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SCUBA News 50

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SCUBA News (ISSN 1476-8011)
Issue 50 -  June 2004
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome to the 50th edition of SCUBA News.  We hope you 
enjoy it whether you've been with us for 50 issues or or 
just this one.  If you have any suggestions for the 
newsletter or the web site, or want to tell us about 
a diving destination or dive operator, then either 
e-mail news@scubatravel.co.uk or fill in the form at 
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/recommend.html

Should you wish to cancel your subscription you can do 
so at 
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/news.html

Contents:
- What's new at SCUBA Travel?
- Letters
- Palau - the best diving in the world?
- Creature of the Month: Soft Coral
- Diving News from Around the World 
__________________________________________________________

What's New at SCUBA Travel?
===========================

Photo Gallery
  For Wreck divers: new photos of the Fenella Ann, 
  a scallop trawler that sank off the Isle of Man in 
  November 2002.  If you prefer warm water marine life 
  then see our page of clownfish photos.  These attractive 
  little fish were the subject of our "Creature of the 
  Month" feature in June last year. We now have a page 
  dedicated to their picturess, mostly taken in the 
  Egyptian Red Sea.  Finally, there are more photos in 
  our Red Sea Coral room.
  Wreck - http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/photo4.html
  Clownfish - http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/photoclown.html
  Coral - http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/photo5.html

Diving Destinations - UAE, Bonaire, Egypt and the Coral Sea
  Snoopy Island, in the United Arab Emirates is perfect 
  for a relaxing weekend break to get away from the hubub 
  of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.  Bonaire is good, but not as 
  good as some Pacific Regions or the Red Sea (seahorses 
  apart).  The little known Soma Bay (Red Sea) has fine 
  corals and few divers, and there's world class diving 
  in the Coral Sea (Australia).
  For details see
  http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/scuba.html#UAE
  http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/scuba.html#Bonaire
  http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/africa.html#Egypt
  http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/australia/

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New Thailand Diving Centre Listings
  For operators in Pattaya, Phuket and Koh Phi Phi see
  http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/thailand/thaiop.html
__________________________________________________________

Your Letters
============

I've found a fantastic service which I thought the rest of 
the diving fraternity might find  useful! I was struggling 
to find a battery for my Suunto Solution dive computer and 
didn't have time to send it away to be fitted. I ordered 
through www.Watch Battery.co.uk and the battery arrived the 
next day. Saves a fortune in time and money.  This chap's 
web site also helps with fitting advice: 
http://www.devilgas.com/old/suunto_bat_change/

Andrew Reay-Robinson
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________

Palau: The Best Diving in the World?
====================================

Palau (or Belau) is a 100-mile long archipelago, southeast 
of the Philippines. It's diving features sea walls, sheer 
drop-offs, caves and an exuberance of marine life. 

Blue Corner Wall, German Channel and Peleliu Express
are deservedly world famous dive sites. Palau has the 
best diving I've seen anywhere in the world, both on 
variety of dive sites and the large amount of marine 
life. It is particularly good for sharks. I haven't 
dived the Galapagos, but I gather the two spots are 
comparable.

Blue Corner Wall definitely deserves to be near the top of 
any Top 10 Dives list. Hook in your reef hook and watch 
the action, with grey reef sharks by the dozen, 
white tips, dogtooth tuna, king mackrel, barracuda, 
giant jacks, black jacks, even a silvertip shark if 
you're lucky. 

Peleliu Express is less well-known than Blue Corner 
but equally exciting. It is infrequently dived because 
it is further to the south of Palau, and many dive 
operators don't want to take the time or use the gas 
to get there. But the current will push you along a 
sloping wall at about 25 metres. You can hook on with 
a reef hook at the corner, much like Blue Corner. On 
our dive, we saw a nurse shark, plenty of grey reef 
sharks, a huge dogtooth tuna, small barracuda and a 
giant hammerhead, which the grey reef sharks mobbed 
to chase it away. Amazing.

