Australia dives called off over weekend

Fourty scuba divers had their dives cancelled this weekend. Glenelg Scuba Diving operator Dereke Randall suspended the dives not only out of concern for his divers but also as a mark of respect to Jarrod Stehbens who was killed last week by a Great White.

Randall who takes divers to Glenelg tyre reef where Stehbens was taken, said some divers were disappointed.

The search continued this weekend for Stehbens, but police reported Sunday that nothing was found along the Glenelg beaches.

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Australian diver killed by shark

An Australian cuttlefish research diver was presumably killed today by a "large shark" near Glenelg Beach, off the coast of Adelaide. The diver and his research partner were in the water when two colleagues on the boat saw a shark approach. The men on the boat were able to get one diver out of the water, but the shark used its snout to push the other diver back into the water.

A search was launched after the attack, but only an oxygen tank and a buoyancy vest were found.

Glenelg Beach is near West Beach, the location were Nick Peterson was fatally attacked by a great white while surfboarding.

The traumatized crew were not able to identify the shark but it is presumably a bronze whaler or a great white.

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Dive insurance options

Your instructors probably beat you over the head with the fact you need dive insurance on a trip or you could be out at LEAST $10,000.......or more. Divester has a helpful post with a comment from one of their regular contributors which gives a little insight on some dive insurance options.......might help you narrow your dive insurance search.

Coral invades Gulf of Mexico's reefs

Non-native orange cup coral is colonizing oil and gas platforms near the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary located 110 miles of the Texas coast. The invasive coral could be a large threat to the Gulf of Mexico's only true coral reef.

The coral, native to the Pacific Ocean, was discovered in 1992 when a diver took a photograph of it. Now the platforms contain huge colonies of orange cup coral.

Texas Parks and Wildlife is considering moving the platforms out of the area to protect the Flower Gardens and Stetson Bank if necessary.

NOAA rated the Flower Gardens as one of the healthiest reefs in the U.S. territories as well as the Pacific despite the threatening coral and other pollutants.

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Galveston sees second shark attack this summer

When Julian Elizondo first felt the tug at his foot Friday night in knee deep water along Crystal Beach, he thought his friend was kidding around. When he couldn't pull away he realized it wasn't a joke. The shark let go after Elizondo knocked it in the head.

The 12-year-old is listed in fair condition at University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston after surgery to repair his foot and ankle.

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Shadow Divers' Kurson Q&A

Divester's Erik Olsen has ranted and raved about Shadow Divers and while I have yet to read it (it's on my to-do list--I'm a busy girl), I was glued to CDNN's Q&A with the book's author, Robert Kurson. Now I have to read the book.

The Q&A tells what moved Kurson to write about John Chatterton and Richie Kohler's six year quest for a sunken German submarine, a World War II U-boat found 230 feet deep 60 miles off the New Jersey coast. What resonated with me the most was what Chatterton and Kohler told Kurson about the driving force for making these dangerous dives:

"They... had to do this or they would die inside. It was preferable for them to die physically than for them to die inside, the way they would have if they'd turned their backs on this mystery."

I understand how death inside your soul can be more painful than physical death. It's the passion that drives us all. It's the reason the rock climber's sweaty palm reaches for the unknown crevice, the reason the free diver feels the need to go just a few feet deeper, the reason the poker player might mistakingly go all in on the possibility that the turn could send him to glory.......It's the reason I swim just a little closer to that reef shark and the very same reason I left behind the life of timelines and a career that provided the "sensible safety net". Perhaps one of the simplest reasons I dive is to prevent that death of the soul.......

Yes....I have to read the book.....And you should at the very least read this Q&A.

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Diver's insurer refuses $70,000 medical bill

Aside from death, getting bent and needing expensive treatment in a decompression chamber has to be the worst fear. I am sure there are tons of divers out there who dive without dive insurance......I hate to say I have been one of them. But what if you were cautious, played by the rules, got your insurance, followed the proper dive profile and still got bent? What if your insurance company refused to pay your bill? This is what happened when British diver, Anthony Allen, suffered major "Type II" decompression illness after diving 160 feet in Marsa Alam in the Egyption Red Sea. The insurer, LloydsTSB, rejected the claim saying Allen exceeded the 100 foot depth limit imposed by his policy despite Egypt citing dehydration as the cause of DCI.

