Flotsam & Jetsam

Marine Scientist Injured by Shark in Costa Rica. For a brief second, a shark wrapped its mouth around the head of 48-year-old Mexican marine biologist Dr Mauricio Hoyos, who was tagging sharks off the remote Cocos Island marine reserve. It occurred on September 27 at the Dirty Rock site (Roca Sucia). Hoyos suffered injuries to his scalp and the left side of his face as well as damage to his air hoses. He made an emergency ascent. The site is best known for hammerhead and marble ray sightings. The crew controlled the bleeding and stabilized him for the 340-mile, 36-hour journey back to Puntarenas. Hoyos was reported to be in stable condition and good spirits. The last fatal incident at Cocos was in 2017, when U.S. scuba diver Rohina Bhandari died in a tiger shark encounter.

Michael Menduno has Passed: Menduno, 73, founded and published aquaCORPS Magazine in the early 1990s. Based in Florida, it was a niche publication devoted to technical diving at a time when a few pioneers like Bill Stone, Dick Rutkowski, Dr Bill Hamilton, Tom Mount, and Billy Deans were finding ways to dive deeper for longer. In fact, Menduno (AKA M2) coined the phrase "technical diving." In the days when the mainstream considered nitrox as a "devil gas " and tri-mix dives were done in secret, there were many fatalities, and Menduno felt the need for a medium to cross-fertilize ideas. He was later instrumental in organizing events such as Tek, EUROTek, and ASIATek and early rebreather forums. After a hiatus, he returned to the diving media recently with the online magazine InDEPTH.

Scuba Heist in Florida: On September 15, a scuba-kit-clad man swam up to the Disney Springs Paddlefish floating restaurant after it closed for the night, doffed his gear, tied up two employees, painted over security cameras, and strapped his gear back on. He escaped by swimming underwater across the Disney Springs lake, toting up to $20,000 in stolen cash. It brings a new meaning to money laundering.

What Killed More Than Five Billion Sea Stars? Scientists have discovered the bacteria that caused the massacre of sea stars and shellfish off the Pacific coast of North America in what has been a decade-long epidemic that devastated more than 20 species and continues today. According to a study published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, researchers can determine which sea stars are still healthy and consider whether to relocate them or breed them in captivity to later transplant them to areas that have lost most. Such recovery work is not only crucial for sea stars, but for entire Pacific ecosystems because healthy starfish gobble up excess sea urchins which destroy kelp. One side effect of the imbalance is that abalone have nearly disappeared.

Truk Lagoon Oil Leak Emergency: The wreck of the Rio de Janeiro Maru, sunk in Operation Hailstorm in 1944 in Chuuk Lagoon, has started to leak oil. Divers from the liveaboard Odyssey spotted a large plume rising from the wreck and forming an oil slick spreading towards the islands of Panitwi, Nukanap, and Sopota. The Chuukese government declared a state of emergency and requested help from both Japan and the U.S. Although the WWII wrecks are a Mecca for wreck divers, the deteriorating sunken vessels contain thousands of tons of fuel oil, threatening the food security for locals in the future.

A Bite-Resistant Wetsuit? While shark bites are uncommon, scientists at Flinders University have been working with materials to produce a shark-bite-resistant wetsuit. They tested four bite-resistant materials by covering a board that replicated the density of human muscle tissue, then made 19 boat trips to bait white and tiger sharks to coax them to bite. They examined the board to assess the severity of any puncturing or shredding damage caused by the bites. The study showed that bite-resistant materials incorporated into wetsuits could reduce damage from sharks of more than 10 feet long compared to standard neoprene, which doesn't surprise us since standard wetsuit material appears to offer no protection whatsoever.

An Eerie Light Forewarns of Future Problems: The ocean used to be a dumping ground in an 'out-of-sight, out-of-mind' philosophy, but what's been dumped is coming back to bite. A few miles off Los Angeles, the ocean floor holds a toxic legacy, with hundreds of dumped barrels emitting an eerie glow. A study published by Pnas Nexas reveals they are more dangerous than thought: nobody knows what's inside them. Thousands of these barrels were dumped between 1930 and 1970 by companies working with radioactive materials, petroleum, DDT, and other chemical waste. Using a remote-controlled submersible, scientists from a Los Angeles Times investigation found that the closer they approached some decaying barrels, the fewer microbes were present. Whatever is inside is so toxic that it kills off nearly all surrounding life. Nobody is sure what causes the glow.

Fishing Reprieve for Marine National Monuments: Despite the Presidential proclamation by Donald Trump, waiving the fishing restrictions within the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, on April 17, a Federal Court reversed the proclamation and ruled that commercial fishing must cease. Barack Obama originally proclaimed the protection in 2014. Vociferous opposition by ocean advocacy groups had no effect when the National Marine Fisheries Service issued an April 25 letter authorizing Trump's commercial fishing proclamation in the waters between 50 and 200 nautical miles around Johnston Atoll, Jarvis, and Wake Islands, but the Federal District Court in Honolulu canceled the letter.

Scuba Safety This Century and Last: In a new study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research & Public Health, leading Australian diving medical expert Dr. John Lippmann has analyzed and contrasted the scuba-diving fatalities that occurred in Australia in the last quarter of the 20th century with those from the first quarter of the 21st century, and has nailed down what has changed. He found that among the 21st-century incidents, 12 percent of divers had set out solo, 27 percent were with a buddy when they died, and 40 percent had separated from them before and 15 percent during the fatal incident. The main predisposing factors in deaths during the earlier period were inexperience, poor planning, equipment failure, and poor health. The most significant change between the two periods was this century's decrease in health-related factors, predominantly due to better diet and more exercise.

Did Your Car Go Missing? During the first days of September, the Chicago police, following up on the cold case of Edward and Stephania Andrews, who went missing in their 1969 Oldsmobile after a cocktail party in downtown Chicago in 1970, searched the Chicago River, aided by members of Chaos Divers. They were surprised to find 97 other submerged cars during their dives, but none was the 1969 Oldsmobile linked to the missing couple.