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SCUBA News 93~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Welcome to the first SCUBA News of 2008. Last month's competition results are below, and details of a new competition with diving guides to be won. 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? 
You've recommended more dive operators in Thailand, and advised on some to avoid. See who has been awarded the five fish rating. Find out the top ten best selling SCUBA books and DVDs of last year. :ADVERT__________________________________________________ For rental cottages on Providenciales, Turks and Caicos ___________________________________________________ADVERT: __________________________________________________________ 
Red Sea Competition Congratulations to Scott McVey, Rohan Pike and John Cunningham. They have all won a copy of the Guide and Logbook of the Northern Red Sea Wrecks, courtesy of Travelling Diver. This month we have a new competition to win a dive guide to Safaga, on Egypt's Red Sea coast. To enter just name tell us how many dives sites are included in the Safaga pack (visit http://www.travellingdiver.com/ to find out) and e-mail your answer, together with your name and address, to news@scubatravel.co.uk before 28 February 2008. The Safaga guide is being launched by the publishers, Travelling Diver, tomorrow. Designed for the recreational holiday diver, the guide integrates detailed site-by-site information and maps with loose-leaf logbook pages. The pages fit into a standard 3-hole diving binder and let you research, plan and record your dives in one place. You can purchase the Safaga guide from http://www.travellingdiver.com/ or Amazon at http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/asin/0955640229/eml-21. Or wait and see if you win our competition! __________________________________________________________ Bookshelf: Interview with Tomas Kendrick 
Tomas Kendrick is author of Bluewater Gold Rush - The Odyssey of a California Sea Urchin Diver. It's a true story of his unusual career. Tomas talks to SCUBA News. A group of us divers used to have breakfast together at the Sandpiper in Bodega Bay in the early 90’s. Like fisherman everywhere, we’d tell stories to each other. The guys all told me I had the best stories and that I was the best storyteller. One day, one of the guys told me I needed to get them down on paper before senility set in and I could no longer remember them. That was the beginning of my scribblings. Inspired by Jack London, John Steinbeck and Alan Weisbecker, Tomas set to work but took a lengthy eight years to complete his book. Tomas Kendrick's favourite dives are the Channel Islands, off the coast of Santa Barbara, California. "I have so much history there. Each island is so unique, from stunningly beautiful kelp beds, to absolute wildness, Chumash history, Cabrillo exploration, and mystery. The islands have it all." He has seen many changes since he started diving, but thinks the biggest change is the "wrist-worn decompression computers". "When I first started diving in 1978, the Scubapro "Bendomatic" was the state-of-the-art dive meter. Like everything else, they’ve come a long way." About the Author In 1962, aged eleven, Tom Kendrick moved to Hawaii, where a lifelong love of the ocean and surfing began. His good fortune continued when his family moved to Santa Barbara in 1967, where he discovered the world-class waves of Rincon, El Capitan and the Hollister Ranch. After a four year stint in the Air Force he returned to Santa Barbara, where a search for waves at the Channel Islands landed him a job on a fishing boat. In 1978, he began a 22-year career in commercial sea urchin diving - a job that would take him from Santa Barbara to Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Alaska. He was one of the pioneers who harvested the waters of the harsh waters of northern California in the 1980's. A move to Sebastopol took place in 1989, when he moved his boat (and family) from Fort Bragg to Bodega Bay in order to access the virgin reefs of the Farallon Islands, off San Francisco. Tom and his wife, Debbie, have raised their two children, Donovan and Tammi, in Sebastopol. He is now retired from diving, but still surfs and writes. A movie producer has asked Tom to provide him with a screenplay adaptation of the book for a feature-length film. The screenplay is currently in production, as well as is his second book, "Tales From the Kelpbed." The Book
Bluewater Gold Rush/The Odyssey of a California Sea Urchin Diver For more interviews with authors, and book reviews, see http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/interview.html __________________________________________________________ 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/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. Australia rules Japanese whaling illegal Japanese whaling within Australian waters in Antarctica is illegal and should be stopped, a court has ruled. It is now up to the Australian government to decide whether to enforce the injunction. Cuba has thrown a lifeline to the Caribbean's endangered and critically endangered marine turtles with a ministerial resolution ending all harvesting of marine turtles. Such a resolution has been sought by conservationists for more than a decade. It will benefit turtles hatching on beaches throughout the Caribbean and coming regularly to feed in Cuban waters. New Bans on Plastic Bags May Help Protect Marine Life China's surprise crackdown on plastic bags will prohibit the production and distribution of ultra-thin bags beginning June 1. Every year, tens of thousands of whales, birds, seals, and turtles die from contact with ocean-borne plastic bags. The animals may mistake the bags for food, such as jellyfish, or simply become entangled. Plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to break down, so even when an animal dies and decays after ingesting a bag, the plastic re-enters the environment, posing a continuing threat to wildlife. Killer starfish destroy 'richest' coral reefs Some of the most stunning reefs in the "Coral Triangle", the world's richest area of coral biodiversity, have been destroyed by crown-of-thorns starfish, which feed by spreading their stomachs over coral. That's the dismal result of a survey last month of reefs around Halmahera, an Indonesian island at the heart of the triangle, which stretches from the Philippines to the Malaysian peninsula to the Solomon Islands. This week in Global Ecology and Biogeography, encouraging news has emerged for one of the world's largest marine herbivores, the green turtle (Chelonia mydas). A new study shows that long-term protection of the sea turtles' nesting beaches is successful in achieving increases in the green turtle populations. Study concludes that global warming is killing off coral If world leaders do not immediately engage in a race against time to save the Earth's coral reefs, these vital ecosystems will not survive the global warming and acidification predicted for later this century. That is the conclusion of a group of marine scientists from around the world in a major new study published in the journal Science. California waters for leatherback turtles? The National Marine Fisheries Service, the US agency in charge of ocean species management, has announced that it will examine in detail whether waters off the California and Oregon coasts should be protected as critical habitat for the endangered leatherback turtle. New IMAX Film: DOLPHINS AND WHALES Filmmakers and environmentalists Francois and Jean-Jacques Mantello and ocean explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau are pleased to announce they have joined forces on the new 3D documentary film DOLPHINS AND WHALES 3D: Tribes of the Ocean, which will be released at IMAX (R) Theatres. __________________________________________________________ * 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. Previous editions of SCUBA News are archived at http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/news.html SUBSCRIBING AND UNSUBSCRIBING Visit http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/news.html and add or remove your e-mail address. CONTACTING THE EDITOR Please send your letters or press releases to: The Editor SCUBA News The Cliff Upper Mayfield DE6 2HR UK ADVERTISING Should you wish to advertise in SCUBA News, please fill in the form at http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/newsad.html PUBLISHER SCUBA Travel, The Cliff, Upper Mayfield, DE6 2HR, UK Subscribe To SCUBA NewsOur newsletter, SCUBA News (ISSN 1476-8011), is absolutely free. It is a monthly publication, delivered by e-mail. To receive your copy fill in your details below. We will never pass your e-mail address to any third parties, or send you unsolicited e-mail. You will receive an e-mail confirming your subscription. If you don't receive this you have probably entered your e-mail address incorrectly - revisit this page and re-subscribe. Send us your Press Releases
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