.

Dr Mark Littler, a marine botanist at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History and a diver on the expedition, declared the Saba Bank the richest area for seaweeds in the Caribbean.

Seaweeds form the base of the food chain in coral reefs, from which the rest of biodiversity depends.

"When we add everything together - the species of new fish, the dozen new species of algae - that means during the time we were there we discovered a new species every day. That's pretty exciting," said Dr Smith.

Under threat
However, the biodiversity hotspot could be under threat. A petroleum trans-shipment depot on the nearby island of St Eustatius causes a significant amount of marine traffic.

The big tankers, in order to avoid mooring fees at St Eustatius are said to anchor on the bank, causing significant damage to the reef.

"The anchor for a supertanker is as big as my office, and the links in the chain are as big as my desk. They sweep around and just crush all of the coral. They are enormously destructive," explained Dr Smith.

To stop the damage and protect the atoll, the researchers are attempting to get the Saba Bank designated a Particularly Sensitive Sea Area (PSSA) by the IMO.

The 1,500 strong community on Saba Island are responsible for the Bank, and derive about 10% of their economy from it, making the atoll a major source of their livelihood.

Leroy Peterson, a Saba fisherman, called the expedition crucial for protecting Saba Bank's unique marine life.

"Some of the scientists actually found new species not located anywhere else," Peterson said.

"There should be no-anchor zones. For things to survive there must be stricter controls."

Alison Shaw, a marine biologist from the Zoological Society London, added: "By gaining this greater understanding of what lives in the atoll, we can implement better management systems that will provide protection of this resource both for the local community and for the wildlife too."

Dr Smith said that Saba Bank's unique location makes it a prime candidate for conservation.

"It's in an interesting position because many of the Caribbean reefs are close to shore and have damage that is of a land based source," he said.

"But Saba is free of all of that, so potentially it can be the keystone for protecting biodiversity in the Caribbean."

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Holiday resort on artificial island planned off Portuguese coast

2006-02-15T09:01:00.000+02:00

I realize that this does not really relate to scuba diving, but it is indeed fascinating to know what lengths people will go to, to recreate another piece of paradise. Hopefully a few good dive spots will be made too!

A Dutch businessman wants to build Europe's first holiday resort on an artificial island off Portugal, in a project that would cost €1,5 billion and include a casino and underwater hotel.

The 100-hectare island would be built about 300 metres off the coast of the Vale de Lobo resort in the Algarve tourist area and be connected to the mainland with an underwater tunnel, businessman Sander van Gelder said.

Van Gelder said the initial reaction from Portuguese authorities had been positive as the government was keen on original, new tourist projects.

"This exciting project would be one of the most innovative to be undertaken in the world," van Gelder said in written responses to questions.

"It could generate an increase in tourism and thus employment, as well as protecting the Algarve's beaches, to ensure that they continue to contribute to the region's tourism-based economy."

In 2003 tourism made up about 45 percent of the Algarve region's economy. Portugal was the world's 16th tourist spot in 2003, with 11,7 million visitors, making up eight percent of its total economy.

The island would also have an 18-hole golf course, beach, harbour, heliport and between 700 and 1 000 holiday homes.

Van Gelder said the project could actually be good for the environment by blocking erosion of the beaches and cliffs along the mainland's coast.

However, Helder Spinola, president of the Quercus environmental group, said any such plan needs to first carry out a study of the environmental impact.

"We need to see the environmental impact on the maritime ecosystems, this would have a very big environmental footprint."

Van Gelder, who is chairman of the Vale de Lobo Group of Companies, is planning to restore the beaches along the resort with 400 000 cubic metres of sand in March because of erosion. An island in front of the beaches could be a permanent solution to end erosion.

Dutch dredging group Koninklijke Boskalis Westminster NV would oversee the building of the island. The water is about 12 metres deep, Van Gelder said.

The next step is to present the plan to the government. "The models will show the action of the waves and tides and how the island will protect the coastline from erosion," Van Gelder said.

At high season, the beaches at Vale de Lobo - which includes a golf course and holiday homes - draws about 5 000 visitors a day and Van Gelder would expect the island to attract at least the same number.

The island would be built on an underwater plateau and draws on similar examples of artificial islands in the Middle East, Australia and the Caribbean.

Source: www.int.iol.co.za

Scuba diver found alive against the odds - adrift for 3 days

2006-02-15T08:54:00.000+02:00

Plucked from the water after being missing for three days, Robert Hewitt had a shock message for his rescuers: "I've been swimming all the time."

For 75 hours he had been given up for dead, his family praying only for his body to be returned.

A former navy diver, Mr Hewitt, 38, the brother of former All Black Norm Hewitt, had failed to surface from a routine dive off Mana Island on Sunday.

Last night the father-of-three declared that "the love of my fiancee and family is what got me through".

"Appropriate karakia (prayer) to Tangaroa (Maori god of the sea) and to all the friends and well-wishers out there."

The prayer – which Mr Hewitt said in Maori – translated as "a great big thanks to you all". His rescue has confounded experienced divers, with the head of the navy dive squad saying it was unheard of in his 30-year experience.

Mr Hewitt's disappearance sparked a massive search-and-rescue effort. His family gave him up for dead – till 4pm yesterday.

That was when searchers on the Wellington maritime police launch Lady Elizabeth III spotted a black wetsuit hood floating in the water northeast of Mana Island.

Maritime police chief Sergeant John Bryant said they recognised it as a navy diver's hood and continued on the same course. About 10 minutes later, Mr Bryant spotted Mr Hewitt swimming away from the island, about 500 metres offshore.

Disoriented and dehydrated, Mr Hewitt had removed his hood and wetsuit top.

On being pulled from the water, he was immediately covered in blankets and told to lie down to ward off hypothermia.

The first thing he said was: "I've been swimming all the time." He claimed never to have been on Mana Island.

After a few minutes on the launch, Mr Hewitt, who suffered cuts and bruises during his ordeal, said he had survived by eating crayfish and kina from his catch bag. He "talked non-stop" during the voyage to shore – including phoning his fiancee, Rangi Ngatai, Mr Bryant said.

He was eventually reunited with his family amid emotional scenes at Mana Cruising Club before being taken to Wellington Hospital by ambulance.

Ms Ngatai was shocked and overcome by the news of his survival. "I am so grateful, so relieved – I just wanted to have him back. Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Mr Hewitt was recovering from dehydration and sunburn in hospital last night, with Ms Ngatai, his youngest daughter, Kiriana, 6, and his parents, Russell and Mabel, who arrived by helicopter.

Friend Tawehi Munroe said Mr Hewitt's survival was amazing.

"He gave us the thumbs-up as he was transported on the stretcher to the ambulance – he seemed happy. We did not know if he was going to be all right."

Mr Munroe's wife, Puti Puti, said: "There will be a big celebration at the (Ngati Toa) marae."

Mr Hewitt's rescuers were also amazed at his survival skills, Mr Bryant calling it "an amazing example of human fortitude. It just blows me away."

Mr Hewitt, who served with the navy for 20 years, praised "the knowledge that I gained from the navy (that) allowed me to adapt to the different conditions".

Lieutenant Commander David Turner, officer in charge of the navy dive squad, said Mr Hewitt had undertaken a searching four-week training course – including diving to 18m with compressed breathing apparatus – which "set him up for survival in situations like this".

"In that time he would have learned things about himself he wouldn't have known before. But this is absolutely unheard of in my (30-year) experience with (both the British and New Zealand navies)."

How long anyone could survive in the sea depended on water temperatures. Mr Hewitt may have been lucky with the warm sea at this time of year.

Two of his close friends, Lyle Cairns and Buzz Tomoana, were among the eight-strong navy dive team who helped search for him yesterday.

MY BRO, THE SURVIVOR
Norm Hewitt says words can not describe how the family felt when his brother was discovered.

"I might seem happy and pleased, but I'm just drained. That long in the water, practically, who survives? My bro does."

An emotional Mr Hewitt had said on Monday that the family was grieving. Yesterday afternoon their prayers were answered in full.

"When we got the news it was overwhelming, unbelievable. I cannot express how thankful we are to everybody who helped – the police, coastguard, navy, army, everybody. We have come home – Robert has come home.

"There have been a lot of prayers going on – the gods have answered our prayers."

Source: www.stuff.co.nz

Research needed on marine sound

2006-02-15T08:51:00.000+02:00

Research into the effect of sound in the oceans on marine mammals should be commissioned by the UK Government, a report recommends.

The Inter-agency Committee on Marine Science and Technology says mammals are affected by many sounds, including sonar, oil exploration and shipping.

It suggests research should include deliberately exposing mammals to noise.

There has been speculation that the whale found in the Thames last month had been disorientated by sounds.

"There are many sources of sound in the sea, including seismic surveys for hydrocarbons prospecting, shipping, offshore wind farms, military sonars and scientific research," said Professor Peter Liss from the University of East Anglia who chaired the report committee.

"We therefore decided that the study must consider all these sectors and one of our conclusions is the need for better regulation underpinned by more research."

Sonar and strandings
The Inter-Agency Committee (IACMST) brings together experts from government departments and academia and reports to the government's Office of Science and Technology.

