Undercurrent Online Update
for Subscribers

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

October 22, 2018

Home | Login | Forgot Password? | My Account | FAQ

Finding Charlie

Diver Vince Tenchavez, 34, was infuriated when he discovered somebody had vandalized two live corals in the Bauan marine sanctuary in Batangas, Philippines. They had carefully engraved a name and date on them. At 130 feet deep, it could only have been done by a scuba diver. Around five feet across, the word “Charlie” had been carefully and freshly inscribed, but Tenchavez could find nobody with that name on the guest lists of the local dive centers.

Join a Cocos Island Hammerheads Tagging Expedition

Turtle Island Restoration Network is once again making expeditions to the biodiverse hot spot of Cocos Island with the next due on December 7 (returning on Dec. 17). In addition to tagging hammerheads, they will also be using new techniques to tag and capture photos of tiger sharks to better understand their behavior in light of recent close encounters with divers. They especially seek divers who wish to help with photographic identification of sharks. As a volunteer providing time and services to a non-profit scientific research expedition, some expenses and costs of the trip may be tax deductible. https://seaturtles.org/cocos/

Others Want to Read About Your Trips

We’re gearing up for the 2019 edition of the Travelin’ Diver's Chapbook, so we need your reports to make it as chock-full as we can. So send us reviews of dive operators, liveaboards and resorts you’ve dived with this year by filling out our online form here. You can also follow links on our Members Home page or in the navigation bar under Trip Planning, choose Submit Report. Please send us your reports ASAP, and thanks for helping us keep up-to-date with both the great and the not-so-great dive travel experiences out there.

Oxybenzone Kills Coral

Yet Tropical Seas continues to produce and sell a sunscreen for scuba divers loaded with oxybenzone, citing discredited science to support its false claim that their special formulation is harmless. Scuba stores should not be carrying their misnamed “Reef Safe” sunscreen, the wholesaler Trident should not be touting it on its home page, and divers should not be using it. If you want to read the full story, click here.

Bahamas - Walker’s Cay To Re-Open

It’s the site of the famous chumsicle reef shark dives of the ‘90s and later for its bull shark beach where bull sharks aggregated in shallow water and shark behaviorist Dr. Erik Ritter famously got badly bitten in front of TV cameras. The resort on the northernmost island in the Abaco chain, a little more than 100 miles from West Palm, is set to re-open, thanks to new owners Carl and Gigi Allen. Deserted and abandoned after two successive hurricanes in 2004, the hotel building and marina will be replaced. Hopefully, scuba diving will be reinstated too.

For a Few Dollars More

Outside of the American sphere of influence, DIN-fitting tanks are becoming the norm, which could be a problem for those of us with International A-clamp-fitting (yoke) regulators. Most foreign dive centers provide a screw-in insert that solves the problem but some can be battered, so wise traveling divers take their own. For a few dollars, this little item in your bag can save you a lot of grief. Consult your local dive store.

Travel Advisory

There appears to be a dress code on Saudi Airlines. This was discovered by Jordan Bishop, founder of corporate flights concierge Yore Oyster when he attempted to board a Saudia aircraft in Jakarta wearing short pants. He was traveling via Riyadh to Istanbul. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also requires all women to wear a long garment to cover their clothes in public. Casually dressed traveling divers should be warned.

A New Wreck at Truk

September 28. An Air Niugini Boeing 737 airplane missed the runway at Chuuk while trying to land and ended up in Truk Lagoon, site of the world’s most famous WW2 wreck-diving. Initial news reports say between 40 and 50 people were on board. All the passengers, mainly locals and visiting divers, survived but the aircraft eventually sank.

Coming Soon in Undercurrent

Sunset House in Grand Cayman . . . Don’t bust your ears . . . Where Californian Great Whites go in winter . . . The crazy things you’ve witnessed while diving . . . Why underwater statues are unwelcome in the Maldives . . . How to get the best out of horizontal ocean currents . . . Fiji shark news . . . More reasons why divers die . . . Plug in and play fire-fighter? . . . What happened when a turtle swallowed an eel . . . and much, much more.

Thanks for being a loyal subscriber.

Ben Davison, editor/publisher
Contact Ben