Undercurrent Online Update for Subscribers

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

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July 21, 2022

Ghost Fishing Nets Recovered. At San Pedro, California, in early May, six volunteer divers from Ghost Diving USA teamed up with nonprofit Healthy Seas to recover 200 pounds of abandoned fishing nets that had become draped over the wreck of the USS Moody, sunk in 1933 for a prop for the movie Hell Below. Ghost fishing nets continue to trap and kill marine life long after being abandoned.

Get Organized Before You Go Diving. If you’ve given diving a rest during the past couple of years, get your regulator serviced and try it out before you travel somewhere exotic, where you may not be able to get any problems corrected. The same goes for your computer -- get its battery replaced and the unit pressure tested by a qualified technician to avoid disappointment later.

Two Women Killed by Sharks in Egypt. A harrowing video was posted on YouTube of a 68-year-old Austrian woman, attacked and dismembered by a shark near a pier at a bay south of Hurghada, Egypt, on July 1. The body of another woman, a Rumanian in her late 40s, was later discovered about 600 yards away. An oceanic white-tip is thought to be responsible. The Egyptian authorities banned in-water activities for three days.

But the Risk of a Shark Attacks is Miniscule: Worldwide in 2022, sharks killed 11 humans. Nine attacks were unprovoked (attacks on spearfishers are considered “provoked,” since they carry dead fish), says the Florida Museum of Natural History. They reported 73 unprovoked shark bites on humans worldwide and 39 provoked bites. These are tiny numbers when compared to the likelihood of drowning; in the U.S. alone, there are an average of 3,960 drownings every year, an average of 11 per day.

COVID Quarantine Risks Persist. And what could be worse than nine days’ quarantine in a “filthy, run-down” government facility in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines? COVID is still affecting many divers’ international trips, and we’ll report on this in our August issue.

Diving post-COVID Blog. David McGuire, the Director of Shark Stewards, writes honestly how the COVID lockdown affected his mental health, and then, after his bout with COVID was over, how it affected his breath-holding ability while free-diving. David, a good friend of Undercurrent, reports how he emerged from his personal dark period in this revealing Undercurrent Insider Blog here.

PADI in the Dock? PADI is to be called before a Montana jury in connection with the death of teenaged scuba diver Linnea Mills in November 2020. A judge has overruled PADI’s denial of responsibility for the actions of the dive center and instructors involved in the death. PADI had denied vicarious responsibility for Mills’ death, arguing that Gull Dive and its instructors were neither agents nor employees of the agency. It argued that the disclaimer signed by Mills before diving made it clear that PADI could not be held responsible should anything go wrong. Click here to view the article.

Ever Been to Small Hope Bay? Built on Andros Island, Bahamas, by Dick Birch in the 1960s, it still remains a great diving venue (see Undercurrent, January 2022). The Birch family is protecting the surrounding waters through the Small Hope Bay Foundation, a U.S. nonprofit 501(C)3 organization. Projects include establishing urchin outcroppings to counter declines in sea urchin populations, and creating coral nurseries to provide broken corals a different environment in which they can recuperate. www.smallhope.com

On Diving Deep with Air. Older divers will remember when we only had air in our tanks because that’s all that was available, and yet some divers went very deep with it – so deep that younger divers brought up with Nitrox training often don’t believe what was achieved. John Bantin reminisces about those days when diving was more dangerous. You can read it in an Undercurrent Insider Blog here.

Your Trip Reports Are Important. Don’t forget to write a report of your last dive trip. You can be as hard-hitting or as complimentary as you like, as long as you tell it like it is. Your report joins more than 10,000 others in our online database (and our annual Travelin Divers' Chapbook), which is easily searchable by any other subscriber. You can even add photos. Divers need information not only about the diving. They need to know about accommodations, the good and bad about the resort or liveaboard, and the food. Tell all and file your report at www.undercurrent.org/SubRR

Stay Safe

Ben Davison, editor/publisher
BenDDavison@undercurrent.org