Undercurrent Online Update
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For Subscriber David Denson Whiteside (with username 'dwhitesi' exp: 2024-08-20', at dwhite95815@hotmail.com )
March 16, 2016
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Dive Photo Guide and Wetpixel announced the winners of the 2016 Our World Underwater competition, the “Superbowl” of underwater imaging events. A panel of celebrity judges, including Alice Grainger, Alex Mustard, Amanda Cotton, Berkley White and Keri Wilk, went through thousands of images and videos taken by novice to professional photographers to award $55,000 in prizes to winners representing a dozen countries. You can view the images here.

As we noted in the last issue, the Siren Fleet has been particularly star-crossed, with the cyclone in Fiji driving the Fiji Siren aground and laying her on its side, the sixth major disaster in their fleet in less than seven years. But she has been refloated, the superficial damage repaired, and is back on schedule with divers aboard.

Thousands of blacktip sharks were revealed aggregating off the shore at Palm Beach, Florida in February, in video footage captured by Dr. Stephen Kajiura during his weekly aerial blacktip shark migration survey, which covers the coast from Miami Beach to Jupiter. “It’s so cool,” he said.” “There are literally tens of thousands of sharks a stone’s throw away from our shoreline. You could throw a pebble and literally strike a shark. They are that close.”

We’re already gearing up for the 2017 edition of the Travelin’ Diver’s Chapbook, so we need your reports to make it even better than last year’s. Send us reviews of dive operators, liveaboards, and resorts you’ve dived since November by filling out our online form here. You can also follow the link “File a Report” on the left side of our homepage at www.undercurrent.org Or after logging in, follow the “Reader Report” link in the top navigation bar.

How Palau is using high-tech resources to capture illegal fishing boats . . . Another way to defog a new mask . . . America welcomes Cuba to welcome American divers. . . Deep Stops Unraveled . . . Winners and Losers in photo competitions . . . A Guinness record with Bite! . . Risks to older divers in cold water . . . Travel Agents v the Internet (part 2) . . . and much more.

PADI insists its trainees have a snorkel attached to their masks. It’s useful if you need to make a long surface swim before or after diving. Other divers say it’s better to swim on your back in such circumstances, with your BC inflated. A snorkel only serves to vibrate in a current while diving, causing your mask to leak or, worse, it can become entangled in granny lines or the line of a marker buoy. What do you say? Write and tell us at BenDEditor@undercurrent.org.

With the longest apnea in history, Spanish national Aleix Segura beat all-comers on March 2, setting a new Guinness World Record for static apnea with oxygen of 24 minutes and 3 seconds. The new record was made, with a high level of health insurance and wide media coverage during the 17th Mediterranean Diving in Cornellà, Barcelona, in an indoor heated swimming pool.

Ben Davison, editor/publisher
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