Current Online Updates*
The Latest Dive News   What's this?

Humpback Whale Killed by Australian Ghost Fishing Gear
The Idiocy Continues
Second Fatality on The Key's Vandenberg Wreck in Two Weeks
Want to Own Your Own Dive Resort?
The UK Moves to Make Personal Locator Beams Safer
Russian Spy Buoy Recovered
The Top Five Underwater Photos
The Ongoing Egyptian Red Sea Liveaboard Saga
Solmar V Stiffing Divers?
Your Fellow Divers Need Your Report on Your Last Dive Trip

Humpback Whale Killed by Australian Ghost Fishing Gear.   December 19, 2025

It's not unusual for whales to get hung up in fishing gear and subsequently drown, but when the remains are captured with a photograph, people take notice. On October 15, Ollie Clarke, an award-winning underwater photographer and marine biologist, discovered and photographed a humpback's skeleton off the coast of Western Australia. "It's hard to put into words what it was like diving on this skeleton, surrounded by the echoing calls of singing whales," he wrote on Instagram. "Harrowing, yet strangely beautiful." The whale had become entangled in discarded fishing gear. (BBC Wildlife Magazine)

The Idiocy Continues.   December 19, 2025

First, it was graffiti scrawled on corals in Balicasag, Philippines, in 2023, and more off Pangalao last year. But the bad publicity didn't stop another idiot from carving Just Dive in table coral off Napaling Point, a popular dive site southwest of Bohol. Bohol's governor has ordered the dive site closed while an investigation takes place. The culprit faces fines and imprisonment. PS: With a bit of help from Chat GPT, we learned there is a scuba tour service named Just Dive in Cebu City, 45 miles away, a good place for the investigators to start.

Second Fatality on The Key's Vandenberg Wreck in Two Weeks.   December 19, 2025

We received sad word from long-time Undercurrent correspondent Bill Domb that his 79-year-old wife, Ellen Ruth Domb, went missing on December 5 while diving the 522-foot wreck of the former military missile-tracking vessel, the General Hoyt S Vandenberg. A lengthy search by other divers and the Coast Guard was unsuccessful. The Dombs spent several months on their boat annually diving throughout Florida and the Bahamas, and knew those waters as well as anyone, but the Vandenberg, sunk as an artificial reef 7 miles from Key West, takes its toll. Just two weeks prior, scuba instructor Nicholas Strazzulla, 50, also from Florida, lost consciousness during a dive on the Vandenberg. He was brought to the surface and taken to a medical center, but died later that day. At least nine divers have died while diving the Vandenberg since it was sunk in 2008.

Want to Own Your Own Dive Resort?   December 19, 2025

Fiji's Paradise Taveuni dive resort is for sale. It's one of the best-known in-demand resorts with easy access to Rainbow Reef and the Great White Wall, and the owner, Allan Gortan, is seeking a buyer or additional investors. He's asking $5.5 million, but it's been on the market for a year, so begin with a low-ball offer. If you don't have the cash, try persuading Warren Buffett to get interested in scuba diving. DAN will still insure him. For more info, contact allan@paradiseinfiji.com.

The UK Moves to Make Personal Locator Beams Safer:   December 19, 2025

While in the U.S., the diving industry seems to fight any government intrusion into scuba diving, in the UK, the industry supports government authorities in making diving safer and saving lives. A move is afoot to make PLBs more effective by requiring users to register their devices if they are to be carried on any UK-flagged vessel. Individual registration means that when a PLB is activated, the UK Coast Guard can identify the user and use the data received (such as position and emergency contacts) to support rescue efforts. Furthermore, false alarms from registered PLBs can be identified more efficiently, so the Coast Guard doesn't go on wild goose chases. We think authorities in other geographical regions should take note.

Russian Spy Buoy Recovered:  December 19, 2025

In November, Welsh divers from "Neptune's Army of Rubbish Cleaners," a group of litter-picking divers who usually recover abandoned fishing tackle and the like in the Skomer Marine Conservation Zone, discovered a strange object off Wooltack Point. It was an imploded Russian RGB-1A sonobuoy, an acoustic sensor the Russians use to detect underwater objects such as submarines. After consulting with Royal Navy experts, they reported their discovery to the UK Coast Guard, and it was determined that it was a device typically deployed by Russia's Tu-142M long-range maritime patrol aircraft. The discovery came in the same week British Defence Secretary confirmed the Russian spyship Yantar had been operating on the edge of UK waters.

The Top Five Underwater Photos.   December 19, 2025

The World Shootout underwater photography competition is now two decades old, and the organizers are deciding which of the previous winners rate as the top five photos ever entered. Still, it's not too late to enter your latest and best photo for this year's competition, even now. A photo you might have taken in the last 12 months can be submitted until the end of December. www.worldshootout.org

The Ongoing Egyptian Red Sea Liveaboard Saga:   December 19, 2025

On November 25, the 115-foot, wooden-hulled MY. Seaphoria ran around at Daedelus Reef, a popular but remote Red Sea dive site topped with a lighthouse. The twenty-one passengers and nine crew were transferred to another vessel that was nearby, and the passengers were later accommodated in hotels in Marsa Alam, with no injuries reported. The incident comes only a month after the steel-hulled MY. Royal Evolution ran aground at Abu Dabbab and was later recovered.

Solmar V Stiffing Divers?   December 19, 2025

After the death of a diver in late November, the operators of the veteran liveaboard canceled several weeks of trips to Mexico's Revillagedo Islands, with some divers finding out only after showing up in Cabo San Lucas. Divers report the owners have not responded to emails, have not been promised refunds, but many say they have been ghosted. But, just as we were finishing this email, the Solmar at last sent an explanatory message to clients, saying, "In the coming days, we will provide additional updates, including our anticipated timeline for resuming operations and the process for refunds for the trips that were unfortunately affected.” In the meantime, anyone considering booking a trip on the Solmar V would be wise to wait.

Your Fellow Divers Need Your Report on Your Last Dive Trip.   December 19, 2025

The unedited reports of your and other members' dive trips form an ever-growing resource, with more than 11,000 entries in the Undercurrent database, for other divers who may follow in your fin strokes. By November 31, please share with your fellow divers where you have been diving, conveying both the good and the bad, as well as everything in between. Your reports will brief other subscribers about the dive resorts you've visited and the liveaboards you've taken. Don't hold back. You can post photos too. File your report at www.undercurrent.org/SubRR, and we will include it in the year's Chapbook, which will be sent to you and all readers in December each year. We appreciate your support.

Ben Davison, editor/publisher
BenDDavison@undercurrent.org

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Note: Undercurrent is a registered 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization donating funds to help preserve coral reefs. Our travel writers never announce their purpose, are unknown to the destination, and receive no complimentary services or compensation from the dive operators or resort.

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