COVER STORY Doing the Bahamas in a Box Diving From a Floating Resort, the Nekton Pilot One thing's for sure: the Nekton Pilot is one unique, even weird, boat. She's more than boxy--almost truly rectangular--but because the bow is never in the water, she doesn't need a sleek prow to cut through the waves. The three-story tall, 40-foot by 78-foot platform sits on two submerged pontoons--really two 65-foot long steel torpedoes filled with engines, fuel, purified water, sewage, and air. The captain moves air and liquid around in the tubes to keep the boat level, stable, and above the mottled surface of the rolling ocean. Designed to minimize the rolling that can lead to widespread mal de mer, the boat rides like a cradle instead of the "bobbing bottle." She's not purely stationary, however, and in the channel crossing the guests quickly learned to dance the Nekton Shuffle...   Swirls and Surges in the California Kelp: Catalina, Farnsworth Bank, and the Channel Islands Overhead a wall of silvery baitfish blocks out the sun, and another, slightly smaller, school of different fish swims past. A 40-lb. tuna passes by, waiting for one of the baitfish to zig when it should zag, while a barracuda swims lazily through the mix, all business. When I stop to peer into the reef, a gorgeous purple and orange aeolid nudibranch parked next to a scorpion fish beckons for my attention. Palau? Papua New Guinea? Welcome to Farnsworth Bank, a few miles from Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of southern California... Do Repetitive Flights Up Your Odds of the Bends? Conservative thinking calls for divers to wait twenty-four hours between diving and flying. However, a case presented at the International Joint Meeting on Hyperbaric and Underwater Medicine raises a potential new danger--repetitive flights. Caribbean Hurricane Planning Planning a dive trip to the Caribbean this summer? Colorado State University hurricane expert William Gray advises what to expect from the upcoming hurricane season. Frightened Fish Do fish show emotions? Rufus Wells of New Zealand's University of Auckland, who has monitored the endocrine responses of fish to stresses, suggests that fish are sensitive souls indeed. What Equipment is Hot and What's Not at DEMA Some interesting trends in new dive gear emerged at the 23rd Annual Diving Equipment & Marketing Association trade show in January. Check out our reviewer's evaluation of new fins and wetsuits, alternate air sources, out-of-water gear transportation, and underwater lighting, communications, and navigation aids. There were plenty of new products for tekkies from rebreathers to computers as well as a few of those Dumb and Dumber inventions for divers who want to scream to the rest of the world, "Don't buddy up with me!" Get the full story! Just Drop It It's no secret that occasionally a diver in an emergency fails to drop his weight belt because he doesn't want to lose it. A variation on this thrifty thinking led to the death of a British soldier who lost his fin, made a desperate attempt to retrieve it, and ran out of air in the process. Editor's Travel Notes DEMA promoted a host of new travel opportunities, including the Yucatan's new Explorean and Maya Ha resorts, from which divers will be exploring Chinchorro Banks. There were changes to report in Kiribati and Grand Cayman as well as new things turning up in live-aboards worldwide, including Larry Smith's new live-aboard operation in Indonesia, a new Solomons Aggressor, some new South Pacific trips aboard the Undersea Hunter, and the end of operations for the Oceanus, a live-aboard departing from Cozumel. Bleached Maldives Divers who showed up in the Maldives within a month after reading our travel correspondent's comments in the August, 1998, issue were caught wondering if they had visited the same place they'd just read about. In a short month's time, the warming waters of El Niño had devastated the country's hard corals. American Deaths Lead Aussies to Control Diving? In the wake of the deaths of two American divers who were left behind on the Great Barrier Reef, the Australian territory of Queensland is set to fully regulate its dive industry. Charged With Manslaughter Geoffrey Nairn, the skipper of the dive boat Outer Edge which left two Americans behind in the open ocean, was formally charged with manslaughter in their deaths. Flotsam & Jetsam New research discovers a relationship between underwater exertion and DCS, a police scuba trainee wins a judgment after having had his mask pulled from his face during training exercises in Australia, and abalone poaching reaches a new peak to satisfy the Oriental appetite for a shellfish they believe has aphrodisiac properties. Check out a new stopover en route to the southern Caribbean and some cocktail scuba talk from someone who's been in the diving business longer than you and me combined.