Undercurrent Online Update for Subscribers

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

Forward this email | Home | Login | Forgot Password? | My Account | FAQ

April 29, 2022

Another Liveaboard Burns. Outside Hurghada, Egypt, MY Scuba Scene burned furiously on the morning of April 19, shortly after leaving port. It’s believed the fire started in the engine room. The 43-metre steel-hulled vessel was said to be the latest and most luxurious to join the Red Sea fleet and was managed up by highly respected guides including oceanic white-tip expert Elke Bojanowski and veteran Egyptian guide Ahmed Fadel. (Fadel was the general manager for the Red Sea Aggressor I when it caught fire and one American guest died.) All the guests, many of whom were American, and crew, were evacuated safely in two zodiacs. There were no reports of casualties. Were you on board and had to be evacuated? If so, we’d like to hear about it. Write to: BenDDavison@undercurrent.org not forgetting to mention your town and state.

Dive Travel Insurance Woes? We need your Help: COVID disrupted dive plans for thousands upon thousands of divers, and many lost lots of money. We're working on a story about the best travel insurance for divers, and if you have any travel insurance problems, we would like to hear about them. Not just with DAN or DiveAssure, but with any insurance carrier. Let us know how your reimbursement went, good or bad. Please tell us your story. Write to BenDDavison@undercurrent.org.

Malaysia Instructors Call for Regulation. After three trainee divers and their instructor went missing in Malaysian waters in early April, with the tragic death of the youngest trainee (Undercurrent April), local diving instructors are calling for the government to regulate the scuba diving industry and institute standard procedures. Professional scuba instructors are deeply concerned about the incident, saying that although it is not typical, diving instruction requires serious attention by authorities as it was not the first time divers had gone missing or died in Malaysia.

Aqualung Recalls the i330R Dive Computer. The company has discovered a fault in the computer software, prohibiting automatic adjustment when the computer is used at altitudes above 3000 feet. It does not only affect those diving in Lake Titicaca (13,000-feet), but many inland dive sites, like Lake Tahoe, are at an altitude greater than you might think. Aqualung wants every owner of an i330R to stop using it immediately and either download a firmware update through the DiverLog+ app or take the computer to an authorized dealer to download and install the upgrade. The new firmware revision shall read R1.004 or later.

Aqualung Calypso Regulator Recall. And in December, Aqualung announced that many of these regulators might have a quality defect, leading to an uncontrolled freeflow. During manufacture, a hole was drilled out of specification in the high-pressure port, weakening a wall. Should it rupture, an uncontrollable second stage free flow could occur. If you own an Aqualung Calypso, don't use it and check the website below to determine if your model is affected. If so, return it to your Calypso dealer, and they will replace it at no charge. Go to the website.

A New Wreck Dive in the Black Sea? Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, with 300 scuba dives logged, didn't waste time to mock Russia over the sinking of its Black Sea flagship Moskva, which sank on April 14, apparently after being struck by two Ukrainian-fired Neptune missiles (after the vessel's anti-missile defense was prematurely activated by Turkish-made decoy drones). Reznikov says he will definitely dive the new wreck as soon as Ukraine has won the war. It's thought to be around 150 feet deep.

Write Your Own Report. The most visited pages on the Undercurrent website are the Independent Reader's Reports, which describe reader experiences at dive resorts and liveaboards worldwide. With now more than 11,500 reports archived, just about every diving possibility is covered, with our Undercurrent subscribers telling it like it is. And other divers need your up-to-date reports, so tell them warts and all about your latest dive trip. It's easy to do, and you can even post photos if you wish. Go to www.undercurrent.org and get writing!

Dive Boat Sinks on Transport Mission: Abatroz, a scuba day boat transporting 47 barrels of diesel fuel, sank in the Galapagos Island Marine Park on April 23. The four crew members were rescued; however, the leaks threatened to cause an environmental disaster, and aquatic and tourist activities on Santa Cruz Island were temporarily shut down. They set up containment barriers and soaked up the fuel with bags of hair trimmings and absorbent cloths in the immediate danger areas.

A Reprieve for Yucatan's Cenotes? A Mexican judge has ordered the temporary suspension of work on a stretch of the Maya train project, citing a lack of environmental permits. The $9.8bn, 900-mile Maya railroad is to be routed the entire east coast of Mexico. While the railroad is President Obrador's flagship infrastructure program, cave divers warn that it threatens caverns dating back millions of years. We hope this is more than a temporary setback.

Memoirs of a Red Sea Diving Pioneer. First published by David Pilosof in iDive magazine, Howard Rosenstein tells of his establishing one of the first dive centers in Israel. He eventually moved from the Mediterranean coast to the Sinai and the Red Sea. You can read it here.

More on That Arctic Shark. The arctic shark we reported on in the mid-March Undercurrent email, a Greenland shark that was washed up on a beach in Britain, died from meningitis, an autopsy showed. Greenland sharks live more than 400 years, and this female, marine biologists say, was just a youngster, about 100 years old. Measuring 13 feet long, damage to its fins and silt in her stomach suggests she may have been alive when it became stranded.

Coming Soon in Undercurrent: A Little Known Resort in Belize ... Cayman's Best Diving … the Undersea Explorer -- a Caribbean Liveaboard … The Dangers of Debris in the Ocean … Have You Been Overtaken in the Race for New Certifications? … Dive Magazine Awards and Why they are Defective … A Letter of Protest from a Prominent Dive Center Owner … How the Law Catches Up with some Dive Centers … Another Ecological Problem in the Caribbean …When Old Divers went Deep on Air … and much, much more.

Stay Safe
Get Vaccinated
Wear a Mask when Appropriate

Ben Davison, editor/publisher
BenDDavison@undercurrent.org