There is a ban on fishing for sharks in Palau (though 
the sad sight of a few sharks with a hook and line 
streaming from their mouth showed it still happens). 
Still, this leaves Palau with large numbers of grey 
reef sharks, as well as a variety of other big critters. 

In a week, we saw the following, in no particular order: 
6 mantas that we snorkelled with, a giant hammerhead, 
a silvertip shark, possibly a young bull shark, grey reef 
sharks on basically every dive, white tip sharks, 
black tip sharks, a nurse shark, a leopard shark, 
2 marble blotched rays, 2 eagle rays, a feather-tailed ray, 
an octopus, chevron barracuda, yellow-fin barracuda, 
turtles, pleurobranchs, lobsters...

The underwater life of Palau is the best that I've seen 
anywhere in the world, outdoing Bali, Vietnam, 
the Philippines, Malaysia, the Bahamas...

by Alex McMillan

Further Reading: 
Diving and Snorkeling Palau, Lonely Planet, 2000
Available with 30% off from Amazon.co.uk at 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/asin/1864500190/1286
and from Amazon.com
__________________________________________________________

Creature of the Month: Soft Coral, Dendronephthya
==================================================

Corals belong to a group of animals called Cnidarians. 
This includes hard and soft corals, sea fans, gorgonians, 
jelly fish and sea anemones. 

A single coral animal is a polyp - that bit with the 
flowery tentacles.  Soft corals are actually colonies of 
animals, each connected to its neighbour by living tissues. 
Colonies tend to contract during the daytime and expand 
at night. 

Soft corals are not reef-building, although they do secrete 
limestone. In their case this is as internal crystals called 
sclerites or spicules.  These are often brightly coloured 
contributing to the coral's beauty. Because soft corals 
do not have large skeletons, they grow faster than hard 
corals

Eight feathery tentacles surround the coral polyp's mouth 
and whip food into it.  They filter-feed: removing plankton 
from water flowing around the colony.  Recent research on soft 
corals indicates that they are herbivorous, feeding on 
single-celled planktonic particles. Previously they 
were thought to be carnivores and feed on crustacean larvae. 

It is difficult to identify individual Dendronephthya 
species but two common ones are D. hemprichi and 
D. klunzingeri.  D. klunzingeri has clusters of 
6 to 8 polyps, red spicules and is a purply-colour.

The corals can reproduce asexually.  Species of 
Dendronephthya drop little bundles of 5 - 10 polyps, 
which sink to the bottom and in a couple of days attach 
by growing root-like structures.  During sexual 
reproduction, female colonies spawn repeatedly for 
several successive nights. This is an exception to the 
generalization that free-spawning reef-corals have 
brief and synchronized broadcast-spawning episodes.

The Dendronephyta genus includes some of the loveliest 
soft corals. They are found throughout the Indo-Pacific 
and are particularly common in the Red Sea.

For photographs see...
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/softcoral.html
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/coral.html
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/softcoral3.html
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/softcoral4.html
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/daedsoftcoral.html
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/softcoral1314.html
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/softcoral138.html
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/softcoral.html
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/softcoral1311.html

Further Reading
The Blue Planet, by Alastair Fothergill, Martha Holmes, 
Sir David Attenborough, BBC Consumer Publishing, 2001, 
ISBN 056-33-8498-0
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0563384980/1286

The Red Sea in Egypt, Part II, Invertebrates 
by Farid S Atiya, Elias Modern Printing House, 1994, 
ISBN 977-00-6697-4 

M. Dahan  and Y. Benayahu. Clonal propagation by the 
azooxanthellate octocoral Dendronephthya hemprichi. Coral 
Reefs 16(1): 5-12; 1997
http://springerlink.metapress.com/app/home/

M. Dahan  and Y. Benayahu. Reproduction of 
Dendronephthya hemprichi (Cnidaria: Octocorallia): 
year-round spawning in an azooxanthellate soft coral. 
Marine Biology 129(4): 573-579; 1997
http://www.springerlink.com/app/home/