Its new report identifies 13 cases of strandings by whales and dolphins which appear to have been linked to specific sources of noise; most of those sources involved naval vessels.

Post-mortem evidence gathered after a number of whales beached themselves during military exercises in the Canary Islands four years ago indicated the presence of tiny gas bubbles in the animals' internal organs, particularly the liver, which scientists believe is linked somehow to sonar.

Legal cases have been brought against the US Navy, while in the UK, conservation groups are pressing for a Parliamentary inquiry.

IACMST recommendations include:

systematic and comprehensive mapping of noise in the ocean should be undertaken to better inform the framing of future legislation

a Marine Environmental Assessment for UK waters should be undertaken

a research strategy should be produced to further examine the effects of underwater sound on marine life

the applicability of existing regulations and treaties for protection of the marine environment to cover underwater sound should be investigated, and amended where necessary.

The most controversial of its proposals is the suggestion that the research should include "Controlled Exposure Experiments", where whales, dolphins, seals and other at-risk animals would be deliberately exposed to sound mimicking the noise of sonar, oil drilling and other activities.

The committee notes that the idea arouses "ethical, political and practical issues", but concludes that the benefits would outweigh the risks if the research was done under proper regulation.

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Hundreds of endangered coral reef fish released in Indonesia

2006-02-15T08:42:00.000+02:00

Hundreds of humphead wrasse were released back into the waters of the Bunaken National Marine Park after being confiscated from a fisherman who was intending to illegally sell the internationally-protected fish species abroad.

Humphead wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus) — also known as the Napolean wrasse — is an endangered species whose trade is regulated under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The species is one of the most valuable fish in the live reef fish trade, and the rarity of this species leads to higher demand and prices (up to US$130/kg retail).

Suspecting the illegal operation for days, police confiscated over 200 specimens of this large coral reef fish, which were found in a cache kept under a net full of live grouper. The fisherman is currently being investigated.

"We are gratefull to the law enforcement authorites," said Luther Papalangi, Head of the Bunaken National Park Authority. "As a result of the action, the park authority will increase patrolling and management of the sustainable use of natural resources, to ensure fish stock for future generations."

Bunaken National Marine Park was formally established in 1991 and is among the first of Indonesia's growing system of marine parks. The park — covers a total surface area of 89,065 hectares — is an important marine area for spawning humphead wrasse. Bunaken also has one of the highest marine biodiversity ecosystems in the Sulu-Sulawesi Marine Ecoregion.

"Populations of this fish species are declining in Indonesia due to the increase of unsustainable fishing practices and over fishing in this area," said Angelique Batuna, WWF-Indonesia's project leader in Bunaken. "It is important to release these [confiscated] fish back to their habitat so as to maintain the ecosystem."

END NOTES:
Adult humphead wrasse are identified by thick lips and a prominent hump on their forehead, while juveniles are a light green colour, with two black lines extending from behind the eye. The species changes in body form, colour and sex during its lifetime. Adults are found on the reef during the day. At night they rest in reef caves and under coral ledges. This species reaches a maximum length of more than 2 metres and up to 190kg in weight.

For further information:
Dewi Satriani, Communications Manager
WWF-Indonesia Marine Programme
Tel: +62 21 576 1070
E-mail: DSatriani@wwf.or.id

Source: www.panda.org/news_facts/newsroom

The epic odyssey of a Great White Shark

2006-02-08T10:18:00.000+02:00

A female great white shark tagged in waters off South Africa has completed the first known transoceanic trip for an individual shark.

According to Swiss marine biologist Michael Scholl, leader of the South African White Shark Trust (WST), Ramón Bonfil of the New York based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and a number of other organisations, the shark travelling more than 20,000 kilometres to the coast of Australia and back again.

The epic odyssey of Nicole (named after the Australian actress and white shark lover Nicole Kidman) has astounded researchers and will change long-held notions about how these charismatic predators move through the world's oceans. Nicole not only travelled farther than any other known shark but completed the trip from South Africa to Australia and back in just less than nine months, the fastest return migration of any swimming marine organism known.

In 2001 a genetic relationship was established between Australian and South African white sharks and was published in the journal Nature. Dr. Ramón Bonfil, WCS researcher shark expert and leading author of the study said "This is one of the most significant discoveries about white shark ecology and suggests we might have to rewrite the life history of this powerful fish. More importantly, Nicole has shown us that separate populations of great white sharks may be more directly connected than previously thought, and that wide-ranging white sharks that are nationally protected in places such as South Africa and Australia are much more vulnerable to human fishing in the open oceans than we previously thought".

The story of Nicole began on November 7, 2003, with funding from Project AWARE Bonfil and his colleagues from the Marine and Coastal Management Department of South Africa and the White Shark Trust attached a satellite tag to Nicole's dorsal fin as part of a large study on white shark migrations. The tags - specifically known as pop-up archival tags - record data on time, temperature, water depth, and light levels as the shark moves through its habitat. On a pre-recorded date, the tag detaches from the shark and floats to the surface, where it transmits its data sets to a researcher's computer via satellite.

An additional 24 white sharks were tagged with similar devises and seven more with real-time satellite tags during this study. While most of the tagged white sharks revealed at least three different movement patterns, including wide-ranging coastal migrations up and down the eastern side of South Africa. Nicole headed out into the vast and deep basin of the Indian Ocean.

The track estimated from the data transmitted by the tag revealed that Nicole followed a strikingly direct route towards Australia, on a path void of oceanic islands. Although Nicole took frequent plunges to depths as great as 980 metres (a record for white sharks) while crossing the Indian Ocean, she spent most of her time swimming along the surface, leading researchers to suspect that perhaps great white sharks use celestial cues for transoceanic navigation.

99 days later, Nicole was swimming about two kilometres from shore just south of the Exmouth Gulf in Western Australia, where her tag detached and floated to the surface with all of her secrets. This leg of the journey alone - some 11,100 kilometres - was one for the record books. However, Nicole would resurface again on August 20, 2004, not in Australian waters, but back in Gansbaai, South Africa, where she was tagged just under nine months before.

Her distinctively notched dorsal fin was photographed by Michael Scholl and compared to previous photographs he had taken over a period of six years. After a detailed comparison of images of dorsal fin notches and markings, there was no longer any doubt: Nicole had returned to her home waters. Thank to a number of grants from Project AWARE Michael has been able to identified over one thousand different white sharks since 1997, he says "Nicole with her regular visits to South Africa every year since 1999 between the months of June and December, is certainly one of my favourite sharks, and this pattern may also suggest that she might be travelling from South Africa to Australia and back every year, an amazing journey" adds Michael Scholl.

Nicole's complete journey of more than more than 20,000 kilometres is by far the longest distance travelled by any shark known to science. By comparison, a whale shark tagged in the Gulf of California was tracked with a satellite transmitter travelling some 13,000 kilometres to the western Pacific. "It's clear that we have only uncovered the tip of the iceberg; there is still much to learn about great white shark migrations, why and how they find their way through such vast distances, and how populations are related," added Bonfil. "More studies and funding are needed to unveil the mysteries of these great predators and how they can be protected in both national and international waters."

Reaching some six-and-a-half metres in length (21 feet), the great white shark is a member of the mackerel shark family, an assemblage of sharks that include the Mako and the Porbeagle. Traditionally, the great white was considered by the scientific community to be the most aggressive and dangerous of all shark species. However, field studies have revealed that the great white shark is rarely a man-eater. Most attacks occur when great whites confuse humans with their preferred prey - sea lions, seals and other marine mammals. In fact, great white sharks, along with many other shark species, are now thought to be endangered by a combination of game fishing and commercial harvests for fins, which are highly sought in Asia’s fish markets for shark fin soup.

There are no exact figures on regional or worldwide populations of great whites, but extensive research projects like the one conducted by the White Shark Trust in South Africa are addressing these key knowledge gaps. "Since 1997, I initiated an ongoing and continuous population research project on white sharks around Dyer Island, and I developed a new techniques that allows researchers to individually identify these sharks using photographs of their dorsal fins, called fin-printing, similar to human finger printing" said Michael Scholl of the White Shark Trust.

The species recently received some global recognition as a persecuted species during the 13th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES) in October 2004, when participants at the event adopted a proposal to improve management and monitoring of trade in jaws, teeth and fins from the world’s largest predatory fish by placing the species on Appendix II.

Find out more about how you can help protect the sharks visit http://www.projectaware.org/uk/english/pts.asp

Source: Project AWARE

Project AWARE whale shark project joins forces with ECOCEAN

2006-02-08T10:13:00.000+02:00

Project AWARE Foundation, the dive industry's leading non-profit environmental organisation has recently joined forces with ECOCEAN a marine conservation group dedicated to the conservation of the whale shark.

In 2003 Project AWARE Foundation launched an initiative in partnership with the Shark Trust to help PADI Dive Centres and Resorts recruitdivers to travel overseas to areas visited by Whale Sharks.

The Project AWARE Whale Shark ID Project incorporates a Distinctive Specialty created by PADI that gives divers essential knowledge and skills to dive or snorkel responsibly with Whale Sharks and to obtain valuable information or photographs. There is also a website whereby snorkelers and divers can submit their photographs and contribute vital information to researchers studying Whale Shark migrations.

