Undercurrent Online Update
for Subscribers

If you want to improve your shooting skills, this special trip, led by Ethan Gordon, is a fantastic opportunity to produce award-winning shots. Gordon, a fine instructor whose work has appeared in more than two dozen magazines, will be your personal tutor aboard the magnificent Maldives Siren for 10 days, beginning March 27. Reef & Rainforest, the organizers, will get you the best airfares possible and arrange every last detail. Tell them Undercurrent sent you, and you'll save $100. For more information, go here

If you're in Southern California, move fast because Pacific. Gray whales are now making their way south to Baja California, and the sightings have started to surge off Southern California. Diver Rebecca Zielger started the New Year right by capturing rare underwater video of a juvenile gray whale off Shaw's Cove in Laguna Beach that came by to say hello. Juveniles are more likely to be curious and hang out for a while, compared to adult males and pregnant females rushing to give birth in the Baja lagoons.

If you're a "60 Minutes" watcher, you'll remember Anderson Cooper's great piece on Cuba's "Gardens of the Queen," a dive site he called "one of the most pristine and vibrant coral reefs." If you're dying to go, not so fast. First, the number of divers allowed is strictly limited, so there are no liveaboards doing trips there. Second, as University of North Carolina marine biologist John Bruno states, it's not as pristine as "60 Minutes" makes it out to be. He writes that Gardens of the Queen has more predator fish than he has seen anywhere else in the Caribbean, but the coral is far from healthy, and lionfish far outweigh the sharks. Read Bruno's explanations on his blog SeaMonster.

As Western countries put the kibosh on shark-fin trade last year, the ban is slowly but surely heading east to Asia. A Chinese restaurant owner named Shangguan Junle announced he would stop serving shark fins at his restaurants in the wealthy Shanxi province to "protect sharks and the environment." He said he was motivated by NBA basketball star Yao Ming's efforts to stop shark killing and, although family members and friends don't understand, he intends to uphold his vow. Soon after, Fair Price, Singapore's largest supermarket chain, said it would stop selling shark fin products starting in April after an inflammatory comment by one of its suppliers triggered public calls for a boycott of the store. The supplier wrote "Screw the divers" in a promotion for a new product to be launched at FairPrice stores during Lunar New Year, and that comment went viral on Facebook and Twitter, causing a backlash for a boycott. As a response, FairPrice CEO Seah Kian Peng announced, "This will be the last Chinese New Year in which customers can buy shark fin products at all our stores."

Subscriber A.M. Ruttle (Jackson, WY) recently read "Four Fish," a book we recommend ( it's for sale through our website ), and offers his pick for a marine-focused nonprofit to support. "I recently became aware of www.fishfight.net . Since I read "Four Fish recently" and am now reading "Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World," this website and issue is of interest to me, and perhaps it would be to other readers."

This series, shown on HDNet, highlights dive sites all over the world. Even if you just get basic cable, you can still watch it by buying the three-disc DVD box set of season one for $24.95. You'll get 13 episodes of underwater and topside adventures in the Caribbean, California's Channel Islands, Fiji and Wakatobi. Click here for information on the show and how to buy the DVDs. Season two has just finished filming, but unfortunately, HDNet's the only channel showing it.

SeaWeb's Marine Photobank announced the winners of its annual Ocean in Focus conservation photography contest of compelling images of human impacts on marine ecosystems, and images that inspire hope for the ocean. The grand prize went to Terry Goss of San Francisco for his photograph of a blue shark off Rhode Island with a rusted hook from a longline fishing boat stuck in its lower jaw. He won a 10-day trip to the Galapagos. Runner-up Peri Paleracio of Quezon City in the Philippines snapped a boat in the Philippines with plastic and trash pollution suspended in the ocean. You can view all the submissions at www.marinephotobank.org

Wetpixel and DivePhotoGuide just announced the judges for its 2012 Our World Underwater photo and video contests. Photographers Brian Skerry and Keri Wilk will join judging veterans Alex Mustard, Berkley White, and Matt Weiss. On the video side, Steve Douglas, Eric Hanauer and Mary-Lynn Price will be the judges. More than $60,000 in prizes will be awarded. Details here

It's a growing trend for dive centers all to offer fluorescent night dives with NightSea equipment (you use a special UV light and a contrast lens that goes over your mask for a psychedelic-like underwater glow) and Bonaire is a big hub of it for its shore dives, although please, dive shops, put the details on your websites. Buddy Dive announced on the PR newswire that it is now doing fluorescent night dives every Tuesday and Thursday evenings - but call or e-mail for prices and details because Buddy doesn't list any info about them on its website. VIP Diving offers them with Bas Noij as the dive guide but doesn't list days or prices. Great Adventures at the Harbor Village Resort offers them for $80 but doesn't specify if it's all evenings or just a few.

See the video of divers looking like they're doing just that in Lake Saarijarvi in Finland - then before you scroll down to the bottom to see how they did it, look closely for something that just doesn't seem quite right...

Our pick for an easy-to-use, affordably priced dive computer . . . how divers can give back on their dive trips overseas and get a tax deduction to boot . . . smoking and diving don't mix, but here's the etiquette for handling it on the liveaboard and at the dive resort . . . should dive boats carry heart defibrillators? . . . what made the liveaboard Mandarin Siren go down in flames, and what happened to its divers . . . and much more.

Ben Davison, editor/publisher
Contact Ben

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