SCUBA News 134

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SCUBA News (ISSN 1476-8011)
Issue 134 - June 2011
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk
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Hello and welcome to SCUBA News. Thank you everyone who recommended where to go diving with children in tow. Your suggestions are given below. If anyone else would like to contribute please do as I'll put everything together on a page on the web site.

I hope you enjoy this issue of SCUBA News, but should you wish to cancel your subscription you can do so at http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/news.html

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

Contents:
- What's new at SCUBA Travel?
- Letters
- Diving with Childcare
- Creature of the Month: Whale Shark
- Diving News from Around the World

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What's New at SCUBA Travel?
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Top 20 Underwater Photos

Of over a thousand underwater photos on the SCUBA Travel site, these are the 20 most viewed. They include a manta ray, turtles, coral, jellyfish and four taken on the wreck of the Thistlegorm.
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/photo.html

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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Letters
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Sardinia, Italy

Can you please recommand a diving center in Caligari (Sardinia). We will be staying in Limone Beach Village.

Thank you
Keiser Aurora

Hawaii

I wonder if you could please give me reference to diving/snorkelling in Hawaii and maybe a link to suitable accommodation close by (any island?)

Kind regards
Lynette Quinn

Please post replies at http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/ or e-mail news@scubatravel.co.uk.

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Diving with Childcare
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On booking a recent diving trip to the Red Sea it proved much more difficult than I had imagined to find diving with childcare for our daughter. For example, the travel agent "Tropical Sky Family Diving" assured me that I could go diving whilst my daughter was in the hotel's kid's club. However, when I checked directly with the hotel and diving companies, I found that the dive operator picked you up at 8.30 but the kid's club didn't start until 9. I finally found some excellent childcare and diving in Dahab.

If you too need some ideas of where to dive with provision for children, here are some of our, and our reader's, recommendations. Always confirm with your hotel and dive operator that childcare will be available during your dives before you book your holiday.

Please get in touch if you have any suggestions of where to go diving with children.

Red Sea

InMo Divers, Dahab
Childcare during dives costs just 8 Euro a dive with InMo Divers. The dives are shore based and your child goes with you to the dive site. Here she and her childminder sit in a Bedouin cafe having a drink (shown in the background of the photo right), or can snorkel in the sea. We went with InMo on our last holiday and were very pleased with the childcare, provided by ex-teacher Osama. It is a very relaxing holiday, which is not always the case when you are trying to organise both children and diving.
http://www.inmodivers.de/

Caribbean and Americas

Cabrits Dive Centre, Dominica
Although not providing childcare themselves, Helen at Cabrits Dive Centre is happy to organise a local baby sitter for you.
http://www.cabritsdive.com/

Gran Porto Real Resort, Mexico
This hotel is in Playa del Carmen. According to one of our readers it is very good and is within easy walking distsnce of the town center which has many Padi diving centres. The hotel has a kid's club open for fully supervised activities from 9 to 6 pm.
http://granportorealhotel.com/

Pacific

Infinity Diving, Thailand
Provide childcare for parents wishing to dive during the day using qualified teachers from the International school, as well as a qualified, English-trained, paediatric nurse - Alexandra Donald - who is married to one of the diving instructors..
http://www.infinitydiving.com/

Yongala Dive, Australia
Located in Alva Beach, Queensland. Operate dive trips to the wreck of the S.S Yongala, which has been voted the top dive site in the world. Yongala Dive have a working relationship with a local Family Day Care company (Burdekin Family Daycare Ayr) who are able to provide child care facilities for Parent Divers. The hours fit with the dive day and its not ridiculously expensive either.
http://www.yongaladive.com.au/

Worldwide Dive and Sail, Philippines
Offer families the opportunity to join the Siren Fleet in the South Visayas, Philippines during the school summer holidays. They have nannies to look after children and activities specially for them, like treasure hunts. The only liveaboard option specifically catering for children that we have come across.
http://worldwidediveandsail.com/special-diving-trips/family-diving-trips.html

Wakatobi Dive Resort, Indonesia
Provide an Indonesian nanny for children between 0 and 4 years old letting you do 3 dives a day if you wish. They have a Kid's Club for ages 5 to 12, and can arrange childcare outside of Kid's Club hours.
http://www.wakatobi.com/kidsclub.html

Note that in some cases the people providing the childcare have no official qualifications. You must of course use your own judgement when assessing with whom to leave your children.

