Undercurrent Online Update for Subscribers

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

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September 23, 2022

Snorkeling in the Bahamas with a bull shark

Shark Attack in the Bahamas. Caroline DiPlacido, a 50-year-old woman from Pennsylvania, was killed, apparently by a bull shark, while snorkeling in the Bahamas on September 6. A cruise liner passenger aboard Royal Caribbean's Harmony of the Seas, she was on a snorkel tour with an unnamed local operator in waters off Green Cay, near Nassau. In 2019, a shark killed a 21-year-old American woman in the same area.

Rude Underwater Photographers? Last month we wrote about rude divers, but what about photographers? Underwater photography has developed a competitiveness in what was initially not a competitive sport. Some treat collecting macro subjects on their memory cards like hoarding Mickey Mantle baseball cards. It can lead to some unfortunate encounters, especially with those with video cameras who want to linger with a subject. Have you had a bad experience thanks to an underwater photographer? We want to hear about it. Write to BenDDavison@undercurrent.org, not forgetting to add your town and state.

Fancy Diving the RMS Titanic? Ocean Gate Expeditions runs submersible craft expeditions to the 110-year-old wreck with crews of Titanic historians and research scientists. It will only set you back $250K for the privilege. If you're on a budget, you can watch the company's high-clarity 8k footage on YouTube, including moving images of the debris field. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i194pzJc3fk

Fined for Hitting a Scuba Diver with His Yacht. A Dubai citizen was fined $13,600 after his motor yacht plowed through a group of scuba divers on the surface two years ago, permanently disabling an American man. Local Dubai regulations forbid boats from approaching vessels flying the international diving "A" flag at speeds greater than 2 knots and any closer than 300 yards. We still await prosecution in a similar case near Isla Mujeres, Mexico, in March when a boat from Scuba Cancun ran over and killed two American divers.

Shark Bite in Hawaii. A shark critically injured a 51-year-old French woman snorkeling at Hawaii's Pia Beach Park in Honolulu on September 5. In March, a six-foot Galapagos shark in the same park bit a scuba diver on the foot. Tiger sharks are sneaky, too: Andriana Fragola, a marine biologist, was scuba diving off the coast of Hawaii recently when she was forced to push back an approaching shark whose jaw was gaping open. A shark safety diver, she shared the video with her 29,000 Instagram followers to demonstrate the underwater creatures' unpredictability.

If You Find It Hard to Breathe from Your Regulator, you could be in the initial stage of immersion pulmonary edema (SIPE), a killer of divers. We wrote about it in the September issue of Undercurrent. It's a serious medical condition that can affect the fittest diver if you become susceptible to it. Medical opinion now ascribes SIPE to many unexplained drowning deaths of divers.

What Is It with Cell Phones? iPhones are one of the most common treasures free-diver Clayton Helkenberg finds in British Columbia's rivers and lakes. Last year he recovered 29 cell phones while breath-hold diving; this year, he's found 16. Dropped while taking selfies? Slip out of shirt pockets while bending over? Thrown away when your wife calls to say she's leaving for good?

Call For Underwater Movie Submissions. The International Ocean Film Festival is accepting film submissions for its 20th annual event at the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in San Francisco, CA. The deadline is December 15, 2022. https://filmfreeway.com/IOFF2023

Florida Still Tops in Shark Bites. A Marathon, Florida, man was bitten on the elbow while spearfishing with scuba on September 6. Three other shark bites have been reported in the Keys within the last half-year. On August 13, 10-year-old Jameson Reeder, Jr. lost part of his leg after being bitten at Looe Key while snorkeling with his family. An April 17 bite at the Islamorada sandbar near Whale Harbor left one man with deep lacerations in his leg, while a June 29 bite on Summerland Key sent 35-year-old Lindsay Bruns of Flower Mound, Texas, to the hospital for multiple surgeries to repair her injured leg. Keys Weekly

Divers Prosecuted for Recovering Long-line. It may be the scourge of marine life, but two Florida divers were indicted for larceny after they dragged a long line with about 150 hooks aboard their shark-diving boat. John Moore, Jr., 56, and Tanner Mansell, 29, who were aboard Moore's shark-diving charter vessel in August 2020, reported their activity to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWCC) but are now being prosecuted for their efforts. Read the full story in October's Undercurrent.

Coming up in Future Issues: We have writers on the road in the Galapagos, aboard the Roatan Aggressor, at Wakatobi and Komodo, headed for Socorro, and set for many other dive destinations. Only in Undercurrent do you get a full review by unannounced writers who travel on their own money.

Turks & Caicos Hurricane. Hurricane Fiona with sustained winds of 110mph has traveled across the Caribbean area, with the islands of the Turks & Caicos directly in its path and clipping the southern islands of the Bahamas. Life-threatening flash floods are reported in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. The government of Turks & Caicos was communicating with the British Royal Navy and U.S. Coast Guard. The British Navy patrol vessel HMS Medway arrived on Tuesday night to help with rescue efforts. If you are headed to any of these destinations, check with your operator and accommodation provider first.

Your Trip Reports Are the Lifeblood of Undercurrent. Don't forget to submit a report of your dive trips this year. You can be as hard-hitting or as complimentary as you like, as long as you tell it like it is. That's because other Undercurrent subscribers refer to what you write when deciding where to travel next. So tell all, and we'll publish it. Your report joins more than 10,000 others in our online database (and our annual Travelin' Diver's Chapbook), which is easily searchable. You can even add photos. Divers need information not only about the diving and safety, but also 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.

Ben Davison, editor/publisher
BenDDavison@undercurrent.org