Flotsam & Jetsam

Saba, St. Eustatius, and Bonaire to End Single-Use Plastic. The islands of the Netherlands' Antilles have agreed to end single-use plastic no later than 2021. They signed an agreement with State Secretary Stientje van Veldhoven during her recent visit after she was motivated by the picture of a turtle with a straw jammed in its nose. What kind of picture is required to motivate world leaders to get on the bandwagon? Use your imagination.

Good Out of Bad. Hurricanes devastated the British Virgin Islands in 2017, but non-profit Beyond The Reef has started turning debris into dive sites. Sharkplaneo is half-plane and half-shark and has been constructed from three derelict aircraft, turned into a bull shark, a hammerhead and a blacktip reef shark. They have turned The Willy T floating bar into an underwater pirate ship off Norman Island. Beyond The Reef asks visiting divers to purchase a souvenir ticket of $5 with proceeds going toward teaching local kids to swim. www.bvitourism.com   www.theartsshelf.com

More Records for More Divers. Initiated by the Indonesian Women Diving Organization, 578 divers formed a chain underwater in Manado to break one Guinness world record; a second was broken when 3,131 divers, both Indonesian and foreign, were under the water simultaneously at 8.50 a.m. on August 3. Now, if only those 3,131 used the rest of the day to clean up plastic from the ocean, we would have something worthwhile to write about.

Jordan Creates an Artificial Reef. In a bid to attract divers to its limited stretch of Red Sea coastline, Jordan has created an artificial reef near Aqaba from 19 obsolete battle tanks, armored troop carriers and even a helicopter and a Tri-Star airliner. You can fly to Aqaba (near the spectacular rock city of Petra, featured in Indiana Jones mov- ies) via Amman . Suggested dive centers are Deep Blue Dive Center deepbluedivecenter.com and Diverse Divers diverse-divers.com.

Money Left Over from your Foreign Dive Trips? Impoverished children around the world could use your help. Mail it to UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund), which puts it directly toward saving and improving the lives of millions of children worldwide. Stick your bills in an envelope with your name and address and mail to UNICEF USA, ATTN: Change for Good Program, 125 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038.

Be Careful To Whom You Give the OK Signal! The word on the street is that the hand signal we divers use to communicate we are OK has been adopted as a secret sign of recognition between white supremacists. Better use the thumbs-up when not under water. It might save an altercation.

The Circle of Heroes. Twelve life-size concrete statues representing veterans from each of the five service branches, arranged in a 100-foot circle, have been placed 10 miles off the coast of Dunedin Beach, FL. It was the brainchild of Heyward Matthews, a professor of oceanography at St. Petersburg College. Another dozen are planned for 2020.

Turks and Caicos Reefs In Trouble. The T&C Reef Fund (TCRF) is requesting urgent assistance from coral reef users and the general public in controlling the spread of stony coral tissue-loss disease Believed to be caused by a bacterial patho-gen, it can be spread by direct contact with divers Some dive operators are clearing away diseased and infected coral heads, but this probably spreads the disease Anyone wishing to donate or assist the TCRF in any way can contact them through its web-site: www.TCReef.org

Mind Your Language. British scuba diving instructor, Les Bragg, 41, could have used this advice while traveling from the Philippines and connecting with a flight in Oman. You see, he swore while in transit in Muscat, after discovering his connecting flight to London was delayed. It's considered an obscene act in that country, and he landed in jail after signing a confession written in Arabic. A lawyer requested $25,000 to cover the costs of getting him released.

Another Diving Pioneer Bows Out. Ron Kipp, who left a job with IBM to buy diving pioneer Bob Soto's Cayman Island business in 1980, has died, aged 79, after a long illness. He was inducted into the International Scuba Diving Hall of fame in 2012. According to Suzy Soto, he continued to promote and market the Cayman Islands as the diving capital of the world.

Roll It, Don't Fold It. Avoid folding a neoprene wetsuit when packing to travel -- creases so formed can damage the integral bubbles of the neoprene. Better to roll it up starting at the end of the legs, wrapping the arms over the neatly formed bundle. For long-term storage, rinse it in fresh water and hang it from a suit hanger in a well-ventilated place; protected from any rodent activity that might be found in a garage or yard.