SCUBA News 100

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SCUBA News (ISSN 1476-8011)
Issue 100 - August 2008
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk
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We are proud to present the 100th issue of SCUBA News. Thank you so much for subscribing, and the contributions and e-mails so many of you have sent since we launched eight years ago. To celebrate we have some SCUBA Travel merchandise to give away: pens, fridge magnets (which we use as beer mats), caps and such stuff. If you would like a freebie just subscribe to SCUBA News and then drop us an e-mail. Any comments about what you like, dislike or would like to see in the newsletter would also be appreciated.

To mark one hundred issues we have the newly updated list of the top 100 dive sites of the world, as voted for at the SCUBA Travel web site.

I hope you enjoy the newsletter, but should you wish to cancel your subscription you may do so at http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/news.html

Contents:
- What's new at SCUBA Travel?
- Top 100 Dive Sites
- Creature of the Month: Barracuda
- Diving News from Around the World

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What's New at SCUBA Travel?
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Maldives Underwater Photos

More photos of the sealife of the Maldives are now in our photo gallery.
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/photomaldives.html

Diving Madagascar

Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world, lies off the southeast coast of Africa. The SCUBA Travel Guide now lists more dive companies on our Madagascar page.
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/madagascar/

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Top 100 Dives of the World
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Here are the top 100 dive sites as voted for by SCUBA Travel visitors. We asked for your top two dive sites and your comments on those that came close. We compiled the results by hand, with the runners-up coming into play where there was a tie for a position. For links to descriptions of the dives go to http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/topdiveslong.html

1. Yongala, Australia
2. Blue Corner Wall, Palau, Micronesia
3. Thistlegorm, Egyptian Red Sea
4. Barracuda Point, Sipadan Island
5. Shark and Yolanda Reef, Egyptian Red Sea
6. Navy Pier, Western Australia
7. Manta Ray Night Dive, Kailua Kona, Hawaii
8. Elphinstone Reef, Egyptian Red Sea
9. Great Blue Hole, Belize
10. Ras Mohammed, Egyptian Red Sea
11. Richelieu Rock, Thailand
12. Sha'ab Rumi South, Sudan
13. Liberty, Bali, Indonesia
14. Great white wall, Tavieuni Fiji
15. Big Brother, Egyptian Red Sea
16. President Coolidge, Vanuatu
17. Sodwana bay, South Africa
18. Blue Hole, Dahab, Egyptian Red Sea
19. Poor Knights, New Zealand
20. Bloody bay wall, Little Cayman
21. Straits of Tiran, Egyptian Red Sea
22. Osprey Reef, Coral Sea, Australia
23. Manta reef, Mozambique
24. Tubbataha, Palawan, Philippines
25. Cod Hole, Northern Great Barrier Reef
26. Ulong Channel, Palau
27. Grand Central Station, Gizo, Solomon Islands
28. Darwin Island, Galapagos
29. Fish Rock, Off South West Rocks in NSW, Australia
30. Similans, Thailand
31. Wolf Island, Galapogos
32. Jackson Reef, Egypt
33. Puerto Galera, Philippines
34. Mnemba Island, Tanzania
35. Stingray City, Grand Cayman
36. Daedalus, Egyptian Red Sea
37. Protea Banks, South Africa
38. The Zenobia, Cyprus
39. Darwin Arch, Galapagos
40. Barra Reef, Mozambique
41. St Johns, Egypt
42. Blue Hole,Gozo, Malta
43. Cirkewwa, Malta
44. Pedras Secas, Noronha, Brazil
45. Holmes Reef, Coral Sea, Australia
46. Shark Alley, Grand Cayman
47. Half Moon Wall, Belize
48. Hin Muang, Thailand
49. Sipadan Drop Off
50. Dos Ojos (Los Cenotes), Playa del Carmen, Mexico
51. Peleliu Express, Palau
52. The Canyons, Utila, Honduras
53. Ghiannis D, Egypt
54. Booroo, Isle of Man
55. Pixie pinnacle and pixie wall, GBR, Australia
56. Wreck of the Bahama Mama, New Providence, Bahamas
57. Canibal Rock, Komodo, Indonesia
58. Gili air, Indonesia
59. The Point, Layang - Layang
60. Rainbow Warrier, New Zealand
61. Aliwal Shoal, South Africa
62. Turtle tavern, Sipadan
63. Los testigos islands, Venezuela
64. Gordon's Rock, Galapagos
65. Perpendicular wall, Christmas Island, Australia
66. Japanese Gardens, Koh Tao, Thailand
67. The Express, Kuredu, Maldives
68. Garuae Pass, Fakarava Island, French Polynesia
69. Blockship Tabarka, Scapa Flow, Orkney
70. Hanging Garden, Sipadan
71. Wakaya Passage,Fiji
72. Santa Rosa Wall, Cozumel, Mexico
73. Toucari Caves, Dominica
74. Joel's, PNG
75. Tiputa Pass, Rangiroa, Polynesia
76. Diamond Rocks, Kilkee, Ireland
77. Fujikawa Maru, Truk Lagoon (Chuuk Lagoon)
78. Sugar Wreck, Grand Bahama Island
79. Umbria, Sudan
80. Office, Mozambique
81. South Point, Sipadan
82. Chios island, Greece
83. Palancanar Bricks, Cozumel, Mexico
84. Bay of Pigs, Cuba
85. Tiputa pass, Rangiroa, New Zealand
86. Fish Factory, Vuna Reef, Taveuni, Fiji
87. Shark Fin Point, Fiji
88. Great Basses reef, Sri Lanka
89. East Timor
90. Cenotes, Playa Del Carmen, Mexico
91. Marbini Padre, Malaysia
92. Eddystone Reef
93. Malpelo Island, Colombia
94. Shark Point, Solomon Islands
95. Molokini Crater Wall, Hawaii
96. Flying Fish Cove, Christmas Island
97. Split rock, Kadavu Isle. Fiji
98. Raja Empat, Papua, Indonesia
99. Amed Wall II, Indonesia
100. Seal rocks, NSW, Australia

