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

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July 28, 2021

Freak Accident Sinks Dive Boat. Seven people were left in the water when a dive boat, Safari Diver of South Florida Diving Headquarters, sank off Pompano Beach on July 19. Other boats raced to the rescue, and all seven passengers were saved, but they lost their car keys, wallets, phones, and anything else they had on board. An Undercurrent subscriber, diving the next day with South Florida Dive Company's Black Pearl, was told by a crew member that the vessel's propeller fouled the mooring line the captain had attached to the wreck they intended to dive. The rotating prop managed to winch the vessel's stern underwater before the captain could grasp what was happening and stop the engine. The hull quickly filled with water and the vessel went down within minutes.

Delta Variant Closes Raja Ampat to All. Ten cases of the latest COVID variant have been confirmed in Indonesia's Papua province. The government has decided to prohibit access to restrict the spread of this more infectious and dangerous virus. There will be no access for either ships or flights.

Check Your Passport: It’s taking the U.S. State Department at least ten weeks to renew passports (in some cases even more), so if your passport is about to expire or if you are going to a county that requires your passport to be valid six months past the expiration date, or if you don’t have enough blanks pages to satisfy the country you’re entering (usually 1-2, but a few require more), you had better get that renewal going. Passport expedition services like Its Easy Passport and Visa, which for a fee have been able to get passports completed in just a few days, are also facing long delays. Travel.State.Gov

Dive regulator

Regulator Servicing Tips. After a long lay-off, you may be surprised to find your regulator, while working perfectly when you last used it, now needs servicing. That's because the valve seat of the first stage can become engraved by its valve poppet while it's not being used. However, after you have it serviced, like anything highly tuned, it may still need time for the internal O-rings to bed in, and then need further re-adjustment of its interstage pressure setting. If you can, check your recently serviced regulator by using it in a pool or on a local dive before traveling.

The Rewards of Diving Close to Home. Members of the Offaly Sub-Aqua Club in Ireland have discovered about 20 artifacts dating back to the Stone Age during the last 18 months while diving in the River Shannon. Their finds included a medieval sword, a gallowglass helmet, three axe heads, a cannonball, a Bronze Age spear in its leather scabbard, part of a skull, log boats, and several guns. All were sent to the National Museum of Ireland for assessment. The Times

Morays Can Hunt on Land. A recent study has shown that moray eels can leave the water to hunt on land. Researchers from University College Sant Cruz videoed a snowflake moray wriggling out of the water to grab and swallow a piece of squid. How do they do that? Most fish need to be immersed in water to swallow, but the moray has a secondary or 'pharyngeal' jaw nestled deep in the throat, which enables them to hunt crab and other critters that might take refuge out on rocks. New York Times

Diving the Florida Keys? Someday it may well be the only way to see them. Rising sea levels cause frequent flooding to homes in the Keys, a stark reality for residents. Officials want to elevate some streets despite planning to spend money they don't have. It's only a short-term solution, and even then, not every home can be saved. If funding isn't found, the Keys will probably become the first part of the U.S. to surrender to rising tides. And expect no leadership from Governor DeSantis, who in the 2018 election campaign, said, "I am not in the pews of the church of the global warming leftists."

Going to the Galapagos? Good news. From July 1, PCR tests are no longer mandatory for fully vaccinated visitors who can prove their final dose was at least 14 days before their arrival in the islands. Travelers who do not meet this criterion can still enter the Galapagos provided they can show proof of a negative PCR test or rapid antigen test within 72 hours of traveling. Andean Travel Co.

Message in a Bottle. While scuba diving in the Cheboygan River (MI), Jennifer Dowker came across a message in a bottle written by George Morrow in 1926. Using social media, her post went viral with 113K shares and 70,000 likes. Before long Morrow's 74-year-old daughter, Michele Primeau, got in touch with the finder, and they plan to meet later in the year.

Clownfish at night

Don't Shine Your Light on the Clownfish at Night. Scientists studying reefs at Moorea in French Polynesia have found that if exposed for long periods of (human-generated) artificial light, orange-fin anemone fish, a species of clownfish, were less likely to survive than those living on reefs farther from human habitation. Those that did survive grew at only half the rate of their nocturnal-living counterparts. It was unclear why the light affected the growth rate, but one theory is that it attracts predators. Another theory is that it has adverse psychological effects because the fish get tired by not reducing their nighttime activity. The Guardian

Goodbye to Coral Reefs? In a recent study of underwater ecosystems, researchers at the University of Hawaii Manoa made the grim prediction that in a worst-case scenario, coral reefs might be extinct within 30 years if steps aren't taken immediately to mitigate climate change and elevated sea temperatures. Their study showed these ecosystems are among the most threatened by global climate change. Hawaii News Now

Is Koh Tao Safe for Visiting Divers? The pandemic has given everyone a chance to step back and take a fresh look at some travel destinations. With a prolific number of dive schools, is the Thai island of Koh Tao, a favorite among backpackers, safe for visiting divers? The numerous murders of foreigners on Koh Tao are not just a recent phenomenon. The cover-ups are nothing new either. There's no secret that many Thai holiday destinations are run by powerful families in the way of the Mafia, and it proves very difficult to get justice for crimes committed by locals. Mamamia.co.au

Fancy Your Own Coral Reef in Your Backyard? A Florida Keys mansion for sale goes one better than that. Built on stilts to avoid flooding, this luxurious home will suit any diver because it has its own coral reef in the basement. Its 25,000-gallon aquarium is big enough for scuba diving and is stocked with spiny lobsters, angelfish, and puffers. The house may only have four bedrooms, but there are six bathrooms for showering off after a dip in the briny. It has a custom gated entry, a chef's kitchen, an elevator, a rooftop deck, a tiki bar, a pool, 260 feet of canal front, a sandy beach, two boat lifts, and a jet dock. The whole lot will set you back less than $6 million. What a bargain. Ocean Sotheby's International Realty

COVID is Surging in Indonesia. News reports from the archipelago on July 5 tell of a nationwide shortage of oxygen to treat sufferers. Hospitals have almost exhausted supplies, with one reporting that 63 patients died as a result. Indonesia has had the worst outbreak in South East Asia, with around 2.3 million cases. A lockdown was announced for the main island of Java. Meanwhile, Bali is in lockdown again, and no foreign visitors are allowed to enter. BBC

Keep Your Wetsuit Out of the Hot Sun. A British doctor bought five identical 5mm wetsuits for himself, his wife, and three daughters. He later returned one to the store because it was appreciably thinner than the others, although it weighed the same. It was discovered one daughter had washed hers in hot water. Neoprene is composed of millions of tiny integral nitrogen bubbles that afford the insulation properties. When subjected to heat, they can burst, making the material thinner -- although it contains just as much rubber-like material. The same will happen if you dry your wetsuit in the hot sun. Mikes Dive Store

Sharks

No Lone Sharks in the Ocean. Yannis Papastamatiou, a marine scientist at Florida International University, and his team used acoustic transmitters for four years to record the interactions of about 40 gray reef sharks around Palmyra Atoll, southwest of Hawaii. Their study, published in 2020 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that reef sharks return to the same communities year after year, forming clear preferences for the company of certain other individuals, with some "friendships" that endured throughout the study –-- a contradiction to the myth of the lone shark. National Geographic

Stay Safe
Wear a Mask, Get Vaccinated
Don’t Share Your Air

Ben Davison, editor/publisher
BenDDavison@undercurrent.org

 

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