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Creature of the Month: Whale Shark, Rhincodon typus
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The biggest fish in the sea feeds on microscopic plankton. A filter feeder, the Whale Shark's gills are specially modified to act like a sieve. As its teeth are redundant they are minute. It is one of only three sharks who filter feed, the other two being the Basking Shark and the aptly-named Megamouth.

A slow swimmer, the Whale Shark often collides with boats as it swims on the surface where there is most food. It is on the IUCN's Red List as a Vulnerable species. This is one level below endangered. Its life history is poorly understood but it is known to migrate large distances. Populations appear to have been depleted by harpoon fisheries in South East Asia. The rise of dive tourism though, is making the fish more valuable alive than dead.

Whale sharks are found in all tropical and warm seas except the Mediterranean. Ecotourism offering swimming or diving with Whale Sharks has developed in many countries including at Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia, Donsol in the Philippines, Placencia in Belize and Isla Contoy in Mexico. In all these areas, and in other countries like the Maldives, India, Thailand and Malaysia, the Whale Shark is protected.

Further Reading:
The Whale Shark Project: Submit images of your whale shark sightings.
IUCN Red List
Whale Shark Pics

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Diving News From Around the World
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You can display this news, in real-time, on your web site. Just grab our news feed from http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/scuba.xml. For more details see http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/newsfeed.html.

Ningaloo Reef On World Heritage List

UNESCO adds Ningaloo reef in Western Australia to its World Heritage List. One of the longest near-shore reefs in the world, Ningaloo Reef hosts annual whale shark gatherings and is home to numerous marine species including a wealth of turtles.

Google Earth Shows Marine Prey and Predator Interactions

Watching Google Earth over time could show the effects of predator removal, such as through fishing, nearly anywhere on Earth, according to a study on the Great Barrier Reef published this week in Scientific Reports.

Physics of Scuba Diving

A new fun introduction to the mathematics and physics needed to really understand scuba diving. This new book should appeal to divers interested in a deeper understanding than is available in most dive courses.

Californian dolphin gang caught killing porpoises

The first observed cases of "porpicide "in the Pacific also hint at a possible reason for the behaviour - seemingly random acts of violence by bottlenose dolphins on porpoises could be down to sexual frustration among young males.

Fastest sea-level rise in 2 millennia linked to increasing global temperatures

The rate of sea level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years--and has shown a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level. The findings are published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Scientists Warn of Unprecidented Marine Exctinctions

Scientists are warning that marine species are at risk of entering a phase of extinction unprecedented in human history. Looking at a combination of factors - warming oceans, pollution, fishing pressures, etc - they concluded things are much worse than we feared and mass extinctions will occur unless we do something now, like avoiding oil and gas exploration.

House OKs speed-up of Arctic oil/gas permitting

The House of Representatives passed legislation on Wednesday that would speed up approvals for drilling in the Arctic by removing regulatory hurdles that have stymied development of the area's vast oil and gas resources.

Tiny bubbles signal severe impacts to coral reefs worldwide

A new study concludes that ocean acidification, along with increased ocean temperatures, will likely severely reduce the diversity and resilience of coral reef ecosystems within this century.

Cleaner wrasse punish bad behaviour

Male cleaner wrasse punish females with unruly appetites more severely if their crime is more serious - but it's all about staying at the head of the harem.

Jellyfish blooms move food energy from fish to bacteria

Over the last few years reports of jellyfish blooms around the world have been increasing. This is bad news for the marine food web, as the jellyfish are voracious predators of plankton, but are not readily consumed by other predators. New study shows that jellyfish shunt food energy from fish toward bacteria.

Endangered gourmet sea snail could be doomed by increasing ocean acidity

Increasing levels of ocean acidity could spell doom for British Columbia's already beleaguered northern abalone, according to the first study to provide direct experimental evidence that changing sea water chemistry is negatively affecting an endangered species.

EU fishing head wants crackdown on Libya tuna trade

Europe's fisheries chief has called for close monitoring of the trade in bluefin tuna caught in Libyan waters, fearing illegal catches could push the endangered fish closer to extinction amid the chaos of war.

'Library of Fishes' to Feature Thousands of Specimens from Remote Locations

The stories they could tell, these fishes that once swam the ocean deep and are now in jars and bottles. In the 1960s and 70s, Richard Rosenblatt, a marine biologist at California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), set out on field expeditions to remote places to study the fishes of the Pacific Ocean. During trips south to Mexican waters, Rosenblatt and other scientists retrieved hundreds of specimens of various species.

Indonesia and China to Curb Illegal Fishing

Indonesia and China will collaborate to prevent illegal fishing by Chinese fishers in Indonesian waters by coordinating their patrols in the South China Sea.

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