To further Project AWARE's Whale Shark conservation work, all photos submitted to www.whalesharkproject.org will also be given to ECOCEAN for their own Whale Shark research. Project AWARE, the Shark Trust and ECOCEAN will be working closely together to build a global database of Whale Shark migration patterns, movements, and behaviour.

Whale sharks are a spectacular living resource and an encounter is an experience of a lifetime. Unfortunately, the whale shark population is in decline and without having more information, we cannot prove just how endangered and at risk this population is.

Henrik Nimb, Director of Project AWARE Asia Pacific commented: "We are delighted to be working with ECOCEAN who have considerable knowledge and expertise in this area. We look forward supporting their valuable work through our own Whale Shark ID Project."

Brad Norman of ECOCEAN said, "ECOCEAN is greatly encouraged by Project AWARE's commitment to assist ECOCEAN's research for the global conservation of these ‘gentle giants'. The ECOCEAN Library already houses Whale Shark sightings from 26 countries, and we very much look forward to expanding this number with input from PADI members to further understand numbers and migrations of this threatened species."

Ali Hood of The Shark Trust added, "Making the most of an encounter with a Whale Shark by taking photo ID images is of great value to the research community whilst adding real value to the divers experience. Through our relationship with Project AWARE we have received a large number of images and records through our online reporting system. The Whale Shark website is now being updated to improve feedback and functionality and to make learning about Whale Sharks even more fun.

The Shark Trust is excited at the prospect of working more closely with ECOCEAN, the more images we can gather, the greater the knowledge gained."

How you can help?
If you've always dreamt of diving or snorkelling with a whale shark, then visit the Education and Awareness section of www.projectaware.org to find out details of dive centres and resorts actively participating in the International Whale Shark Project. At these dive centres you may have the opportunity to enrol on to a Whale Shark Awareness Speciality course, which will give you essential knowledge and skills to dive or snorkel responsibly with whale sharks. This course will also give you more information about biology, behaviour and distribution of the world's largest fish. If you want to contribute to their protection, take a photograph and record a few details when you are fortunate enough to come across one. Alternatively, if you already have a photo, take a look in your logbooks for details of when and where you saw the whale shark, and log this photo and info rmation on to www.whalesharkproject.org. Each photo submitted will make a genuine contribution to the understanding and future conservation of the whale sharks. All photos will also be given to ECOCEAN for further analysis.

About Project AWARE
Project AWARE is the dive industry's leading non-profit environmental organisation dedicated to conserving underwater environments through education, advocacy and action. Project AWARE Foundation offices located in Australia, United States, Japan, the United Kingdom and Switzerland combine efforts to conserve aquatic resources in 175 countries of the world.

For further information visit www.projectaware.org

About ECOCEAN
ECOCEAN – Research, Education and Conservation has consistently worked for the conservation of the whale shark since its formation in 2000. It successfully nominated the whale shark as a threatened species in Australia in 2001; assisted with the successful nomination at the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in 2002; and was recently added as an ‘official observer NGO' at the United Nations Convention on Migratory Species (Nairobi, Nov 2005), based in Australia, ECOCEAN is international in focus – encouraging members of the public throughout the world to participate in whale shark conservation - via the web-based whale shark photo-identification library, initiated in 1995. www.ecocean.org

About the Shark Trust
The Shark Trust is the conservation charity dedicated to the study, management and conservation of sharks, skates and rays. The Shark Trust is the UK member of the European Elasmobranch Association. As such, it collaborates with other bodies to achieve its aims in British, European and international waters. These include commercial fishermen, recreational sea anglers, divers, yachtsmen, and all those who want to ensure the future survival of these fascinating but threatened animals. For more info rmation on the Shark Trust visit www.sharktrust.org.

Source: Project AWARE

Project AWARE honors 2005 eco operators

2006-02-08T10:04:00.000+02:00

Project AWARE Foundation recognizes tireless efforts of outstanding diver retailers and resorts to conserve the underwater environment.

These facilities lead by example, helping to both motivate and inspire divers, consumers and local communities. Award winners operate their business in an environmentally-responsible manner and promote Project AWARE Foundation's philosophy to their customers and colleagues daily.

"The Environment Achievement Award is about rewarding vision, excellence and pursuit of conservation. More importantly, this award ensures the enjoyment of underwater environments for future generations."

Winners of the Project AWARE Environmental Achievement Award 2005 include:
Aqua Plein Air - Ste. Thérèse, Québec, Canada
Bay Island College of Diving - Utila, Honduras
Beaches Boscobel Resort and Golf Club - Ocho Rios, Jamaica
Beaches Negril Resort & Spa - Negril, Jamaica
Beaches Turks & Caicos Resort & Spa - Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands
Blue Island Divers - St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands
California Dive Center - San Bruno, California, USA
Deep Sea Divers Den - Queensland, Australia
Dive Gizo Adventure Sports - Solomon Islands
Diving Planet - Cartegena, Colombia
Go Deep Scuba - Wanganui, New Zealand
Gull Dive Center - Missoula, Montana, USA
Horizon Divers - Key Largo, Florida, USA
Pelican Adventures Tours & Watersports - Aruba
Redcliffe Dive Centre - Queensland, Australia
Sandals Grande St. Lucia Spa & Beach Resort - St. Lucia
Sandals Regency St. Lucia Golf Resort & Spa - St. Lucia
Sandals Royal Caribbean - Montego Bay, Jamaica
Scuba Joe Dive & Travel - Colorado, USA
SeaHounds - Singapore
Solomon Watersports Ltd. - Solomon Islands

2005 Project AWARE ECO Operators
Project AWARE ECO Operators provide customers with experiences that enhance visitor awareness, appreciation and understanding of the environment. ECO Operators also demonstrate a commitment to conservation. The following list of ECO Operators are committed to sustainable business practices and pledge to follow the ECO Operator guidelines.

3D Adventures - QLD, Australia
Action Scuba Inc. - Pointe Claire, Québec, Canada
Aggressor Fleets - International
Andaman Scuba - Phuket, Thailand
Anse Chastanet Resort & Scuba St. Lucia - St. Lucia
AquaMarine Diving - Bali, Indonesia
Aqua Plein Air - Ste. Thérèse, Québec, Canada
Aqua Safari - Cozumel, Mexico
Aquaterra Adventures - Singapore
Asia Diver - Puerto Galera, Phillippines
Atlantis - Puerto Galera, Phillippines
Bay Island College of Diving - Utila, Honduras
Beaches Boscobel Resort and Golf Club - Ocho Rios, Jamaica
Beaches Negril Resort & Spa - Negril, Jamaica
Beaches Turks & Caicos Resort & Spa - Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands
Black Tip Diving - Koh Tao, Thailand
Blue Island Divers - St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands
California Dive Center - San Bruno, California, USA
Captain Cavemans Dive Center - Koh Samui
Captain Don's Habitat - Bonaire
Claumar - São Paulo, Brasil
Darwin Dive Centre - NT, Australia
Deep Blue Adventures - San Antonio, Texas, USA
Deep Sea Divers Den - QLD, Australia
Dive Centre Manly – NSW
Dive Gizo Adventure Sports - Solomon Islands
Dive Kaikoura - New Zealand
Dive! Tutukaka - New Zealand
Diving Planet - Cartegena, Colombia
Diving with Larry & Sherry Baldwin - Dallas, Texas, USA
El Ocotal Beach Resort - Ocotal Beach, Costa Rica
Eco Dive Center - Culver City, California, USA
EcoSea Dive and Adventure - Cambodia
Go Deep Scuba - New Zealand
Gull Dive Center - Missoula, Montana, USA
Harbour Dive - VIC, Australia
Horizon Divers - Key Largo, Florida, USA
Indian Valley Scuba - Harleysville, Pennsylvania, USA
Kosrae Village Ecolodge - Kosrae, Micronesia
Lagoon Safaris - New Caledonia
Matava - The Astrolabe Hideaway; Kadavu, Fiji Islands M/V Oyster - Hurgada, Egypt
Mike Ball Dive Expeditions - Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Ocean Concepts - Oahu, Hawaii, USA
OZ Sail - QLD, Australia
Peggy Goldberg's Golden Images & Guided Tours - Citra, Florida, USA
Pelican Adventures, Tours & Watersports - Aruba
Perth Scuba - WA, Australia
Plunge In Sydney Harbour - NSW
Rainbow Divers - Vietnam
Redcliffe Dive Centre - QLD, Australia
Red Sail Sports - Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
Remote Area Dive - QLD, Australia
Sandals Grande Ocho Rios Beach & Villa Resort - Ocho Rios, Jamaica
Sandals Grande St. Lucia Spa & Beach Resort - St. Lucia
Sandals Regency St. Lucia Golf Resort & Spa - St. Lucia
Sandals Royal Caribbean - Montego Bay, Jamaica
Scuba Cat - Phuket, Thailand
Scuba Cancun - Cancun, Mexico
Scuba Du - Cozumel, Mexico
Scuba Joe Dive and Travel Center - Boulder, Colorado, USA
Sea Bees Diving - Phuket, Thailand
Seahounds - Singapore
Solomon Watersports Ltd. - Solomon Islands
Squalo Divers - Valencia, Venezuela
Stuart Cove’s Aqua Adventures - Nassau, Bahamas
Sunreef Scuba Diving Services - QLD, Australia
Tawaki Dive - New Zealand Thailand Diving - Pattaya, Thailand
The Cortez Club Ltd. - La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico
Tioman Dive Centre - Pula Tioman, Malaysia
Underwater Centre - Seychelles
Vila Lombok Diving Academy - Lombok, Indonesia

Dive professionals committed to conserving underwater environments through education, advocacy and action can request Project AWARE Foundation's ECO Operator and Environmental Achievement Award applications at information@projectaware.org. Applications are due by 15 November of each year and awards are issued during the first quarter of the following year.

