Current Online Updates*
The Latest Dive News   What's this?

Whale Pestering Is Getting Common
Squid Fishing Techniques
Grenada Gets a Second Underwater Sculpture Park
The Most Dangerous Thing You Meet is Your Boat
Sharks To the Rescue
Five Divers Left Adrift in Hawaii
More About the Linnea Mills Tragedy
Paradise Taveuni Resort
Apple Air Tag Update
Last Call to Submit Your Travel Report

Whale Pestering Is Getting Common.   November 21, 2024

After we reported that unfortunate interaction between a snorkeler and a whale in Tonga in our mid-October email, we received emails from some who said he wasn't riding the tail; the whale flipped his tail and caught the snorkeler off guard. But should he have been so close? Since then, we have seen a video allegedly made in Mauritius and posted on social media that indicates that whale pestering is becoming a worldwide phenomenon. Isn't it time local authorities enforced the rules about whale watching? Or is the tourist dollar far more important? In the case of sperm whales, the need to rest on the surface between deep-water hunts is well respected by whale divers in Dominica.

Squid Fishing Techniques.  November 21, 2024

Humboldt squids have a mythical reputation for being "cannibalistic, voracious, and monstrous," the Schmidt Ocean Institute reports. They are known in the Eastern Pacific as red devils due to "the red and white flashing they exhibit when captured," experts say. Researchers have observed them slipping up to an oblivious fish before launching a barrage of tentacles like harpoons. The prey fish is pulled towards certain doom, but the squid releases it if it has very rough skin, like a small dogfish or catshark. Read more here.

Grenada Gets a Second Underwater Sculpture Park.   November 21, 2024

The first set of underwater sculptures by Jason deCaires Taylor was so successful that the Grenada Tourism Authority allowed him to establish a second called ‘World Adrift,’ this time in Carriacou. It features a fleet of 30 small boats, each designed to resemble a paper origami and helmed by a school child. The sculptures are constructed of high-grade stainless steel and pH-neutral cement and will lie 16 to 26 feet beneath the surface. Carriacou, Grenada's sister island, was hit hard by Hurricane Beryl in July. Hopefully this will help attract swarms of new divers.

The Most Dangerous Thing You Meet is Your Boat.   November 21, 2024

Jenna Chan, a 15-year-old student from Singapore visiting the Maldives to take part in a school whale shark research project, has died after being struck by a boat propeller at the marine park in South Ari Atoll. She and her group had just entered the water on snorkels on November 8. (Straits Times)

Sharks To the Rescue.   November 21, 2024

Native to the temperate sea off Australia's south-east coast in New South Wales, long-spined sea urchins (Centrostephanus rodgersii) have been responding to ocean warming by spreading south into the waters off Victoria and Tasmania, and it's becoming a problem. Undeterred by the spikiness of such a meal, some Port Jackson and Horned sharks find nothing more irresistible than chowing down on a sea urchin snack -- and researchers at Australia's University of Newcastle reckon their discovery could prove vital in saving kelp forests from mass urchin depredation. It was previously thought that rock lobsters were the urchins' primary predators. While it is already established that kelp habitats can be boosted by protecting or reinstating urchin predators, scientists now think conservationists might have been backing the wrong predator. (divernet.com)

Five Divers Left Adrift in Hawaii.  November 21, 2024

Left drifting for some hours, five divers were encountered, clinging to one another, off Hanauma on the big island by a couple in a sailing boat on November 11. One diver was reported as unwell and unable to climb the sailboat ladder. The Coast Guard was called, but just as its helicopter arrived, Aaron's Dive Shop's dive boat, Honey Ann, turned up and took their divers back on board. Aaron's Dive Shop says it's reviewing operations. More in the January issue. (Hawaii News Now)

More About the Linnea Mills Tragedy.   November 21, 2024

We have reported on the tragic and unnecessary death of teenager Linnea Mills during a PADI diving course in a freezing-cold Montana alpine lake (Undercurrent July 2021). Not only was she very over-weighted, had no direct-feed hose to her untried second-hand drysuit, and was left in the water unsupervised, but it’s also been determined that the last five inches of her dry zipper could not be closed, so she had no thermal protection whatsoever! The suit would have flooded the moment she entered the water so that the person who failed to close her cross-shoulder zip for her might be complicit in her death.

Paradise Taveuni Resort.   November 21, 2024

The popular dive resort is seeking additional investors. You can contact the owner, Allan Gortan, at (679) 778 0125 or Allan@ParadiseinFiji.com . You can read our January 2024 review here.

Apple Air Tag Update.  November 21, 2024

These little devices are essential for tracking your luggage. If you land in Panama City, FL, without your luggage, the air tag will let you know if it went to Panama City, Panama instead. These helpful devices have been upgraded to allow third-party tracking, so if your bags fail to arrive at their intended destination, you can give a third-party access to tracking information, allowing airports and airlines to look for your lost bags in real-time.

Last Call to Submit Your Travel Report:  November 21, 2024

Independent Readers' Reports are the lifeblood of Undercurrent. They are essential reading for anyone booking a dive trip and are an opportunity to tell everyone about the trip you experienced. You can tell both the good and the bad and everything in between. Unedited and unmoderated, your reports will brief other subscribers about dive resorts you've visited and liveaboards you have taken. Don't hold back. More than 11,000 entries have now become essential reading for traveling divers. You can post photos too. It's easy to post a report of your last dive trip. Your fellow divers will be thankful. File your report at www.undercurrent.org/SubRR, and we will also include it in this year's Chapbook, which will be sent to readers in early December.

Ben Davison, editor/publisher
BenDDavison@undercurrent.org

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Note: Undercurrent is a registered 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization donating funds to help preserve coral reefs. Our travel writers never announce their purpose, are unknown to the destination, and receive no complimentary services or compensation from the dive operators or resort.

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