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Creature of the Month: Barracuda, Sphyraena sphyraena
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In blue warm water, being circled by a shoal of barracuda makes for an extremely memorable dive. These silvery fish have an unfair reputation for being dangerous to divers. In reality they will not attack a person unless provoked.

Barracuda are unmistakeable fish. They are streamlined with muscular tails for bursts of speed, they have a pointed head and two widely separated fins on their backs. Top-level predators, their large mouths are filled with long, knife-like teeth. Their bottom jaws project forward. A barracuda can attack fish larger than the gape of its jaws. To swallow such large prey they repeatedly bite them and shake their heads resulting in cutting the prey in two. Their scissor-like bite is capable of shearing through the flesh and bone of its prey.

The barracuda in the picture is probably Sphyraena sphyraena - the European Barracuda - which lives in the Mediterranean Sea and thoughout the Eastern Atlantic plus in Brazil and Bemuda. The photo was taken off Ustica in Italy. (Three species of barracuda live in the Med and it is difficult to tell them apart.)

Globally there are 26 species of barracuda living in warm temperate and sub-tropical waters. Recently, with the seas warming, baracuda have been seen in more northerly waters.

The adult European barracuda is generally around 50 cm long, although a specimen has been recorded at 165 cm. The largest barracuda is the Great Barracuda (S. barracuda) at up to 200 cm long.

Barracuda school by day. Living in a group has several possible advantages: it might be that they group where the food is, and the group helps them hunt. It may also give them an advantage against their few predators. Barracuda have been found in the stomachs of tuna and dolphin; sharks may also be a threat. Whatever the reason, a school of barracuda is a treat for divers.

Further Reading and References
Fishes of the Sea, John and Gillian Lythgoe
Fishbase.org
Mar Ecol Prog Ser. Vol. 284: 269–278, 2004
Zoology Volume 111, Issue 1, 17 January 2008, Pages 16-29
Bulletin of Marine Science, 63(3): 633–638, 1998

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Diving News From Around the World
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If you would like to read the diving news as it happens, without waiting for this newsletter, then grab the SCUBA News feed from http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/scuba.xml It's free and automatically updates you with the latest SCUBA news via your web site, e-mail or any news feed reader.

Red Sea in Egypt to be Plastic Bag Free

The Governor of The Underwater Photographer: Digital and Traditional Techniques, by Martin Edge, Paperback, 536 pages (2009)
has decreed that the Red Sea area will be plastic bag free with effect from 1st January 2009. This decree represents a considerable step forward in tackling the issues caused by excess rubbish and in particular plastic bags in the Red Sea. Plastic bags pose a massive hazard to birds, turtles, dolphins and other marine creatures that are killed in alarming numbers each year after swallowing or becoming entangled in plastic bags blown out to sea. Turtles easily mistake plastic bags for tasty jellyfish. Once in the stomach, the indigestible plastic wraps itself around the intestines of the creature and it slowly starves to death.