Source: Project AWARE

Greek diving opens up with new law

2006-02-08T09:59:00.000+02:00

The new bill prepared by the Ministry of Mercantile Marine regarding recreational diving in Greece, is the outcome of the Hellenic Government's Strategic Plan for positioning Greece prominently into the world's scuba diving industry, and in addition for boosting the country's alternative tourism.

The new diving law is fully in accord with the EU Standards regarding recreational diving, which have actually been in force since early 2004. Moreover the unreasonable restrictions imposed in the past by archeologists are now being successfully modified and the concept of Diving Parks has been firmly established.

Notably, the legislative framework provides adequate environment protection, ensures the appropriate respect for the underwater precious antiquities, as well as the safety and adequate professional skills of the divers, who will enjoy clear waters, plus unique marine life and other hitherto unutilised underwater attractions.

An accreditation system consonant to EU directives is being established for the Scuba Divers' Training Programs, for the appropriate certification of various Diver Training Organizations, as well as for the Diving Services Providers. The Diving Services are classified according to their type, they are certified on an individual basis by an accredited products certification agency and each of them will be licensed by the competent Port Authority. There are now clear requirements as specified by law, to the effect that only those holding the necessary license will be able to provide Diving Services.

Moreover, the modus operandi for the Diving Industry is now clearly prescribed, appropriate records will be maintained at the Ministry of Mercantile Marine, and violators of the existing rules will be subject to severe penalties.

The Republic of Greece has several advantages as a holiday destination for divers: safety as a EU member, short flight distances for European travellers, excellent climate and long diving season, same currency with many other EU countries, and other amenities. The multitude of active European and American divers, as well as those aspiring newcomers who wish to experience the magic undersea world and receive competent training in scuba diving, will find themselves welcomed in the best possible environment for pursuing their exciting hobby.

Finally, the renewed availability of our Nation’s magnificent undersea world to the Diving Industry, necessitates its strict adherence to services of the highest possible quality, for the pleasure of our visitors and the prosperity of our society as well.

Source: PADI

DAN will conduct dive safety seminars at shows

2006-02-08T09:56:00.000+02:00

In 2006, DAN will conduct dive safety workshops at two dive shows, officials of the dive safety organization announced recently.

The two shows are Our World Underwater, in Rosemont, Ill. Feb. 24-26 and Beneath the Sea 2006, in Secaucus, N.J., March 24-26.

Eric Douglas, DAN Training Director, said the purpose of the workshop is entirely mission-related. "It is designed to get the DAN information out, and that starts with medicine," Douglas said.

"In two of three one-hour blocks, DAN medics will discuss
1) Fitness to Dive issues, which includes the physiology and health aspects of diving, and
2) Learning from Dive Injuries and Fatalities.

"The final hour, presented by a member of the DAN Training staff, includes dive safety information divers can use. Participants will learn about the real factors influencing safety in diving and how to become a safer diver."

Joel Dovenbarger, DAN Vice President for Medical Services, said scuba is more than just breathing underwater. "Many divers want practical information to help them better appreciate the physiological factors that affects them while they are breathing compressed gas underwater."

Participants will receive reference materials from the presentation and a certificate of completion from DAN. The cost for the three-hour workshop is $75.

For more information, email Douglas at edouglas@dan.duke.edu.

For registration, visit the shows' websites, listed below:

Our World Underwater
DATE: Feb. 24-26 LOCATION: Donald E. Stevens Convention Center, Rosemont, Ill. http://www.ourworldunderwater.com.

Beneath The Sea 2006
DATE: March 24-26 LOCATION: Meadowlands Exposition Center, Secaucus, N.J.
(Bergen Room on Sat.; Passaic Room on Sun.) http://www.beneaththesea.org

Source: Divers Alert Network

Australia: Reef shade structures almost a reality

2006-02-08T09:49:00.000+02:00

Shadecloth structures protecting parts of the Great Barrier Reef could be commercially available to tourist operators within a year.

Scientists have been trialling a series of devices on Agincourt reef, off Port Douglas in far north Queensland, to prevent coral bleaching caused by warmer water temperatures and sunlight.

University of Queensland scientist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg said researchers and a local tour operator had been conducting small-scale experiments on structures 5m by 5m.

The project had reached "phase two" and larger devices could be commercially available to tourist operators in a year, he said.

"If we're successful this year in improving the circumstance of the reefs that are shaded, we'll then move on to larger structures that are more tourist friendly," Prof Hoegh-Guldberg said.

"For a tour operator to have a patch of coral that has survived a bleaching event could be quite significant in terms of their competitive advantage."

Phase three, the final phase, involves field trials of the devices at key tour-operator sites.

Coral bleaching is caused by higher than average water temperatures linked with global climate change.

Scientists this week predicted the reef was at risk of another major coral bleaching event after finding widespread bleaching at the Keppel Islands off the central Queensland coast.

Prof Hoegh-Guldberg said initial results showed the structures worked.

"There's an interaction between light and temperature ... so there's definitely a shade effect," he said.

"We have to check that it doesn't have other impacts on reefs, which we need to take into account while shading them for bleaching."

However, shading the entire reef was not an option.

"As far as the entire Great Barrier Reef (is concerned), it's just not a solution because there's 400,000 square kilometres of reef that you'd have to put a shadecloth over," Prof Hoegh-Guldberg said.

Related Articles:
Project 'Digital Skins': Sensors watch Barrier Reef coral
Great Barrier Reef: Coral severely bleached

Source: www.smh.com.au

Mediterranean: Sensitive deep sea coral reefs protected for the first time

2006-02-08T09:45:00.000+02:00

Three ecologically-important deep sea areas have been protected off the waters of Italy, Cyprus and Egypt, following a recent decision by the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM).

The decision — a result of a WWF-led effort to support sustainable fisheries — legally requires all Mediterranean states to prevent bottom trawling fishing fleets from operating in the designated areas.

Bottom trawling is the primary threat to deep sea environments, due to the destructive nature of the technique. The nets completely destroy bottom habitats like cold-water coral reefs — some of which are thousands of years old — in a single trawl. The GFCM banned bottom trawling at depths beyond 1000m in February 2005.

Ongoing work by WWF, IUCN-The World Conservation Union, and the scientific community have highlighted the diversity, importance and need for protection of Mediterranean deep-sea ecosystems, and provided data and reports which have led to their protection at the most recent meeting of the GFCM.

"This is a major recognition for WWF and the scientific community who have been asking for a protection status of crucial deep seas areas in the Mediterranean," said Sergi Tudela, Head of WWF-Mediterranean’s fisheries programme. "We welcome this commitment to responsible fisheries and the ecosystem."

The three designated protected areas include the deepwater coral reef off Capo Santa Maria di Leuca, Italy, in the Ionian Sea, which is home to the rare white coral, Lophelia, as well as a Chemosynthesis-based ecosystem (an ecosystem that does not depend on the sun as a source of energy) offshore from the Nile Delta, and the spectacular Eratosthenes seamount, south of Cyprus, which hosts rare coral species.

"Deep water coral reefs are known to be important habitats for commercial species such as shrimps and congers," said Tudela. "Protection of the ecosystems will benefit both biodiversity and fishing communities."

The protection of the deep water coral reef off Capo Santa Maria di Leuca was achieved with the active support of an Italian fisherman association, AGCI Pesca.

"Declaring protection status is an important achievement for these unique areas and we hope that the GFCM will continue to support sustainable fisheries by declaring new protected sites in the very near future," Tudela added.

"Trawling fleets are known to have destroyed similar deep sea ecosystems in Northern Atlantic waters. We must not let this happen in the Mediterranean."

Source: WWF

Israeli inventor develops "Like-a-Fish" underwater breathing system

2006-02-08T09:42:00.000+02:00

An Israeli inventor, Alon Bodner, has designed and built a system called "Like-a-Fish".

The system is a set of battery-powered artificial gills built to extract the tiny quantities of dissolved air that already exists in water. This air supply is then used to furnish breathable oxygen to scuba divers, submarines and in underwater habitats...

Bodner explained to the BBC: "For a closed-circuit system, the diver would need to pump approximately 200 Liters-per-minute (LPM) of water under ideal conditions, to separate one LPM of oxygen, which a diver needs. A one-kilo battery should be able to supply a diver with one hour of dive time."

