Flotsam & Jetsam

FORGET LIVE-ABOARDS! Here's a promotion I'd like to see someone check out: "Dive when and where you want. No set itineraries. The crew is working just for you and at least one member of the crew will be a PADI divemaster or instructor. Port Yacht Charters represent private yachts with crew. Compressors, night lights, underwater cameras, top equipment, and all the latest toys are included. Dive as much or as little as you want. Cuisine will be what you request. The bar is open and included in the 'all inclusive' fees starting at $999 per person, per week. We have yachts all over the Caribbean, in the Mediterranean, the South Pacific, Florida/ Keys/Bahamas, Australia, the Seychelles, and in many other parts of the world. Call us at 800-213-0465 or check our web page at www.paw.com/sail/port/."

SURF OR CUT BAIT? How would you like to be camping in grizzly bear country and have someone throw a big steak into the campfire? That's how surfers viewed the dumping of 2,000 pounds of bloody sheep and pig parts into the ocean near Point Año Nuevo, about 40 miles south of San Francisco. The chum paid off for the 12 divers aboard; they got to jump into the water -- in cages, of course -- with the impressive great whites that were attracted. Local surfers, who were not in cages, felt they were being put at risk and filed a lawsuit to ban the practice. After a three-year battle, the surfers made their point, and there's now a federal restriction against shark baiting along the California coast.

KEY DISEASES. Speaking of great whites, they caught one right off Pennekamp Park in the Florida Keys (see sidebar on page 8). I always said the Keys had a lot of fish life -- it's the coral life that's in trouble. Two diseases, white pox and white plague, have become very noticeable on the reefs. White plague was first spotted in the Keys in the 1970s but was thought to have disappeared. It's back. Everyone is scrambling for grant money and causes.

CLAP IF YOU BELIEVE IN FERRIES. Readers continue to write in about transportation problems in Palau due to the collapse of the bridge that connects the airport to Koror. The main problem has occurred at the end of the trip: passengers are taken to the ferry for departure, but have gotten stuck on the other side with no way to get from the ferry back to the airport. Make sure before you travel that your transportation is prearranged, both from the airport to the ferry and back.

MORE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK. Travel & Leisure magazine readers rated the world's best travel values -- not just price, but getting your money's worth, whether it's a $75-per-night beach cottage or a $600 suite in Paris. Of interest to divers were Australia's Great Barrier Reef (World's Best Island/Resort Area for Value), Hyatt Regency, Grand Cayman (Best Hotel in the Caribbean, Bahamas, and Bermuda), and the Marriott Casa Magna, Cancun, Mexico (World's Best Hotel for Value).

STEP AWAY FROM THE HULL. Caution, female divers: according to "News of the Weird," an ingredient in barnacleresistant boat paint is causing spontaneous sex changes in the dog whelk, a small marine snail. Female snails exposed to the paint were growing penises of "alarming lengths."