Undercurrent Online Update
for Subscribers

For Subscriber David Denson Whiteside (with username 'dwhitesi' exp: 2024-08-20', at dwhite95815@hotmail.com )
January 17, 2014

The Diving Equipment and Marketing Association (DEMA) publicly released some of its industry research on diver demographics recently, classifying them into four groups for dive businesses to market to - see if you fit the profile. The typical openwater diver makes more than $100,000 and almost certainly owns his/her own home, but only 35 percent are women. Nearly 60 percent are college graduates. The typical diver taking advanced training averages 36 years old and is the most likely to have children under age 18 at home (67 percent). In terms of who's buying gear, 78 percent of purchasers are male, and more than half of them earn over $100,000. Divers more likely headed to dive resorts are the least likely to be married (just 62 percent are), and the least likely to have teenagers at home (42 percent).

We received an e-mail from reader Dana Muir (Ann Arbor, MI) asking if we could do a story on irritating requirements dive resorts have that make divers jump through hoops. For her, it's checkout dive requirements. "I understand requiring a checkout dive. I don't understand inflexibility in making arrangements. Why won't CoCo View ensure that people arriving on a noonish plane can do their checkouts same day?" Many dive resorts won't check out people on the day of arrival, or they have other odd checkout rules, and we want to know about them. Tell us about your checkout dives, especially if they have put a damper on your trip. Send me your stories - good or bad - comments and opinions to EditorBenD@undercurrent.org

British diver Lex Warner died in a dive accident hours after his wife, Deborah, telephoned him to say she was 10 weeks pregnant. After the call, Warner, 50, fell on board the Jean Elaine before a dive off the north coast of Scotland, suffering a severe injury to his liver. Despite the fall, the divemasters gave him the thumbs-up to continue, so he went in, down to 290 feet. But he experienced serious difficulties, was hauled to the surface and pronounced dead soon afterwards. Deborah lost the baby weeks later and is now bringing up their first child, a two-year-old, alone. She now plans to sue the Jean Elaine's owner for failing to stop her husband from diving and for not carrying out thorough enough checks into his health. What do you think? Plenty of people have commented about whether she has a case or not on our Facebook page, where we posted the Daily Mail news article about Warner's death. Read it for yourself, give your opinion, and become a fan of our Facebook page if you have not already. "Like" us at www.facebook.com/undercurrent.org

John Bantin, our fearless veteran dive equipment tester and frequent Undercurrent contributor, had his first book, Amazing Diving Stories, published by Wiley Nautical 15 months ago, and he tells us, "Just had a note from my publisher: Amazing Diving Stories was their best-seller during December. Time to start collecting stories for a sequel!" You can buy John's book, and many other must-have dive books, at our website. The cut of proceeds we get from your Amazon purchases go to the protection of coral reefs. Oh, and you can send John your stories for his sequel through me at EditorBenD@undercurrent.org, and I'll pass them along to him.

Alongside the chamber run by the SSS Recompression Chamber Network, a second opened up in November. It's run by the Costamed Medical Group inside the Cozumel Medical Center, and it's part of DAN's chamber network. It's tragic that there may be enough bent divers in Cozumel to keep both chambers busy, so dive safely.

The 2014 Our World Underwater international underwater photography and video competition is now accepting entries. The competition, hosted by Wetpixel and DivePhotoGuide, calls itself the "Super Bowl" of underwater imaging competitions, and has over $85,000 in prizes, including liveaboard trips, dive resort vacations, camera lighting accessories and a $1,000 cash prize. Entries must be received by February 2; details are here

A team of filmmakers have launched a crowdfunding project to raise money for FINdonesia, a film on shark fishing. The team, led by underwater photographer and conservationist Mark Thorpe, wants to make an expose of Indonesia's shark fishery, offering a "live view" perspective of the harvesting of shark fins straight from the boats and shores. But rather than just highlighting the problem, the film aims to change the situation, with the idea of a business model to benefit Indonesia's fishermen as well as the remaining shark population. Thorpe's team is looking for $75,000 to make FINdonesia. For more information, go here

Our divers go undercover to report on diving in Colombia and Baja California . . . can anything be done to eradicate lionfish from the Caribbean? . . .subscribers tell their stories about being abandoned by their dive boats . . . John Bantin reports on the latest in rebreather technology . . . a new study shows how narcosis affects memory and thought processing . .. and much more.

Ben Davison, editor/publisher
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