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Dive Van Phong Bay Vietnam

You'll be seeing a lot of these....additions to my wishlist of diving destinations. I have to admit while I have heard Vietnam has some good diving, this article made my gypsy soul moan. The article boasts about Van Phong Bay is one the world's deepest bays and the United Nations talks it up as Asia's top eco-tourism destinations. The best part a gypsy can't resist? So far, minus a fishing village here or there, Van Phong remains rather remote.......sounds like one of those destinations you might want to keep all to yourself!

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Where will you dive next?

It's a big blue world out there and Big Blue Planet can help divers find their next perfect dive spot or let others in on their own favorite places. Divers can geographically search to seek out their next submersible adventure and learn about the location from an in-depth description written by divers. This nifty dive searching tool offers the traveling diver everything from general location information (language, travel warnings, etc), water climate, to monthly marine sightings made by other divers. Launched in May with 257 preloaded dive locations the site does allow divers and dive centers to add reviews and content making what can be an interesting interactive tool for other scuba gypsies out there.

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DECO to rescue a “moron”

As I approach my Dive Master Certification, this post on Scuba Board.com caught my attention. It is a tale told by a divemaster in Palau who descended below the dive group to retrieve a diver in their group. The diver not only strayed from the group, but strayed 251 feet deeper than the rest causing the two to go into DECO. The divemaster told the poster that he doesn’t know whether he would go after a diver like that again. What about you?

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Tsunami: Stories from below

Imagine being on your first “big money dive” of the day when a current sucks you down to 120 feet and the blue waters become a “milky stirred-up miso soup”. This what happened to two Californian divers as the tsunami hit Koh Phi Phi Island last year. The two claim they owe their lives to diving. Had they stayed ashore that day they would have been crushed by the 150 mph waves that hit the beach or would have been wiped out along with their hotel. Scuba Diving magazine features an article of tsunami survivors, most of who were diving at the time the catastrophe hit. With the exception of a divemaster, most were infrequent or new divers during the whipping surge the divers experienced along Thailand’s reefs. Many of the divers weren’t aware of what was happening a mile or so inland until they returned to the docks later in the afternoon only to find debris and bodies floating in the water.

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Deco Chic has surfaced

OK so if anyone is still out there......I haven't been lost at sea.......I have had countless Internet connection problems I blame it on SBC so I have moved on over to Comcast......not convinced that Comcast will be any better, but hey I am back on line. What have you been doing lately? Any cool dives to talk up? Don't be shy! I am still on tilt from Hurricane Emily destroying my Cozumel trip..........so for the time being I have to vicariously submerge through your experiences.

A place where you can really get away

Stuck in the middle of the South Pacific between Hawaii and New Zealand, Tokelau takes twenty-eight hours by boat. Now that is what you call remote! The mini-country has a handful of vehicles and 1600 residents which overshadows the 8000 Tokelauans who live 500k south in New Zealand, Australia, and Samoa. Currently governed by its nearest neighbor, New Zealand, Tokelau's inhabitants are seeking to self govern themselves in free association with New Zealand.

The island's three main coral atoll's spread across 168 km of ocean. None of the 128 islets are more than 200 meters wide or more than 5 meters above sea level. There HAS to be great diving there......I am drooling as I type (can't be good for the Mac). Traveling to and from might be a challenge, but if the return trip seemed too difficult, then why return to reality at all? hmmmmm.........

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Scuba Diving's photog of the week

As a photographer part of my own learning experience is sitting at Barnes and Nobles browsing through photography books. I look at lighting, angles, try to figure out which lense they used, etc. My quest for successful underwater photos is no different. Before heading to work this morning, I was browsing Scuba Diving Magazine's website. In their photography category they feature their photographer of the week. Awesome! Now I can hang out at home with my cup of Joe and not only wonder about the technical aspect of each shot, but read how they photogs did it. This week you can see Brazilian Technical Diver Fabio Amorim's photos. Each photo tells the dive site where the photo was shot, camera and settings used, and the photographers own description of the photo. Sometimes the photogs description is almost as important as the camera setting information. For this photo on the right, Amorim said that once he heard about the dive site he started thinking about how he would get the shot. While underwater photography is completely different from shooting on land, the approach to a good photo isn't. Amorim obviously plans out his shots quite well. Beautiful work!