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SCUBA News 67~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SCUBA News (ISSN 1476-8011) Issue 67 - November 2005 http://www.scubatravel.co.uk ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Welcome to November's SCUBA News. Winter is here in the UK, but our guest article tells of warmer diving in Papua New Guinea. Also in this issue - the coral most likely to injure you. And if you are looking for diving- related presents then we've suggestions at our Gifts for Divers page. Should you wish to cancel your subscription to SCUBA News you can do so at http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/news.html Contents: - What's new at SCUBA Travel? - Your Letters - Diving in Remote Papua New Guinea - Creature of the Month: Fire Coral - Diving News from Around the World __________________________________________________________ What's New at SCUBA Travel? ============================ Diving Thailand: Which Dive Centre to Choose? Recommendations have been pouring in for dive operators in Thailand. Find which have the five-fish rating. http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/thailand/thaiop.html Unspoilt Diving in East Timor Find out about the untouched and remote diving in East Timor with our newly updated guide to the dives and operators there. "The best diving I have ever seen. A whole island of walls, currents, pelagics and critters. Untouched for thousands of years" http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/pacific.html#EastTimor Gifts for Divers Find a Christmas present for your diving friends and family. Underwater cameras, magazines, DVDs, posters, gadgets, kit... http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/presents2.html __________________________________________________________ Your Letters ============ From the Diving Board... Are there any (pref. warm) destinations that anyone would recommend in the US for diving - other than wrecks? Coralline Replies to http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=249 -- I'm Nan from MUIC (Mahidol University International College) Diving Club. We are arranging a liveaboard diving trip to Similan and Surin Islands (Thailand) for 5 days 4 nights. We'll be leaving Bangkok on 16th Dec and return on 20th Dec. There will be 14 total dives including 3 night dives. The price is 15,000 Baht. This includes Boat fee, Equipment Rental Fee, Tanks, dive leaders, Marine National Park Entrance fee, food, transportation, insurance, and night dive light fee. Not only fun dives that we'll do, we'll also help picking trash and ghost nets (if you are an experienced diver). Currently, there are 17 MUIC students already signed up. We only need 3 more people to join us. Please inform us as soon as possible if you are interested. Nan Replies to http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=232 or mucidivngclub@yahoo.com ADVERT:__________________________________________________ POSTERS AND PRINTS: Save money on a vast selection of posters and prints: Doubilet's Red Sea, sharks, Great Barrier Reef, coral...browse the offers at http://www..allposters.com/ __________________________________________________:ADVERT __________________________________________________________ Diving in Remote Papua New Guinea: Tufi ======================================= by Rebecca Byfield Freelance Journalist bec@datec.net.pg The twin-otter plane flew over the resort, dipping its wing low over crystal clear waters dotted with a plethora of reefs. Volcanic fiords finger their way out into the aqua blue waters of the Solomon Sea. Perched atop a cliff top, watching over the stunning scenery far below, is Tufi Dive Resort, one of Papua New Guinea's best kept secrets. Our first dive began at what is affectionately named House Reef. Amid the rubble and debris of the last century, an odd assortment of critters has made their home. This is the most easily accessible muck dive in the country. Manta shrimp poke their heads tentatively from behind the rocks. Eels of every variety can be found, hiding in holes or creeping along the silty bottom. A colourful mixed bag of nudibranchs will keep muck divers delighted for hours. Anemone fish, pipefish, sea horses, gobies and fish of every colour and variation swim and play in the murky shallows. Down deeper, at around 40 metres, are the remnants of two WWII PT boats. The 50 calibre machine gun and two live torpedos are still pretty much intact. Divers will also find an old Land Rover, parked upright in about 30 metres of water. At night, the wharf tenants change over and the House Reef comes alive yet again. Lobsters and crabs walk freely along the ground while octopus dart through the waters in a bold, night time dance of ever changing colour. During the Mandarin Fish mating season, you will have a perfect, front row seat straight off the wharf. "It was fantastic seeing the Mandarin Fish mating, although I couldn’t help feeling like a