The unit exists at this time as a laboratory model. The European patents are approved and US applications are still pending. Bodner is currently focused on installing his system as part of an an underwater habitat in Australia.

The inventor intends to refine his system further with the goal of reducing its size, such as to a lightweight vest apparatus for divers to wear. Bodner explained that a working prototype for individual divers is most likely several years away. For the full story by Lakshmi Sandhana, visit: Inventor Develops 'Artificial Gills'

Source: www.divenews.com

Australia: Bleached coral reefs force marketing twist

2006-02-08T09:39:00.000+02:00

Bleached coral wastelands could soon become new dive attractions as the Great Barrier Reef teeters on the brink of widespread bleaching.

It's one more marketing approach being considered by worried Queensland tourism operators amid continuing threats to the world's largest tropical coral reef system.

A new threat this week came in warnings of another devastating coral bleaching event after scientists discovered a wasteland of white corals in the Keppel Islands off the central Queensland coast.

Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, chairman of the Bleaching Working Group, said after four months of warmer sea temperatures, readings were now similar to those experienced between 2001 and 2002 when the Great Barrier Reef suffered its worst coral bleaching event.

Up to 60 per cent of the reef – which is the size of about 70 million football fields – was bleached. Between five to 10 per cent was seriously damaged.

"Across the Great Barrier Reef I think it's inevitable," Prof Hoegh-Guldberg said of another bleaching event.

"I guess the amount of heat that's now in the ocean, it's very hard to dissipate and we'd have to have extremely stormy weather for almost the entire rest of the summer to be able to mix the water column and bring the temperatures down.

"I think at this point a couple of weeks of clear and sunny weather would be all you needed to push most of the corals on the southern Great Barrier Reef over."

Corals in the Keppels now had a "glowing white aura".

"In many ways it's quite beautiful," Prof Hoegh-Guldberg lamented. "Some of the tour operators have suggested it should be a dive destination when it (the bleaching event) happens."

Coral bleaching is caused by higher than average water temperatures linked with global climate change.

Corals will expel microscopic plants that live inside coral polyps that provide food and colour, revealing their white calcium carbonate skeletons. They die within about a month if waters do not cool.

"Bleaching occurs when you get to temperatures around 29 degrees," Prof Hoegh-Guldberg said.

"We're starting to get into very dangerous territory where what we see perhaps this year will become the norm and of course extreme events will become more likely.

"The climate is changing so quickly that coral reefs don't keep up, and of course the loss of that ecosystem would be tremendous."

Credible projections have suggested the reef could be wiped out in as little as 30 years because of global climate change.

More optimistic predictions put the figure at 70 years.

Col McKenzie, a dive operator who represents the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators, said the reef's $5.3 billion tourism industry was alarmed at early bleaching in the Keppels.

"Tourism operators are keeping a very, very close eye on it," he said.

"We can't accept the fact that we might lose the whole Barrier Reef in the next 20 to 30 years through coral bleaching."

The future of the reef looked dim after British Prime Minister Tony Blair last week warned the threat posed by climate change may be greater than previously thought.

He warned in a government-commissioned report that the emission of greenhouse gases, associated with industrialisation and economic growth, was causing global warming at an unsustainable rate.

The report's stark conclusion – too little is being done to stem climate change.

Australian Conservation Foundation executive director Don Henry said the Federal Government had to sign the Kyoto Protocol, which calls on countries to cut greenhouse emissions by 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.

"Ignoring this message will come at great cost to the Great Barrier Reef environment, our tourism industry and our national identify," Mr Henry said.

But some scientists say there is hope.

The Townsville-based Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) have discovered some corals may be able to protect themselves from bleaching events by adapting to climate change.

"We have found that corals have the ability to change the type of algae they associate with and that this alters their thermal tolerance," AIMS scientist Ray Berkelmans said.

"We believe this may be at least part of the reason why the Keppels are able to bounce back from a heat wave that had dire consequences for other regions."

Source: www.themercury.news.com.au

South Africa: Overstrand anti-poaching unit may be disbanded

2006-02-08T09:38:00.000+02:00

The days are numbered for the highly successful Marines anti-poaching unit in the Overstrand - but no one is saying what will take its place.

The unit may be taken over by the Marine and Coastal Management (MCM), or handed over to an agency, or disbanded and replaced by something else.

Sources have said a study showed that if MCM took over the Marines it would cost them three times as much to run it. Currently MCM pays just under R8 million a year to Overstrand Municipality to run the project on their behalf.

The project was supposed to have continued until 2008. Sources say it will now end on March 31.

MCM has not paid the last R1.8m instalment to the municipality for the Marines project.

This comes as two senior officials, who were instrumental in setting up the Marines, have resigned.

Marcel Kroese, who ran MCM's law enforcement section, leaves at the end of the month to take up a marine law enforcement post covering 15 Pacific island states.

Craig Spencer, who heads Overstrand Municipality's nature conservation department, leaves at the end of the month.

They take with them over 20 years of conservation law enforcement experience and an intimate knowledge of local environmental crime prevention.

Kroese did not want to comment yesterday.

Spencer said earlier that, while he was confident that all the municipal conservation projects would continue to operate well, he was "concerned" about the Marines because their future was uncertain.

Mike Tannett of Seawatch, a residents' body which helps the authorities with anti-poaching in the Overstrand, said yesterday he found it "shocking news" to hear that the Marines may be disbanded.

"With the Marines we've had the best anti-poaching success rate between Rooi Els and Kleinmond.

"Operation Neptune left at the end of 2004. We've kept statistics which show that last year, with the Marines, we've had a 30% increase in the anti-poaching success rate," Tannett said.

"The people in the Marines are conservation-minded people who make it happen. They are good leaders. It's the quality of people that counts, their attitude to the job," Tannett commented.

Overstrand's mayor, Willie Smit, said he knew "nothing whatsoever" about the Marines project ending.

Jan Koekemoer, Overstrand's municipal manager, said yesterday that he had had a meeting last month with Abeeda Mugjenker, MCM's head of law enforcement.

At that meeting, the Marines' future was discussed, Koekemoer said.

"We're waiting for a response from MCM. We need to give staff notice if they are no longer going to be municipal employees."

Mugjenker was not available for comment.

Environmental affairs and tourism spokesman J P Louw said yesterday he could not comment on the Marines specifically, but the department was trying to "firm up our law enforcement strategy".

It had not yet resolved how this would be done.

Source: www.capetimes.co.za

Disability doesn't deter Scottish dive instructor

2006-02-08T09:35:00.000+02:00

Fraser Bathgate fell from a wall over two decades ago and became confined to a wheelchair as a result of the injury. Despite the disability, Bathgate, now age 43, went on to learn to dive and then in 1994 became the world's first wheelchair-bound fully qualified scuba diving instructor.

Bathgate credits the sport of scuba diving as being a major confidence builder for people with and without disabilities, giving one the sense that he or she has conquered a body-based limitation enabling the exploration of unseen worlds...

Bathgate spoke with Scotsman News about his experiences with scuba diving: "Underwater you have 360 degree movement. So I've been able to develop and refine techniques that let me use my hands for more movement rather than my legs. I'm also working with companies who have developed special propulsion mechanisms which I'm hoping to use when I train other people."

To read reporter Adrian Mather's complete story in the Scotsman News, visit: The Ability to Conquer Adversity

Source: www.divenews.com

Great White sharks are really grey...

2006-02-08T09:31:00.000+02:00

Australian Broadcasting began a new series this month designed to teach the public many fascinating facts about great whites and the shark family as a whole.

The program is produced by Sharon Kennedy. It presents the story of Neale as told by Barry Bruce, marine scientist with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). The six part story follows the entire life-story of Neale, a tagged great white shark...

The first segment is entitled, "A Piercing Encounter" and discusses the tagging of Neale and the overall goals of CSIRO's shark tagging programs. Bruce first met Neale in 2001 when the shark was captured during a trial program involving the satellite tracking of great white sharks.

To read more about Neale and this six part series, visit: Following Neale

Source: www.divenews.com

UK: Divers provide biological boost

2006-02-03T15:08:00.000+02:00

British divers are taking an increasing interest in marine life survey, judging by the latest figures from research group Seasearch.

In 2005, Seasearch gathered nationally 850 observation forms, 70 per cent more than in 2004. Survey forms numbered 370, a 162 per cent increase. And 90 reports connected with Seasearch's specific British sea fans survey represented an increase of 104 per cent.

Seasearch projects are co-ordinated by the Marine Conservation Society with the support of conservation groups, governmental coastal management departments, and diving, marine biological and archaeological interests.

This year, Seasearch will take its Observer course to British diving clubs, dive schools or other diving groups wishing to gather underwater observation skills. Its Surveyor course is run on a regional basis. Details can be found on the organisation's website.

Source: www.divernet.com/news

Introducing the twin-seat Amfibidiver - not just a curious machine

2006-02-03T15:06:00.000+02:00

What is it? A car? A boat? A submarine? The answer is: all three! Welcome to the twin-seat Amfibidiver.

