Undercurrent Online Update
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For Subscriber David Denson Whiteside (with username 'dwhitesi' exp: 2024-08-20', at dwhite95815@hotmail.com )
May 17, 2016
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Most sensible divers make sure their kit is rinsed in fresh water before they set off for home. Some make sure by rinsing it a second time at home before hanging it in a well-ventilated place to dry. It’s always annoying to find that some metal elements have fused together later and there’s a telltale white powder seen where salt has crystalized in nooks and crannies. The full story on how vinegar might help will be in the June issue of Undercurrent.

Divers increasingly want to see sharks up close. Sustainable Shark Diving was created by Rick MacPherson as an on-line tool to help divers make more informed choices about the businesses they choose to support, recognize those businesses employing sustainable best practices, and encourage businesses that may need to improve their performance to ensure the safety of both their clients and sharks. Mike Nuemann of Beqa Adventure Divers says, “This new initiative dovetails perfectly with our advocacy of a long term sustainable model of marine ecotourism whereby shark and ray tourism operators need to assume the stewardship of the animals they showcase, and need to interact with them safely and respectfully. For this to succeed, the public needs to however rate as many operators as possible.” Sustainablesharkdiving.com

The Divers Alert Network has awarded the R.W. ‘Bill‘ Hamilton Memorial Scholarship, created in honor of Bill Hamilton, a researcher who conducted hyperbaric studies over the past 40 years, to Norwegian scientist Ingrid Eftedal of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She will use the US$10,000 award to support a study on occupational saturation divers on the Norwegian continental shelf and according to DAN: “The results of her study will provide information that may be applied to prepare and protect divers from injury, and it therefore closely aligns with DAN’s mission to advance dive science and promote dive safety in the industry.” The scholarship is funded by The DAN Foundation and administered by the Women Divers Hall of Fame.

The Vandenberg artificial reef off the Florida Keys is once again being employed as an underwater art exhibit. At the beginning of April, divers installed 12 waterproof photo illustrations on one side of the 523-foot-long ex-satellite-tracking vessel in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The wreck of the Vandenberg lies 90 feet below the surface and about seven miles distant, south of Key West. Originally created by Austrian art photographer Andreas Franke, the images are encased in plexiglass with silicon-sealed, stainless-steel frames and forms a continuation of ‘Sinking World’ series that made its first appearance on the Vandenberg back in 2011, two years after the ship became an artificial reef.

Why does nobody seem to care? Read Tim Ecott’s impassioned appeal in our latest Diving Insider’s Blog at www.undercurrent.org.

We’re already gearing up for the 2017 edition of the Travelin’ Diver’s Chapbook, so we need your reports to make it even better than last year’s. Send us reviews of dive operators, liveaboards, and resorts you’ve dived since November by filling out our online form. You can also follow the link “File a Report” on the left side of our homepage at www.undercurrent.org Or after logging in, follow the “Reader Report” link in the top navigation bar.

Some cultures treat the onset of age with wisdom and experience acquired. Other cultures worship youth. Watching the newly qualified Open Water Instructor telling someone like Stan Waterman where his diving is wrong can be excruciating when one man has spent more hours underwater than the other has been alive, but it happens. Many Undercurrent readers have done more than a thousand dives. Have you experienced the embarrassment of youthful instructors trying to change what’s worked forever for you? Tell us about it!

It’s been a favorite novelty dive for years but are Palau's jellyfish going extinct? Read our story in June.

Raja Ampat. It may be remote but it’s become the must-go-to destination for divers . . . Sexism in diving: Fact or Fiction? . . . A Galápagos meltdown. . . Misplaced ideas for new cameras . . . Snorkels: Good for diving? . . An Australian about-face . . . and much more.

Ben Davison, editor/publisher
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