voyeur, peeking in on something private," said Patricia, a guest from the UK. On the outer reef of Tufi is a collection of stunning reef dives. At Veales Reef, the weird and wonderful hammerhead sharks put on an impressive performance in perfect visibility. Veales is home to large schools of white-tip and black-tip reef sharks, huge pelagic fish and colourful reef fish swimming amongst the beautiful coral formations. If you are lucky you may see the turtles as they glide gracefully past. Cyclone Island was formed during a cyclone in 1972. It has a number of good sheltered dive sites that are perfect for snorkellers. Here divers can find the rare Rhinopias fish or search for the kaleidoscope of nudibranchs that make their home amongst the corals of the reef. Cyclone Reef also has a stunning wall, where divers can hang suspended above the ocean floor 1km below. Hammerhead sharks have also been known to visit Cyclone Reef. Mulloway’s is undoubtedly Tufi’s best dive site. Due to strong ocean currents, Mulloway’s comes alive with a wide variety of pelagic fish, reef sharks, hammerheads and rays that feed on the rich plankton. "I couldn’t believe my eyes," said one of the visitors from the US. "Just below us was a large shark totally covered in sucker fish. I've never seen anything like it." Papua New Guinea’s most spectacular WWII wrecks - the S Jacob is easily accessible from Tufi Dive Resort. The Jacob was a Dutch merchant ship which was sunk by the Japanese during the war. It now lies upright sloping from 45 metres to 60 metres and is accessible only by experienced deep divers. The Blackjack is another popular wreck dive accessible from Tufi, and the two wrecks are often done together. Tufi is on the Southeast coast of Papua New Guinea, below Lae but just above Alotau and east of Port Moresby. It is only accessible by sea and air. Rebecca was diving at the Tufi Dive Resort: PO Box 1845, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Tel: 675 329 6000, Fax: 675 329 6001, E-mail: info@tufidive.com ADVERT:__________________________________________________ LOW COST TRAVEL INSURANCE which doesn't limit the depth to which you can dive. For more details, and the chance to win a $4000 (Aus) prize, visit http://www.worldnomads.com.au/ __________________________________________________:ADVERT __________________________________________________________ Creature of the Month: Fire Coral, Millepora ==================================================== For a photo of Fire Coral see http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/firecoral.html Fire corals are so called because of their powerful stinging hairs or nematocysts. These are used primarily for defence against fish like parrotfish which would otherwise nibble the coral. However, they are strong enough to injure divers who brush their skin against them, causing burning and itching. If this happens rinse with seawater and apply vinegar or methylated alcohol on the affected area. In a severe case anti-histamines can help, but seek medical advice. Colonies of fire coral are extremely important in building coral reefs. However, they are not true corals. They are, in fact, hydroids. The word hydroid means water animals. Other hydroids often look like ferny fronds growing from rocks. The fire coral is different: it looks like a hard coral. Fire corals are yellowish to brown in colour, often with white tips. There are several species, with different growth forms. Some look like plates, some are encrusting but maybe the most familiar is the branching form shown in our photo (http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/firecoral.html). You can identify them by the minute pores on the coral surface. Divers come across fire corals on reefs throughout the world, in sheltered and exposed sites, in shallow and deep water. They are often at the reef edge as they can withstand rough waters. Look at the orientation of the coral branches: they grow so as to minimise their exposure to the waves. Further Reading: ---------------- The Red Sea in Egypt Part II, Farid S. Atiya, 977-00-6697-4 __________________________________________________________ Diving News From Around the World ================================= 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/newsfeed.html It's free and automatically updates you with the latest SCUBA news via your web site, e-mail or any news feed reader. Asprin and Steroid Misuse by SCUBA Divers Research recently published in the journal Therapie evaluated drug use in SCUBA divers. A detailed study of aspirin and steroid consumption revealed their misuse for performance- enhancing purposes, the level of risk varying with the type of diving activity. The influence of drug use on personal performance was recognised by 72% of divers, but only 59% considered that they were putting themselves at risk by self-medicating. http://www.news.scubatravel.co.uk/2005/11/ Jellyfish Weather-Warning in Palau, Micronesia When