Dive Inspirations Scuba News

Now that the latest marine census is finally finished, scientist have identified 122,500 marine species in the oceans. They expect that number to rise to over 200,000. Time to get diving, and don’t forget that fish ID card

Scientists have identified some 122,500 species of marine life in the oceans and have managed to clear up some 56,000 cases of double-identity as part of a global research project.
“Convincing warnings about declining fish and other marine species must rest on a valid census,” said Mark Costello of the University of Auckland in a statement Wednesday.

“This project will improve information vital to researchers investigating fisheries, invasive species, threatened species and marine ecosystem functioning, as well as to educators.”

The new World Register of Marine Species (www.marinespecies.org) now contains about 122,500 validated marine species names, and has cleared up the aliases given to thousands of species.

“It will eliminate the misinterpretation of names, confusion over Latin spellings, redundancies and a host of other problems that sow confusion and slow scientific progress,” Costello said.

Researchers aim to finish the project by October 2010.
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Mindless shark killing. That’s why. Between the senseless slaughter of sharks by various Asian countries for shark fin soup and and the ridiculous shark tournaments here at home like The Montauk Shark Tournament  the shark populations are plummeting.

100 million to 1 - This is the ratio of sharks to humans killed by one another in 2007. The average number of human fatalities for the last two decades, per the International Shark Attack File, was five. Compare that to the average of eighteen annual fatalities from dogs, and you have more to fear from Fido than you do from Jaws.Source            

But there is a small glimmer of hope on the horizon. At least here in the USA.

To curb the illegal practice of removing shark fins at sea, U.S. officials announced Thursday that all sharks caught in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico must be brought ashore with their fins attached.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also reduced by 85 percent the commercial fishing quota for the sandbar shark, a popular species for the Asian delicacy of shark fin soup. Recreational fishermen also will be banned from catching and keeping sandbar sharks.The new rules, which also reduce and set quotas for some other sharks, will help rebuild populations, NOAA says. Sharks take years to mature and they produce few offspring, making them vulnerable to overfishing, said Jim Balsiger, an acting assistant administrator.The rule will take effect July 24.AP NEWS         

Now don’t get us wrong, we are not against sport fisherman who catch and release. We are not against fisherman who put food on our plates. But we are FIRMLY against the useless slaughter of sharks soley for the use of their fins, and the barbaric ways in which sharks are killed in uncontrolled tournaments like the The Montauk Shark Tournament . It seems that today, in 2008, people would have more understanding about the affects of removing these apex predators from the wild. Obviously the idiots who run the The Montauk Shark Tournament don’t get it. They should take a look at the Quiznos MadFin Tournament to see how it should be done.

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This is some sad news. Hopefully it is only temporary, because Bikini is one of those dives that is on almost every divers “must dive” lists. 

The flagship tourist destination in the Marshall Islands — a World War II fleet of ships sunk by nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll — will shut down in two weeks after sustaining unprecedented losses.

The unreliability of the one local airline and skyrocketing fuel prices torpedoed a once-thriving scuba diving business that lured thousands of visitors from Europe, America and Australia to this former nuclear test site in the Pacific, Bikini Atoll Divers manager Jack Niedenthal said Tuesday…

“After 13 great-though-challenging years as one of the premier wreck diving and fishing tourism sites in the Pacific, Bikini Atoll will be closed to tourists as of June 11,” Niedenthal said. “We have made this decision due to the unreliability of our local airline, Air Marshall Islands, and also because of the rapid rise in the world price of fuel, which has made all of our operating expenses just skyrocket beyond our means.”
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We’re back. Where were we? Click Here. 

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  We’re going to go with creepy. We go diving to look at living creatures. We don’t venture into the blue to see dead coral and fish bones. Leave that to the archeologists! The idea of swimming through an underwater cemetery just creeps us out. 

The Neptune Memorial Reef, which opened last fall, is seen by its creators as a perfect final resting spot for those who loved the sea. They hope that one day the reef will cover 16 acres and have room for 125,000 remains.”This is simply as good as it gets,” said Gary Levine, a diver who conceived the reef and is now a shareholder in the company that owns it.The Neptune Memorial Reef is located in open waters 3¼ miles off the coast of Key Biscayne, which means any certified diver can visit. The artificial reef’s first phase allows for about 850 remains.The ashes are mixed with cement designed for underwater use and fitted into a mold, which a diver then places and secures into the reef. A copper and bronze plaque is installed with the person’s name, date of birth and death. There is also a line for a message.  Source     

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This is a very disturbing story breaking out of Taiwan. We hope it turns out well in the end.  