Divers plunder wrecks in the 'graveyard' of the Atlantic

Divers are plundering the wrecks of vessels sunk during the Second World War in an area known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic". The stretch of seabed off North Carolina and Virginia contains up to 90 wrecks, most lying at relatively shallow depths, offering divers and maritime historians unique opportunities for exploration. However, experts have warned that the wrecks are increasingly being disturbed by divers, some of whom are removing items to keep as souvenirs. Weapons and other artefacts have been looted and divers are even said to have removed the skeleton of a German sailor from a sunken U-boat in the area.

The Shark Handbook

New publication aims to be the "Essential Guide for Understanding and Identifying the Sharks of the World". This field guide contains a complete listing of every known shark in existence as well as some extinct species. It talks about sharks from their birth to death, their anatomy, how to distinguish one shark from the next, how their teeth are developed, how they hunt and attack and their importance and purpose within the ecosystem.

Scientists Use Naval Exercises to Learn More About How Marine Mammals React to Sonar

Using satellite-linked and underwater listening tags to monitor movement and behavior, scientists tagged more than thirty individual marine mammals of four different species. They measured how deep-diving marine mammals feed, interact with one another, dive and respond to sounds in their environment in this pioneering pilot project carried out in conjunction with the Navy's Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2008 exercises.

Making Marine Protected Areas Work for Everyone

The establishment of marine protected areas is often viewed as a conflict between conservation and fishing. A new study in the journal Conservation Biology, shows that involving all the different groups of people affected by the protection zone early in the planning stage will more effectively protect the environment than ignoring detractors concerns.

First sea survey of remote isle

What lies beneath the waters around an island forming Scotland's most remote national nature reserve is to be surveyed for the first time. Divers will investigate kelp seaweed forests and sea caves used by grey seals at North Rona, 47 miles north of the Butt of Lewis in the Western Isles.

Researchers find cancer-inhibiting compound under the sea

University of Florida College of Pharmacy researchers have discovered a marine compound off the coast of Key Largo that inhibits cancer cell growth in laboratory tests, a finding they hope will fuel the development of new drugs to better battle the disease. The UF-patented compound, largazole, is derived from cyanobacteria that grow on coral reefs.

Robot Vehicle Surveys Deep Sea Off Pacific Northwest

The first scientific mission with Sentry, a newly developed robot capable of diving as deep as 5,000 meters (3.1 miles) into the ocean, has been successfully completed by scientists and engineers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of Washington (UW). The vehicle surveyed and helped pinpoint several proposed deep-water sites for seafloor instruments that will be deployed in the National Science Foundation's planned Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI).

Randy male fish try to dupe the competition

Atlantic molly fish go for less fertile females if another male is present, in a bid to trick the other male into choosing a poorer-quality mate.

U.S. coral reefs under threat, report finds

Half of U.S. coral reefs are in poor or fair condition, threatened by climate change and human activities like sports fishing, shipping and the release of untreated sewage, a U.S. government report has said. Reefs in the Caribbean, in particular, are under severe assault and coral in the U.S. Virgin Islands and off Puerto Rico had not recovered from 2005, when unusually warm waters that led to massive bleaching and disease killed up to 90 percent of the marine organisms on some reefs.

Archaeology Underwater: The NAS Guide to Principles and Practice

New book provides a comprehensive summary of the archaeological process as applied in an underwater context. Containing extensive practical advice and information, including how to get involved, basic principles, essential techniques and approaches, project planning and execution, publishing and presenting, this book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in nautical archaeology. With "Underwater Archaeology" the Nautical Archaeology Society reveals the real underwater treasure - a rich cultural heritage that has helped shape the world in which we live.

Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone Could Reach Record Size

The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico could reach a new record size this year. The discharge of pollutants and nutrients from the Mississippi River causes algae to bloom in the Gulf of Mexico. When the algae dies, the decaying absorbs so much oxygen from the water that large areas become inhospitable to fish. The resulting lifeless area is called a eutrophic or hypoxic zone, or more colloquially, a dead zone. The condition is cyclic, and reaches its maximum in late summer.

New Coral Bleaching Prediction System Indicates Some Bleaching In Caribbean This Year

A new NOAA coral bleaching prediction system indicates that there will be some bleaching in the Caribbean later this year, but the event will probably not be severe.

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