The machine was created by a self-taught Belgian engineer, René Baldewijns. It was constructed through the imaginative use of such items as a sailing-boat hull, the fuel tank of a plane, two bicycles and motors from five electric wheelchairs.

The Amfibidiver has apparently been tested and functions in all its stated roles. It has featured at several Belgian boat shows and on Belgian TV, but it may now find a home at Britain's pending Land, Air and Sea Museum.

The museum's founder, Douglas Hilton, is still finalising a site to house a range of curious machinery, including hovercraft, submarines, flying cars, and amphibious cars and planes. But he has launched a website giving details about the project and planned exhibits - including the Amfibidiver.

Source: www.divernet.com/news/stories

DAN addresses concerns about Insurance Coverage

2006-02-03T15:04:00.000+02:00

Dan Orr, DAN President and CEO, issued the following statement, addressing concerns among members about insurance coverage. The statement was issued Tuesday, Jan. 31.

"DAN strongly emphasizes that we support our members. In the unlikely event of a diving injury, be assured that if any DAN member were to be referred to a chamber, their DAN diving accident insurance and membership will apply.

"If the chamber is one of the nine (9) facilities referred to in the press release from SSS Corporate Headquarters, SSS has stated, categorically, they DO accept the DAN diving accident insurance.

"If a DAN member were to be referred to one of the three (3) facilities that have stated they do not support DAN and will not accept insurance purchased with DAN membership (the SSS chambers in Nassau, Cabo San Lucas or Cancun), DAN will nevertheless work to assure that the DAN members are covered.

"Although DAN maintains that the charges at these three facilities are in excess of reasonable and customary charges, divers should not be caught in the middle of this dispute.

"To ensure that the divers are not caught in the middle, effective immediately, DAN's insurer will coordinate with the SSS chambers in Nassau, Cabo San Lucas or Cancun to cover all treatment charges.

"When the injured DAN Member or their representative contacts DAN using the 24-Hour Diving Emergency Hotline, DAN will liaise with the chamber to arrange immediate payment. DAN will continue to do so until there has been a resolution to this dispute. Rest assured, DAN continues to seek an amicable resolution."

If you'd like more information, see the announcement entitled "DAN Responds to SSS Press Release," in the News & Events section of the website.

If you have questions about chamber availability, please call DAN Headquarters at 1-800-446-2671 and speak to a DAN medic; or email DAN at medic@DiversAlertNetwork.org

Source: www.diversalertnetwork.org

US tourist scuba diving in Jamaica missing, feared drowned

2006-02-03T15:02:00.000+02:00

The Westmoreland police fear that a missing American visitor who was vacationing at Grand Lido, Negril may have drowned after he went scuba diving with a friend three days ago.

The missing man has been identified as Gregory Grethen 55 years old sales representative of Statles, St Claire Shore Michigan, United States.

According to Constable Odean Dennis, Constabulary Communication Network Liaison Officer for Westmoreland, around 9:30 am Friday, Gregory Grethen who was vacationing at Grand Lido, Negril went missing after he and a friend went scuba diving.

It is reported that Grethen failed to surface after a dive nearly a mile out at sea.

An extensive underwater and surface search by divers from several hotels in the Negril resort area, the Jamaica Defense Force (JDF) Coast Guard and the Negril marine police, failed to detect the missing man.

The search was called off at nightfall, and resumed Saturday, again with no sign of Grethen.

The Negril marine police continue investigations.

Meanwhile, Zein Nakash, Grand Lido's vice president of marketing and environmental affairs, describing the incident as 'very, very sad', said the hotel was doing everything in its power to find the American salesman.

"Very unfortunate incident - but we are hoping for the best," said Nakash.

"Everybody is saddened and concerned over the missing guest. We called in the JDF for assistance and they had divers under water and helicopters searching the water surface but he is still not found," Nakash told the Observer yesterday.

Grethen, who is said to be an experienced diver, was staying at the hotel with his wife who left the island Saturday. A brother of the missing man flew into the island Saturday, as the search continued.

Source: www.underwatertimes.com

Florida divers, adrift for hours, survive scare

2006-02-03T14:57:00.000+02:00

The divers had been floating in the chilling water for hours when they saw the shark fin cut through a wave.

It was just 20 feet away, and that's when Michael Kittle realized the awful truth: He and friend Mark Hines might not make it out of this alive.

"I thought, God, you've got to be kidding me," said Kittle, 31, of Fort Myers. Sharks mainly feed at dusk.

"So you better believe that was going through my mind."

The two men came to Key Largo in the Florida Keys to scuba dive, but they almost didn't make it home to Lee County.

After their boat line snapped while they were underwater, the two men spent eight hours swimming Sunday — first trying to reach their boat, then trying to kick to shore miles away.

Finally, they made it to a small island off Rattlesnake Key. And a U.S. Coast Guard boat found them after a four-hour search.

But until that rescue, the friends would find themselves shivering in the ocean and hearing voices. They even started wishing for a phone to call their families and tell them goodbye.

"We wanted to tell them that we loved them," said Hines, 18, of Cape Coral.

Their ordeal began Sunday afternoon when they rented a 27-foot twin-engine boat and took it out to the Key Largo Dry Rocks — a popular diving area about five miles off the southeast shore of Key Largo.

The friends work as electricians for Cape Coral's D & T Design. Kittle also is a certified scuba instructor.

The pair tied their boat to a nearby anchor buoy and started diving at about 3:30 p.m. in the 25-foot-deep water. They’d been underwater about 30 minutes when Kittle said he got a feeling something was wrong.

He said he can't explain why, but he went to the surface anyway. He turned out to be right.

The boat was gone.

The line had snapped.

At first, they couldn't see the boat at all. Then they bobbed up high on a wave and saw the roof about 700 yards away.

For about two hours, they tried catching up to the boat, but it kept slipping farther away with the waves.

Finally, they gave up and turned to the shoreline.

They still had on their floating vests and wetsuits, and so they locked arms like a man escorting a woman, floated on their backs and kicked toward the shore miles away.

As the hours wore on and they grew weaker from the exertion, they talked to keep awake and focused.

Then it got dark, and the water got colder. By 9 or 10 p.m. the water reached 74 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Weather Service. That's cold enough to give people hypothermia, if they're in the water long enough.

On two separate occasions, they got a nasty jolt when they saw the dark gray shark fin.

Eventually, they started hallucinating and hearing things, they said. Helicopters and boats appeared and disappeared, and distant voices would talk to them.

Kittle said he heard his father, a retired Air Force colonel. "He'd say things like, 'Son, you can do this.'"

Occasionally, they'd hug to keep warm. Kittle was worried his friend would get hypothermia. Kittle had on two wetsuits, but Hines had just one, with short sleeves.

"He kept hearing things," Kittle said. "He'd say, 'What was that? What did you say?' And I'd say, 'Nothing. I was just kicking."

Once, about three or four hours into it, they saw a real boat with a search light — perhaps one of the Coast Guard boats that started looking for them at 7:30 p.m. Sunday after they were reported missing by the boat renters.

But the boat left, and the two were alone in the dark water.

Coast Guard spokeswoman Roxanne Jensen said three boats and a helicopter swept the area for about four hours Sunday.

Eventually, the friends reached the uninhabited island and soon saw a nearby Coast Guard boat. They started yelling, blowing their emergency whistle and flashing S-O-S on their flashlight.

Almost an hour later, a fire department boat arrived to navigate through the mangroves and get them. It was about 11:30 p.m.

Luckily, the two didn't have to go to the hospital.

In fact, the first place they went afterward was Waffle House.

They showed up wrapped in towels and wolfed down a meal of waffles, steak and eggs.

"And that hot chocolate was the best thing in the world," Hines said. "It was awesome."

Days later, the two feel lucky to be alive and telling their story.

"I definitely didn't think I was going to make it," Hines said. "But I knew that if I was going to die, I was going to die swimming."

Source: www.news-press.com

Son recreates Cousteau documentaries

2006-02-03T14:55:00.000+02:00

Jean-Michel Cousteau, the son of legendary underwater film-maker Jacques, has made a modern version of his father's famed diving film series of the 1960s and '70s.

The Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Adventures series begins on America's PBS TV channel this spring. It encapsulates the work of Cousteau's Santa Barbara, California-based Ocean Futures Society in promoting marine exploration, education and conservation.

Like Jacques Cousteau's films, the series follows the adventures of a band of people voyaging aboard a vessel to different parts of the globe in search of experiences and understanding of the marine world. Along with diving exploration and scientific analysis, a picture of shipboard life is portrayed - reflecting, according to one US commentator, the "reality TV of today".

The six one-hour programmes document four main expeditions. Voyage to Kure is a two-parter based around the north-western Hawaiian archipelago, billed as the "most remote island group in the world". It documents the battle for survival of marine life in the face of pollution, mining, fishing and development.

The Gray Whale Obstacle Course also majors on pollution, following the journey of grey whales from Baja California to the Bering Sea via the "most polluted migration routes of any whale species".

In Sharks: At Risk, the team swims with grey sharks in French Polynesia and, cageless, with great white sharks off South Africa. In the final two-part America's Underwater Treasures, the team explores the "rarely visited" underwater parks of the country’s National Marine Sanctuary System.