An all-out search for eight missing scuba divers in waters off the Kenting National Park at the southernmost tip of Taiwan had not yielded any results as of last night.Officials at the Coast Guard Administration said yesterday the search will continue today.The eight holidaymakers — six men and two women — were reported missing while scuba diving in waters near Chihsingyen (Seven Star Rock), located some 12 nautical miles southwest of Kenting in the southernmost county of Pingtung.They left for Chihsingyen along with four other members of a Kaohsiung diving club aboard a yacht early in the morning. The 12 began scuba diving in waters between Oluanbi and Chihsingyen at 10:30 a.m. and were supposed to return to the yacht at 11:30 a.m.However, eight of them failed to return to the yacht on schedule.Source  

FOLLOW UP:

All of the eight missing Taiwanese scuba divers were miraculously rescued yesterday after nearly 48 hours of drifting in the ocean offshore Taiwan’s eastern county Taitung, said the local coast guard yesterday.

“All of us kept talking to each other when we were drifting in the sea,” said one of the divers, 38-year-old Tu Ting-chang after being rescued from the sea yesterday afternoon.

He added that the divers called each others’ names every three minutes to keep every one conscious, and they drank rainwater when they were thirsty, which was why they were able to survive the ordeal.
Source

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This is great to see. 

Half a century after the atomic blasts that devastated Bikini Atoll, vast expanses of corals in the area seem to be flourishing once again, much to the surprise of scientists.

American government scientists detonated a hydrogen bomb on the tiny island (a part of the Marshall Islands in the western Pacific) on March 1, 1954, and about 20 other nuclear tests were carried out on the atoll between 1946 and 1958….

A team of scientists recently led a diving expedition into Bravo Crater and found an unexpectedly thriving coral community.

“I didn’t know what to expect — some kind of moonscape perhaps. But it was incredible, huge matrices of branching Porites coral (up to 8 meters [25 feet] high) had established, creating a thriving coral reef habitat,” said study team member Zoe Richards of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University.
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Picture this - You’re off on a nice dive.  You check your gauges and decide to surface. After a nice little safety stop, your head slowly breaks the surface expecting to see the dive boat. There’s only one small problem; it’s not there! We’ve all thought about it, but most of us never think it will ever happen. But what if? What if the dive operator you were diving with just up and forgot about you while you were below? What if they left you?  Well that’s exactly what happened to Dan Carlock of Santa Monica California in 2004. He had signed up for a dive organized by Ocean Adventures Dive Co. on a boat run by Sun Diver Charters out of Huntington California. And now, he’s suing. We generally are not a fan of lawsuits, but in this case we couldn’t agree more. No matter what the “action of the diver”, there is no excuse for leaving a diver in the water. The extra 2 minutes it takes to read a roll call and make sure all divers are on the boat at the end of each dive is not to much to ask of a boat captain and its crew.   There are lawyers who would disagree with that however. In fact, those lawyers represent Ocean Adventures. They say that being left alone in the ocean is one of the risks of diving. We say - BULLSHIT! When a diver signs up for a dive, they do not sign up to be dropped off on their own. The “risk” that they could be abandoned by the dive boat and it’s crew is nowhere in the waiver of responsibility that a diver signs.  And it shouldn’t be. Ever! Nor should it be inferred. Scuba diving is not meant to be a survival sport. Could anyone imagine what would happen to the dive industry if operators were no longer responsible to bring the divers back? Of course we are exaggerating a tiny bit, but that is in essence what Ocean Adventures lawyers are saying.   

Lawyers representing Sun Diver Charters and Ocean Adventures, at whom the lawsuit is aimed, had moved that the judge issue a summary judgment against Carlock on the grounds that, by participating in the dive, he had assumed certain risks — thereby waiving his right to hold the operators responsible.Source          

We just want to say Thank You to Judge Edward Ferns for allowing the suit to continue.

“While (the diving companies have) shown there is a risk inherent in the sport of diving that a diver will become separated from other scuba divers, it has not been shown that there is a risk inherent in the sport … that divers will forget and abandon their co-participants in the ocean …,” Ferns wrote.Source           

We can’t wait to see this play out. We hope a jury tears this dive operator a new asshole and awards a massive judgement against them. Maybe it will send a signal to other shoddy dive operators to shape up.

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Look at the size of these whoppers!

Scientists who conducted the most comprehensive survey to date of New Zealand’s Antarctic waters were surprised by the size of some specimens found, including jellyfish with 12-foot tentacles and 2-foot-wide starfish.

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research hold giant Macroptychaster sea stars.

A 2,000-mile journey through the Ross Sea that ended Thursday has also potentially turned up several new species, including as many as eight new molluscs.

It’s “exciting when you come across a new species,” said Chris Jones, a fisheries scientist at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “All the fish people go nuts about that — but you have to take it with a grain of salt.”
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This is really sad to see

They lay in their thousands, covering the beach in a carpet of pink and orange. Some were curled up, their spiny feet pointing towards the sky. Others lay flat where they had been washed up by the tide. All were dead.
If the collective noun for a normal group of starfish is a constellation, then this pitiful sight on the Kent coastline was more like a galaxy.

Mass starfish strandings, or “wrecks”, are not uncommon in Britain and typically happen once a year.

But the scale of death visited upon the beaches of southern England in the past few weeks has stunned conservationists and prompted a major investigation into what could be killing so many marine animals.
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