SCUBA News 129

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SCUBA News (ISSN 1476-8011)
Issue 129 - January 2010
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk
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A belated Happy New Year from SCUBA News. To start the year we have a guest article by Tab Hauser on some fascinating Cavern diving in Mexico. Plus the results of the Ocean Art Underwater Photo Competition - scroll down to see fabulous photos from some of the winners. Finally we have the diving and marine news from around the world. Top story this month: the closure of dive sites in Thailand to protect her corals.

SCUBA News is published by SCUBA Travel Ltd, the independent guide to diving around the world.

Contents:
- What's new at SCUBA Travel?
- The Dos Ojos Cavern Experience
- Winners Announced in Ocean Art Underwater Photo Competition
- Diving News from Around the World

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What's New at SCUBA Travel?
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Diving Indonesia

We've updated our Indonesian section with new dive site descriptions and dive operators.
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/indonesia/

Diving Greece

We also have more on the dive sites and dive operators of the Greek islands.
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/europe/greece-diving.html

More...

For regular announcements of what's new at the SCUBA Travel site see the Diving Board at
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=2

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The Dos Ojos Cavern Experience
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by Tab Hauser

One of the most amazing dives I have ever done was in the Mayan Riviera near Tulum called Dos Ojos. Dos Ojos (two eyes in Spanish) is a cenote or cavern dive that, to me, comes as close to a cave dive as one can get without the training and the redundancy systems required for that type of technical diving.

Dos Ojos gets its name from two caverns close together but connected by a common area. This natural set up makes for two perfect 45 to 50 minute shallow dives. I said this is as close to cave diving as one can get because there are there are “swim through tunnels” and “rooms” along the trail that are completely closed to any surface air and are completely dark. Most of the other cenotes I dove in Mexico are much more open in which you will swim under ledges and around the rock formations but you still see plenty of light nearby.

The underwater cave system to which Dos Ojos is connected runs about 200 km long making it of the top 5 longest cave systems in the world. While we bottomed out at 29 feet, Dos Ojos has one of the deepest sections in the area going down almost 120 meters or 400 feet.

To dive this cenote you are required to pay a small fee and have a dive master guide you. As safety is paramount here the dive master is allowed no more than 4 divers with him and he must wear two tanks at all times. A year ago I arranged for dive master, Jose Castelazo of Ecodiving Tours to take a four guys to Dos Ojos during our annual “mancation”. I was so impressed with Jose and the cavern that I arranged to take my wife several months later when we were both in the area. Jose runs a class act and is very service oriented. By this I mean he had assistants help load the tanks down the stairs to the cavern pool like opening. From here there is a choice to go left or right for the first dive. All divers are handed out flashlights, given the safety briefing and then follow the guide. The guide on the other hand follows some well laid out lines that are tied or nailed down making the route easier to follow in case someone does get misplaced. As someone who is slightly claustrophobic seeing these well laid out lines gave me some added comfort as to which way to go.

The dives here are shallow and the depths of several to twenty feet change frequently. That means that your ears should be able to adjust easily. You also must have good buoyancy control and remember to weight yourself appropriate for fresh water. This is because you will be swimming over and around boulders and stalagmites while watching not to bump your head on stalactites on ceiling above. I would not recommend this dive for a beginner but to someone who is comfortable with their skills and not afraid of dark or confined areas. This dive is a swim through a series of small and medium size caverns and what seems like short “tunnels” no more than 15 feet (about 5meters) in diameter. Much of the dive you can see some light in the distance. There are several places you that are totally dark except for the light from your group from their flashlights. On my first visit here Jose requested we all turn our flashlights off in one area for a moment just to show us we could not see our hands in front of our masks.

Both times I dove this sight I was in awe of not only of the rock formations but also from the different rooms we were swimming in and through. I can also understand why IMAX and the BBC Planet Earth used this place for their documentaries. While traveling about I always like to visit caves. I have walked in caves in New Zealand, New York, the Mohave Desert, swam though them in Belize. Doing it underwater gives you a 3 dimensional sense of the place. Another words rather than look up from the walkway of a cavern floor to see the features on its ceiling, here you can float up for a fishes eye view. During our dive there were many areas that we were able to follow where the stalactites came from the ceiling. We were also able to follow down to where the stalagmites started on the floor in some cases 10 feet below. In some smaller caverns we swam around pillars where the two had met. During your Dos Ojos dive you will eventually surface at the Bat Cave. This large cavern had a tall ceiling where we saw bats flying about or resting. It is also a place where a small ladder leads to a hole in the ceiling of the cavern allowing a diver to leave if there is a problem or to allow snorkellers to climb down and check out this section. At the end of the second dive Carlos took us to a corner of one of the submerged rooms where a sign is planted in front of a narrow opening showing a skeleton warning of dangers going past if you are not cave certified.

