Undercurrent Online Update for Subscribers

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

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July 20, 2023

Sargassum Weed Gets a Second Life. That unsightly sargassum weed washed up on beaches in Florida and throughout the Caribbean is getting a second life in Cozumel. In a first, volunteers built a house using washed-up sargassum by first compressing it into building blocks. With 3350 sargablocs, they built a 494-square-foot home for 95-year-old Cozumel resident Doña Lorenza and her 75-year-old husband, Don Armando. Resistant to tropical storms, sargablocks are expected to last as much as 120 years.

Nailed: Three Chinese tourists were arrested in Thailand in late June for picking up starfish to use when taking selfies and for stepping on Phuket's coral reefs. They could face two years in jail after being charged with violating marine protection laws. Some Thai social media users directed their ire at "ill-disciplined" Chinese tour groups, while others blamed diving instructors for not telling tourists the laws.

Aqualung Flips Ownership Again. Jacques Cousteau started Aqualung and made it a success, and for years it was owned by the French gas supply giant Aire Liquide. In 2015, they sold it to Montagu Private Equity, which milked it dry, leaving it unable to pay its debts. Recently, a French judge decided it should be taken over by its principal lender, MassMutual Financial Group. No doubt they will sell it when a buyer can be found. Meanwhile Aqualung products are available as usual, reports industry insider Darcy Kiernan.

Over-the-Top Reading Glasses. Those of us who only wear specs for reading might be interested in the reading glasses being developed that fit over the front of any diving mask. SeeDeep, the brainchild of two Dutch designers, is seeking crowdfunding to complete production. Designed to fit snugly over any mask yet be easily removed when not required, the spectacles will be available in various positive diopter strengths to help the diver read gauges and get a clear view of critters. Someone will need to invent a new hand signal for divers so that they may ask underwater, "Has anyone seen my glasses?" Pledges start at $75, which only guarantees delivery of the glasses if the company finishes production. See here for details.

Freediving Competitions Getting Too Serious? You know that a sport gets serious when doping becomes a problem, which is why two Croatian competitors at the Bahamas annual Vertical Blue depth competition have been banned. Vitomir Maricic and Petar Klovar were allegedly found to have performance-enhancing drugs in their luggage. Audio documentation revealed that the athletes discussed the drugs in their luggage and those they had taken recently. They were concerned the drugs might still be detectable in their system. And someone was listening.

Tiger Sharks Attack a Film Crew. Following the account of a Russian man being repeatedly attacked and killed by a tiger shark while swimming off a popular beach in Hurghada, Egypt (featured in our mid-June email), a film crew working on the Netflix production of David Attenborough's Our Planet II was attacked by two tiger sharks north of Hawaii. They were attempting to get footage when their inflatables were repeatedly attacked by the 15-foot tiger sharks, which bit huge holes in them. The crew managed to retreat to a nearby beach with what was left of their boats.

Do You Need a Nitrox Certification? With more and more liveaboards and dive centers supplying nitrox as a matter of course, the question has been raised whether you need the certification. The most important aspect of a nitrox course is learning that every gas has a maximum operation depth, including air. So, you should always check what's in your tank and know how to use it, certified or not. Despite what anyone tells you, best get certified.

Boy Returns Camera Found in a Lake. You know how easy it is to lose something tethered to your wrist, and scuba diver Roger Hanson knows only too well after he lost his housed Olympus camera in Lake Perris, Riverside County, CA. As luck would have it, seven-year-old Nathaniel Ramirez spotted it while snorkeling with his mom and was thrilled to return it to its rightful owner after they tracked him down. Hanson rewarded him for his honesty and the owner of Hollywood Divers, Hal Wells, presented the boy with a waterproof housing for his phone.

Double Bubble, Double Trouble? We keep seeing iterations of Spare Air, the emergency breathing cylinder, aimed at unsuspecting swimmers who don't understand the ramifications of breathing compressed air underwater. The latest has combined it with a full-face snorkeling mask, itself subject to suspicion in the deaths of those who suffer CO2 poisoning or immersion pulmonary edema. It's the Lung T-500 sub-mask. Don't let your friends buy one.

Rising Sea Temperatures Threaten Florida’s Coral. Climate scientists say recent weeks have been the hottest worldwide and likely the hottest in the past 100-thousand years. Parts of the world are now underwater while others face sweltering heat, but for oceanside tourist destinations, the effects of climate change threaten both their existence and way of life. The high sea temperatures are causing Florida’s coral reefs to bleach. But hope is placed in those corals that seem to be thriving among the hot turbid water along Florida’s inner waterways and there are now efforts to transplant some of this hardier coral out on the oceanside reefs. Click here to view the article.

The Deepest Breath -- a New Netflix Release. It tells the story of the loss of Stephen Keenan in Dahab’s Blue Hole in 2017. He was the support diver and coach to free-diving record-holder Alessia Zecchini, and successfully went to her rescue but blacked out himself, drowning as a result. The world-record holder Alexey Molchanov commented, “He was the heart of the community.” In 2023 Zecchini broke her own World Record by descending to 358 feet in the Philippines. You may read more about it here.

Does the Boat Track You? You may have an emergency beacon, a surface marker buoy, a bright light, a whistle, or even a flag on a pole, but are you sure your boat will be looking for you if you're missing? Be sure your vessel has a system for checking you both into the water and out again so that there's no prospect of the crew leaving the dive site with you still bobbing at the surface.

All The Back Issues of Undercurrent Newsletter are Now Available Online. If you want to immerse yourself in history, you can read what we were saying about the scuba diving industry from 1975-1993 (and onwards), and it's free for anyone to read. www.undercurrent.org/UCnow/dive_magazine

Undercurrent and Our Family of Subscribers Need Your Reports. Reader reports are your opportunity to tell it as it is. Unedited and unmoderated, your reports can tell other subscribers about your recent experience at a dive resort or on a liveaboard. Tell us both the good and the bad and everything in between. And you can post photos for other divers to view. For more than 40 years (and 10,000 entries), these reports have become essential reading for traveling divers. And don't forget, through our website, you can email any report writer to ask more questions about their trips. File your report at www.undercurrent.org/SubRR.

Ben Davison, editor/publisher
BenDDavison@undercurrent.org