It is hoped that screening rights to the series, produced by Ocean Futures Society and KQED Public Broadcasting, will be agreed for Britain and other countries after broadcast in the USA.

Source: www.divernet.com

Egypt awarded Shark Guardian of the Year

2006-02-03T14:49:00.000+02:00

Due to the campaign, led by HEPCA and supported by the Red Sea Governate, The National Parks of Egypt, the Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries, to secure a decree banning shark fishing in the whole of the Egyptian Red Sea, in order to protect the shark population and environment of Egypt, the Shark Project has named Egypt as the Shark Guardian of the Year 2006.

HEPCA nominated Mr Baher Sobhi, Head of the Egyptian Tourism Office in Germany, to receive the award, demonstrating Egypt's commitment to the environment.

The award winner was announced on 19th January and the award was presented on 23rd January at the Düsseldorf Boat Show.

HEPCA would like to thank and congratulate all its partners involved in helping to secure this award, for all their efforts and continued support: General Saad Abu Rida, the ex-Red Sea Governor, Dr Mustafa Fouda and Team from the National Parks of Egypt, the Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries, The Coastguard Forces, EEAA (Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency), USAID, Coca Cola International, Mr Mahmoud El Kaisoony, Head of Environmental Committee in the Egyptian Chamber of Tourism, and all HEPCA members.

Source: www.hepca.com

Gulf of Mexico: Reefs damaged by Hurricane Rita and warmer temperatures

2006-02-03T14:46:00.000+02:00

Hurricane Rita's pounding waves and a hotter-than-usual Gulf of Mexico took a toll on the Gulf of Mexico's only government-protected coral reefs about 100 miles off the Louisiana and Texas coasts.

Besides hardcore divers and offshore oil workers, few people see the multicolored reefs, manta rays, lobsters, sharks and fish of all stripes that dart in and out of Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.

But it is an important feature in the Gulf. Loggerhead sea turtles call it home, for example, and it is one of the few places in the world where hammerhead sharks school.

The reefs, which began to form up to 15,000 years ago, are the northernmost coral reefs in the United States and gained sanctuary status in 1992. Roughly 2,500 divers visit them each year.

"It's one of the healthiest places where we can dive close to home," said Frank Wasson, who runs dive tours to the remote sanctuary. "When you get down there, it's boulder coral. It's very much the same in every direction, but the fish life is all around you. The fish are poking their faces over your shoulder."

Surveys of the 40-plus-square-mile sanctuary found that about 5 percent of it was damaged by Rita's waves, said G.P. Schmahl, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's sanctuary manager.

Brain and star coral, the most common types of coral in the sanctuary, were toppled and smashed by waves, Schmahl said. Also, the reefs' sand flats, where queen conch and trigger fish nest, were disturbed by the pounding waves, he said.

Besides Rita's waves, a mass of turbid water from towns and industries was washed offshore by Rita's deluge and stressed the coral reefs, Schmahl said.

But Rita wasn't the only source of stress last summer for the reefs.

Last year, Gulf waters around the reefs were slightly hotter than normal - 89 degrees rather than the average 86 - and that caused "bleaching" for about two months, Schmahl said.

Bleaching is caused by the release of algae that live symbiotically within the cells of the reefs and can kill coral. The bleaching, which makes coral look white, was widespread and worrisome, but authorities said not much coral has died from it so far.

"At this point, it could either heal itself or get worse and lead to mortality," said John Embesi, an artificial reefs specialist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

David Helvarg, president of Washington, D.C.-based ocean advocacy group Blue Frontier Campaign, said the bleaching was caused by global warming.

"Clearly one of the big impacts that's being ignored from global warming is the impact to the oceans," Helvarg said. "We're already in the footprint of climate change, and we should be addressing it as a major global crisis."

The sanctuary does not encompass all reefs in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Little known reefs are found up and down the ridge of the continental shelf, and some marine activists want to designate those reefs as sanctuaries also.

Source: seattlepi.nwsource.com

Australia: Northern reefs next in line for bleaching

2006-02-03T14:40:00.000+02:00

Scientists say north Queensland reefs are next in line to be hit by coral bleaching.

Up to 90 per cent of corals around the Keppel Islands on the central coast are turning white.

Doctor Ray Berkelmans from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) says many of the reefs are under stress because of above-average temperatures in December.

"Well the very worst of it seems to be in the Keppel Islands area and the Great Barrier Reef," he said.

"The Marine Park Authority and the University of Queensland have been out and two of AIMS staff have been out.

"The reports are in the vicinity of 80 to 90 per cent of the corals are at least in some stages of bleaching."

He says the weather in the north has increased the chances of further bleaching.

"Strong winds and rain and that's helped keep a lid on the temperatures since about Christmas but that seems to be dissipating now," he said.

"The low pressure systems have moved off the coast, we're back into clear skies again, a lot of sun light beating into the water and now we can see the water temperature rise day by day."

Related Articles:
Great Barrier Reef: Coral severely bleached
Australian oil spill 'tragedy for marine life'

Source: www.abc.net.au/news

Satellite tags to solve hammerhead mating, migration mysteries?

2006-02-02T09:12:00.000+02:00

How far would you go to save a species? When it comes to great hammerhead sharks, Wes Pratt shows more mettle than most.

In a few weeks, the marine scientist will attach satellite-tracking tags—by hand—to two of the 500-pound (230-kilogram), 12-foot (3.7-meter) predators as they feed off the Bahamian coast.

Pratt, a biologist at the Mote Marine Laboratory Center for Shark Research, in Summerland Key, Florida, hopes the tracking data can help garner protections in the Bahamas for the rare species.

"We need to establish their activity patterns and where their nursery is," he said, adding that he also hopes to learn whether the sharks have a mating season.

Pratt and his colleagues will conduct underwater observations and record video of the sharks during their field research, which is funded in part by the National Geographic Society's Expeditions Council.

Limited Protection
Named for its large size and the hammer-like shape of its head, the great hammerhead (Sphyrna mokarran) is one of nine hammerhead shark species.

Why the sharks developed such an odd head shape isn't known. But it does create a larger surface area for special sensory organs embedded in their skin.

Sharks rely on the pore-like electrical sensors, known as ampullae of Lorenzini, to pinpoint their prey at ultra-close range.

That prey includes stingrays, which the sharks hunt in subtropical coastal and deep ocean waters.

The great hammerhead is somewhat protected while it swims in United States coastal waters, where commercial fishing of large sharks is allowed but restricted.

A number of other nations also protect the species. But most do not, and the great hammerhead is not protected when in international waters.

"It's rare and wonderful to find them," said Pratt, who has spent 37 years studying sharks.

"Gentle Touch"
George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History, said: "Hammerhead sharks are very uncommon attackers of human beings."

He says there are just 17 known human attacks by hammerheads. By comparison, Florida beachgoers endure an average of 20 to 30 shark attacks each year, mostly by the black tip shark, according to Burgess.

Still, the great hammerhead is a large predator, and Pratt says his tagging endeavor will be done very carefully to protect both his team and the sharks.

A guide will bring Pratt, a photographer, and fellow researchers to a secluded spot off the Bahamas where the sharks feed.

There, Pratt's team hopes to catch two great hammerheads, using baited hooks on thousand-pound test line.

Once the fish are reeled boat-side, the work gets intense.

"You orient the head and someone else grabs the tail and puts a noose around it. A third person tags and a fourth person records data," such as length, gender, scars, and general condition.

Hammerheads tend to get overstressed when caught and die if they are not handled quickly and carefully.

"We may put a towel over the eyes and put a hand on them. I think they pick up on the good vibrations [from] a gentle touch," Pratt said.

The biologist will punch two holes in the shark's dorsal fin, which doesn't bleed, and attach the microphone-shaped satellite tag with a cable.

"When everybody is OK, we release the tail, hold the hammer securely, and remove the hook. They usually burst off by themselves," Pratt said.

Ideally, in three months the tag will pop off and float to the surface. It will then be able to transmit information about where the shark has been and the depths it has gone to.

Overfished
Pratt's data may get the ball rolling on international protection for the great hammerhead.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, which provides guidance to governments about species protection, currently lists the shark as data deficient.

The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service considers large sharks to be overfished.

The agency is currently assessing whether a fishing restriction it imposed in 2003 as part of a 26-year plan to increase shark numbers has helped boost the number of large sharks.

The regulation allows fishers to take 2.2 million pounds (1,017 metric tons) of large coastal sharks annually from U.S. waters. The U.S. prohibits fishing sharks solely for their fins, which are a delicacy in Asia.

In the early 1990s the U.S. government encouraged fishers to take sharks, which were viewed as abundant, instead of swordfish and tuna. Today fishers sometimes unintentionally haul in sharks when pulling in other fish.

Burgess, of the Florida Museum of Natural History, says humans kill about 400,000 sharks each year.

"When an animal like a shark, skate, or ray is overfished, recovery will be measured in decades," unlike short-lived species like the anchovy, Burgess said.

Sharks do not begin reproducing until they are 10 to 12 years old or older, and their gestation lasts 12 to 18 months.