jellyfish vanish, it's usually cause for celebration. But their disappearance from Jellyfish Lake in Palau, Micronesia, could act as an early warning of severe weather events caused by El Nino and La Nina. The saltwater lake is normally home to more than 10 million mastigias jellyfish, but during the strong La Nina event of 1998 they vanished. "The dive guys came back shocked, saying the jellyfish had just gone," says Michael Dawson, a biologist from the University of California, Davis. Since El Nino and La Nina are thought to begin in this region, jellyfish numbers could be used to predict weather patterns in the east three or four months ahead of time. http://www.newscientist.com/l Guidelines for Asthma SCUBA Divers Around 7% of SCUBA divers have asthma. A recently published article concludes that under the right circumstances, a person with asthma can safely participate in recreational diving without apparent increased risk of an asthma-related event. http://www.news.scubatravel.co.uk/2005/11/ Marauders continue to plunder the oceans The biodiversity of the oceans is as seriously threatened as ever, despite efforts to conserve it, according to two new reports. Both reports focus on the high seas beyond the 360-kilometre limit of national exclusive economic zones (EEZs). The high seas are especially problematic because they are not governed by any single nation, which means the rules are often complicated and difficult to police. http://www.newscientist.com/ Coral Reef Task Force Conference meets in Palau For the first time, the annual Coral Reef Task Force Conference was held outside the continental United States, bringing the meeting to the Republic of Palau. http://www.saipantribune.com/ Cozumel Divers asked to Help with Reef Resoration A coral reef off the island of Cozumel, Mexico, could take more than a century to recover from a thrashing by Hurricane Wilma. A team of 10 divers and conservationists have begun rebuilding sections of the damaged reef, using pneumatic drills to bore holes in sea-bed rocks to reattach loose coral fragments with epoxy cement. The restoration work is painstaking and volunteer divers in the Cancun area are being asked to help. http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=9192 Wired reef to spot polluters An ambitious project for a sensor network to map pollution and its effects on the Great Barrier Reef is to be launched. It could provide evidence that will finally settle controversy about the effect of pollution on the reef. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825225.400 Medical considerations for child and adolescent SCUBA divers A new report in Pediatr Emerg Care condiders the medical implications for young SCUBA divers. Worldwide, more than 1000 scuba diving injuries per year require hyperbaric recompression. Approximately 80 to 90 fatalities per year are reported in North America. On average, there were 16 diving injuries requiring recompression in scuba divers aged 19 years and younger in North America between 1988 and 2002. The youngest injured diver was 11 years old and the youngest fatality was 14 years old. http://highwire.stanford.edu/cgi/medline/pmid;16215475 Great Galloping Crinoids: Lilylike sea animal takes a brisk walk The stalked crinoid spends most of its time sitting and catching food with the flowerlike wheel of feathery arms that have earned it and its relatives the nickname sea lilies. Scientists had known for decades that stalked crinoids sometimes move - but barely. Now, however, a video from a submersible dive off Grand Bahama Island reveals movement as fast as 140 metres per hour. http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20051022/fob6.asp Star search program used to trail whale sharks Scientists have used software for pinpointing an object's location in the night sky to identify and track whale sharks in the Earth's oceans. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8200 Diver admits conspiring for abalone haul A former abalone diver has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges. Michael Anthony Ingram admitted recording abalone he caught on another diver's paperwork. Ingram was paid a total of 39,593 US dollars by the two divers he dived for. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17248445-1244,00.html Sea Salt: Memories and Essays New World Publications have just released Sea Salt: Memories and Essays by Stan Waterman, recounting his 50 years of filming sharks and other marine life. http://www.news.scubatravel.co.uk/2005/11/ __________________________________________________________ * Copyright SCUBA Travel - http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/ * Reprinting welcomed with this footer included. We are happy for you to copy and distribute this newsletter, and even use parts of it on your own web site, providing the above copyright notice is included and a link back to our web site is in place. 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