Australian Institute of Marine Science
http://www.aims.gov.au/
__________________________________________________________

Diving News From Around the World
=================================

DIVE CENTRES TO LEAVE SIPADAN
  Local government recently issued an order for the removal 
  of all man-made structures on Sipadan by year-end to 
  protect the environment.  A Minister said over-development 
  of the island for more than a decade had created piles of 
  rubbish and noise pollution.  Dive operators are having to 
  relocate their operations to nearby islands and the 
  mainland to enable them to continue taking divers to 
  Sipadan on day-trips. 
  http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=27267

SCIENTISTS PREDICT PANIC ATTACKS IN DIVERS
  There is evidence that the principal cause of decompression 
  illness and fatalities in divers is rapid ascent, and it 
  appears that the primary stimulus for rapid ascent is panic. 
  A recent American study investigated whether panic behaviour 
  could be predicted in people learning to dive, and found that 
  83% of predictions were accurate.
  http://highwire.stanford.edu/cgi/medline/pmid;15162252

SEA PROTECTION COSTS LESS THAN FISH SUBSIDIES
  Protecting the world's oceans will cost governments far 
  less than the amount they spend on subsidies for fishing 
  fleets and will lead to bigger catches in the long run,
  according to a new study. 
  http://www.enn.com/news/2004-06-15/s_24883.asp

SOLOMON ISLANDS ONE OF MOST DIVERSE CORAL REEF SYSTEM IN WORLD
  Scientists have recorded 485 species of coral and 
  284 species of fish on a reef in the Solomon Islands.  
  These numbers include 9 new species of coral and 
  2 new species of fish. The surveyed area had the 
  second highest number of coral species in the world 
  after the Raja Ampat Islands in Indonesia. The area 
  also ranked with the top five for fish diversity - on 
  a par with Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia and 
  Papua New Guinea.  The reason given for such a diversity 
  of both coral and   fish species was the complexity of 
  the habitat including   exposed reefs and sheltered lagoons. 
  http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-06/23/

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ENVIRONMENTAISTS ANGRY AT BARRIER REEF OIL CONCESSIONS
  Australia has increased tax concessions to encourage 
  oil exploration in the far reaches of the Great Barrier 
  Reef, angering environmentalists who warn an oil spill 
  could destroy the world's largest living reef system. 
  http://www.enn.com/news/2004-06-24/s_25185.asp

FIRST NO-GO AREA FOR BIG SHIPS AT POOR KNIGHTS, NZ
  The International Maritime Organisation has made the 
  marine sanctuary of the Poor Knights, New Zealand, 
  the world's first no-go area for large ships.
  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3567263

OCTOPUSES HAVE FAVOURITE ARM
  Most octopuses favour one arm and use combinations of 
  arms in particular orders when handling objects, Austrian 
  scientists have found. Unlike in humans, left and right 
  handedness is split 50-50.
  http://www.wkkj.com/script/headline_newsmanager.php?id=322194

MEXICAN TURTLES STILL AT RISK
  Despite nearly two decades of conservation efforts, 
  the leatherback turtle species continues to 
  disappear from Mexican waters and is sliding toward 
  extinction around the globe.
  http://www.enn.com/news/2004-06-23/s_25153.asp

JOIN WHALE SHARK RESEARCH IN HONDURAS
  Deep Blue Utila and Shark Diver have teamed up for a 
  period of 5 years to do extensive research on Whale 
  Sharks in Honduras.  They will be satellite tagging 
  Whale Sharks and giving talks to customers who wish 
  to join them.  When customers get in the water they 
  will be asked to try and spot specific characteristics 
  of the shark so that over a period of time they can 
  to build up a complete portfolio of Whale Sharks in 
  the area.
  www.deepblueutila.com 
  www.sharkdiver.com
__________________________________________________________

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SCUBA News
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