Ramon Bonfil, a great white shark expert with the Wildlife Conservation Society in the Bronx, New York, said little is known about the hammerhead and other sharks because "funding for shark research is appallingly poor."

The reason, he says, has everything to do with society's unfavorable image of sharks.

"No matter how dangerous [sharks] are, they are not monsters, and we need them and we want to conserve them," Bonfil said.

The species deserve the same concern that many people give to whales, dolphins, and big cats, he says.

Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Deep, dark and still 99.8% unexplored

2006-02-02T09:09:00.000+02:00

Join a team scientists as they explore the cold waters of the Davidson Seamount, 4,100 to 12,000 feet deep (1250 to 3660 meters), off the Central California coastline.

Davidson Seamount is covered with amazingly diverse organisms including large and ancient coral gardens.

The team has four general goals for the new exploration of corals on the Davidson Seamount, to: 1. Understand why deep-sea corals live where they do on the seamount 2. Determine the age and growth patterns of the bamboo coral 3. Improve the species list and taxonomy of corals from the seamount, and 4. Share the exciting experience with the public through television and the Internet. The expedition began on January 26th, just in time for you to join the team on its voyage of discovery...

Experts plan to test a model developed to predict where corals will be located. The next step is to take measurements of water currents and food available to understand what causes corals to thrive in some areas, but not others.

During the entire expedition the team will photograph and collect corals to evaluate if they are new species and assess their age and growth patterns.

The BBC is filming during the cruise. You can see the fascinating variety of many deep-sea creatures on an upcoming broadcast of Planet Earth.

The expedition is a collaboration between the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Institute, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration.

To learn more about the expedtion, read the expedition logs, and view images from the vessel, visit: Davidson Seamount 2006

Source: www.divenews.com

Rare megamouth shark netted in the Philippines

2006-02-02T09:06:00.000+02:00

Hundreds of residents of Bayawan City in southern Oriental Negros woke up yesterday to the sight of the biggest fish they ever saw following the accidental capture by fishermen of a rare five-meter megamouth shark.

The shark, which was estimated to weigh one ton, was found by fishermen struggling to free itself from a net just off the Bayawan coast, some 100 kilometers south of Dumaguete City.

Dan Aurelia, reporter of Radyo Natin Bayawan, told the DAILY STAR that the shark was wounded, probably as a result of its struggling.

A passing pumpboat belonging to the Bayawan City government saw the megamouth shark and towed the sea creature to the city's boulevard and called the city's Department of Agriculture for help.

The shark, however, died before it could be set free.

Aurelia quoted Faith Napigkit, an officer of the Department of Agriculture in Bayawan, as saying that this was the second reported sighting of a megamouth shark in Bayawan and probably the seventh in the Philippines. The first megamouth shark stranding in Bayawan City was recorded in Dec. 30, 2004.

Sightings of megamouth sharks in the Philippines were recorded in Cagayan de Oro City in 1998, 2003 and 2005, and in Tigbauan, Iloilo in 2004.

Moonyeen Alava, marine species specialist with the Sulu-Sulawesi Seascape Project of Conservation International, said this shark is so rare that it could be only the 35th recorded specimen in the world.

Information on the megamouth shark (Megachasma pelagios) gathered from the website of the Florida Museum of Natural History says this shark is the most primitive living species within the order Lamniformes although the first megamouth shark was captured only in 1976.

The megamouth shark was first discovered in November 15, 1976 by a U.S. Navy ship looking for dummy torpedoes off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii.

It is so named because it has a huge mouth that extends behind the eyes. The megamouth shark is characterized by a distinctive white band on the anterior surface of the snout. It has approximately 50 rows of very small and numerous teeth on each jaw, but only three rows are functional.

Scientists believe that the shark swims slowly through aggregations of krill and other small prey with its mouth open. It feeds by jutting out its jaws and sucking in the prey. Once the prey is inside the closed mouth, the excess water is expelled through the gill openings.

Average males are approximately four meters and average females are approximately five meters. The largest megamouth shark sighted in the world was 5.5 meters.

Source: www.asiadivesite.com

Australian oil spill 'tragedy for marine life'

2006-02-02T09:05:00.000+02:00

A oil spill in the Australian state of Queensland is being described as a tragedy for the area's marine life.

Authorities worked for more than 24 hours to contain the spill in Gladstone Harbour on the central Queensland coast, after 25,000 litres of heavy fuel poured from a coal carrier late on Tuesday night.

The ABC reports the accident happened when a tug rammed into a Korean coal carrier, rupturing its fuel tank. The clean-up is expected to take up to a week and cost more than $A3 million.

The Wildlife Protection Association of Australia (WPAA) says the spill inside the harbour occurred in the worst place possible. President Pat O'Brien says the area has dugongs, crocodiles, turtles and seabirds that will be affected by the spill.

A marine investigator from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau says preliminary investigations into the spill should be completed by Friday afternoon.

The commercial fishing industry in Gladstone says it is on the brink of collapse following the spill.

It is the worst oil spill in Queensland since the Oceanic Grandeur ran aground in the Torres Strait in 1970 and the second spill in Gladstone's Harbour within a week. About a tonne of oil was spilled in the harbour last week.

Source: www.radionz.co.nz

Great Barrier Reef: Coral severely bleached

2006-02-02T09:02:00.000+02:00

Scientists warned on Friday that high ocean temperatures linked to global warming had caused severe coral bleaching in parts of Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

Researchers from the University of Queensland in eastern Australia found the bleaching in inshore reefs surrounding the Keppel Islands and said they were worried the phenomenon could spread across the Great Barrier Reef system.

They blamed the bleaching, caused when the plant-like organisms which make up coral die and leave behind the white limestone skeleton of the reef, on higher-than-normal temperatures during the southern summer.

"Corals at the Keppels are completely bleached and we are only halfway through January," said the University of Queensland's Ove Hoegh-Guldeberg.

"How this will develop across the Great Barrier Reef is the number one question right now," said Hoegh-Guldberg, who chairs a Bleaching Working Group for CRTR, an international coral reef research body linking more than 100 scientists worldwide and funded in part by the World Bank.

The CRTR said water termperatures over the past four months have been well above long-term averages and US oceanographers studying satellite imagery in January warned that bleaching was imminent on the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef.

"The traces suggest we are tracking the temperature profile of 2001-2002, which led to the worst incidence of coral bleaching in the recorded measurements for the Great Barrier Reef," Hoegh-Guldeberg said.

"In that event, over 60 percent of the Great Barrier Reef bleached and up to five percent of reefs suffered serious damage," he said.

The bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef came after the worst incidence of coral bleaching ever in the Caribbean in October 2005, the university said.

Coral reefs have recently been experiencing a global decline that scientists attribute to a combination of declining water quality, destructive fishing and global warming.

"Climate change is perhaps the most worrying aspect of these problems," Hoegh-Guldeberg said.

"Projections from over 40 climate models suggest that our oceans will warm by as much as three to four degrees Celsius in the next 100 years.

"This will have a huge impact on the health of these important ecosystems," he said.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world's biggest coral system, stretching over more than 345 000 square kilometres off Queensland's coast.

Source: www.iol.co.za

South Africa: Anti-whalers do it for pleasure - skipper

2006-02-02T08:59:00.000+02:00

The SA Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) is demanding erroneous paperwork from an anti-whaling ship detained in Cape Town harbour, its captain said on Saturday.

"It is impossible for us to satisfy the demands for compliance in order to lift the detention order," said Captain Paul Watson.

Watson said the problem was that "if South Africa classifies us as a commercial vessel and Canada has us registered as a pleasure craft, the certificates required for a commercial vessel cannot be issued by Canada to a yacht".

"What we do on is at our pleasure... We harass outlaw fishermen for pleasure... We go watching for whalers for pleasure.... We hunt whalers and sealers for pleasure. In fact I derive a great deal of pleasure from defending marine life on the high seas."

The Farley Mowat, which has been harassing Japanese whalers in the Antarctic, was detained this week, for "seaworthy/con-compliance", according Samsa.

"We entered Cape Town as heroes for battling the pirate whalers in the Southern Oceans but it was not long until the bureaucrats tried to shut us down," said Watson.

The ship had sailed for 50 days "chasing and intervening against illegal Japanese whalers".

"As soon as we entered the port we were ordered detained for not having a security certificate onboard. We've never had one for the simple reason that only commercial ships carry this certificate and we are registered as a pleasure craft."

Samsa's acting operations manager, Captain Saleem Modak, informed Watson that they had received a request from the Canadian transport department to check specific documents.

"He refused to show me this request in writing," Watson said.

"He said that I was required to have a Safety Inspection Certificate, a Manning Certificate, and a Security Certificate.

"I replied that these certificates were not required for a Canadian yacht. He answered that he did not care and that I had to provide the certificates or else the ship would be detained until the certificates were provided."

Watson said Canada would not issue these certificates for a yacht.

"What South Africa is now asking for we would gladly comply with, if it was possible for us to do so."

He said he had met officials at the Canadian Consulate in Cape Town and they were looking into the matter.

"In the meantime, we are being forced to pay a large daily fee for an inadequate dock and we are forced to pay for a 24-hour independent security guard."

Source: www.iol.co.za