The start and finish of both dives ends up in an area that resembles a pool with a rock outcropping over most of this area. It is here where the snorkellers get to cool off and get a peek at what the place looks like. The fresh water temperature of the cave remains 75F and is very clear. Divers are requested to do a frog kick rather than a flutter kick to keep the sediment on the bottom. Visibility while seemingly unlimited is really only as good as the light available or the distance of the flashlight. While the place can make beautiful photography, it can make for difficult shots unless you have some of the best strobe equipment. The flip side to this type of photography was to keep the flash off and dial my ISO settings a little high to get a more natural look. While the Maya Riviera may be connected to the largest coral reef system in North America, I recommend divers come inland to try the cenotes or caverns for which this area is also famous.

Getting There
The cenotes (and reefs) of the Mayan Riviera can be reached by flying into Cancun airport. Tulum is just under a 90 minute drive from the airport.
Ecodiving Tours, Jose Castelazo www.ecodivingtours.com e: jose@ecodivingtours.com

By Tab Hauser
http://www.tabhauser.com/

For more photos of diving Dos Ojos see http://www.tabhauser.com/DosOjosCavern.htm

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Winners Announced in Ocean Art Underwater Photo Competition
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The Ocean Art Underwater Photo competition, organized by the Underwater Photography Guide, has announced its winners. Judges included professional photographers Martin Edge, Chris Newbert, Marty Snyderman and Bonnie Pelnar. Over $67,000 worth of prizes are being awarded to 77 photographers.

There are 7 winners in each of 11 categories, including Wide-angle, Macro, Portrait, Behavior, Novice, Nudibranchs, Supermacro, Fashion, and 3 Compact Camera categories. Best in show was judged "Crocodile Smile" by Keri Wilki, of a dangerous saltwater crocodile in the Marine Life Portrait category.

Keri also won first prize for his entry in the Macro category

You can see more of the winning photographs at

The Underwater Photography Guide, which organised the competition, is a comprehensive website and community for learning about underwater photography and dive destinations, with over 500 pages of organized tutorials, forums, reviews, articles and workshops.
http://www.uwphotographyguide.com/

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Diving News From Around the World
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Thailand closes Dive sites

Thailand has closed 18 dive sites across seven marine national parks, including the Similan and Surin Islands. Over 80% of the coral at each site had been damaged by unusually warm sea temperatures.

Glowing tentacles and furry pillars: corals we'll miss

Corals cover less than 1 per cent of the ocean floor but they support over one-third of the world's marine life. The Zoological Society of London has drawn up a list of the tropical species we should be most concerned about. The list highlights 10 species vital to our understanding of coral evolution that could help predict the how reefs will respond to climate change.

Are yellow-loving sharks colour-blind?

A new study suggests sharks may be colour-blind - despite decades-old evidence that they are attracted to yellow. But researchers have found that sharks possess only one type of cone cell - the cells within the eye responsible for colour vision - and are unlikely to be able to perceive a multicolour world. Sharks were probably attracted to yellow because it would have had a very high contrast against the surrounding water.

Queensland flood waters threaten Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is threatened as plumes of dirty flood water from the Burdekin, Fitzroy and Burnett rivers expand into the ocean. Underwater visibility has dropped from 50 metres to 1 metre in affected areas. The inundation of silt threatens to clog the delicate corals. The greatest source of coral mortality may come from an explosion in the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish population. Ominously, three previously observed outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish have coincided with large floods in the Burdekin river.

How the seahorse gained its shapely body

It is easy to forget that the seahorse is a fish. With its equine head, potbelly and prehensile tail, it rivals the platypus in its peculiarity. But the seahorse's form is not just for show: its arched neck acts like a spring that stores energy, ensuring it is ready to strike when it spots a meal.

Ammonites' strict diet doomed them to extinction

They ruled the seas for 300 million years and even today are easy to find as fossils, but it's only now that we've discovered what ammonites ate. It turns out these "shelled squid" relied on tiny plankton, an exclusivity that could have condemned them to extinction. If so, their demise may have opened up the seas to modern plankton-feeders like the huge baleen whales.

What triggers mass extinctions?

An influx of invasive species can stop the dominant natural process of new species formation and trigger mass extinction events, according to research results published in the journal PLoS ONE.

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