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New Bahamas Wrecks
On Tuesday, August 20th, the Captain Fox, an 80-foot fishing trawler came to rest in 40 feet of water forming the third trunk of Nassau’s newest dive site “The Steel Forest.” The Captain Fox joined the Manana and Fenwick Stirrup on a sand bottom that starts at 30 feet and slopes to 120 feet, where it drops over the edge of the “Tongue-of-the-Ocean” wall.
The sinking of the Captain Fox marked the culmination of an ambitious undertaking where Stuart Cove and the team from Dive Bahamas sunk two new shipwrecks in a two-week period.
“It was a mighty undertaking, but we’re very pleased with the results,” said Cove. “I love our new site—The Steel Forest. We envisioned creating a site that would allow experienced divers to start off deep and do a multi-level profile, while at the same time allowing less experienced divers to still enjoy some new wrecks without having to worry about deeper depths,” according to Cove.
Well-known for his shark diving experiences, Cove now brings the same innovations to wreck diving. He explained that there are now a trio of wrecks roughly 50 feet apart, lined up from bow to stern. The first is in just 40 feet of water, while the stern of the third is in 110 feet of water.
Cove works closely with the Bahamian government to secure the wrecks. “Over the years we have learned each other’s needs. Ours is obviously to promote tourism and adding new wrecks does that,” Cove said. “Other ministries of the government are involved with salvage and confiscated vessels. It was a natural marriage. Our company invests $10,000 to $20,000 per wreck to salvage it and prepare it for relocation and sinking as a dive site. The government donates the tugs and title to the vessels. It’s a win-win, private sector-public sector relationship.”
The idea for the “trio” of wrecks that will form an underwater “forest” of diving opportunity was first discussed earlier this summer. With the help of officials representing the government and the diving industry, Cove and his team accepted the challenge.
There are now 15 different wrecks that divers can visit while diving New Providence Island in the Bahamas that Stuart Cove’s Dive Bahamas serves.
For more information, call Stuart Cove’s at 800-879-9832 or visit http://www.stuartcove.com.
New Dive Boat Serving Bloody Bay Wall, Little Cayman
The Banana Wind, the brand-new 36-foot “V-Hull” dive vessel at Paradise Villas in Little Cayman, delivers new diving opportunities to divers daily. The new vessel, which can carry up to 14 divers, travels daily to Little Cayman’s famous “Bloody Bay Wall” dive site, which has been described by many as one of the most dramatic wall dives in the world.
Banana Wind is powered by two 225 hp Mercury Outboards, so boat trips from the South Side of Little Cayman to Bloody Bay can be as short as 10 minutes. The new dive boat joins Havanna Daydreamin, a 46-foot pontoon boat.
Because Paradise Villas is strategically located near the air-strip on the southwest part of Little Cayman, guests staying at the resort enjoy quick and easy access to Bloody Ball Wall and other popular dive sites on the island.
To find out more information, call the booking office toll free at 877.3CAYMAN or go to http://www.paradisevillas.com.
Avalon Harbor U/W Cleanup T-Shirt Design Contest
The 23rd Annual Avalon Underwater Cleanup is being held on February 22, 2003, and this year Catalina Conservancy Divers and the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber are holding a contest for the logo design to be used for the T-shirts. The contest is open to any and all who have an interest and a talent. The rules of the contest are simple. The design must include no more than two colors. The winner will be acknowledged in the marketing of the event as well as at the event itself. Deadline for entries is December 1, 2002, and the winner will be announced by December 10th. Submit your artwork, entries and questions to Jill A. Boivin - Event Chairperson @ jaboivin@earthlink.net or mail entries to P.O. Box 91501, Los Angeles, CA 90009-1501. For extended details on artwork requirements, please visit http://www.robinhoodtshirts.com/html/artworkfaq.html#files on the web.
World’s First Underwater Shipwreck Museum Established
Indiana University faculty and students have helped leaders in the Dominican Republic establish the world’s first underwater shipwreck museum.
Charles Beeker, director of the Office of Underwater Science in the IU School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, and Geoffrey Conrad, director of IU’s Mathers Museum of World Cultures, recently returned to Bloomington after spending a month with a group of IU students to help establish the Caribbean museum. The work was part of a field research project that included the IU International Programs Office.
The 1724 Guadalupe Underwater Archaeological Preserve was dedicated at a ceremony involving Beeker and Tony Raful, the Secretary of Culture for the Dominican Republic.
The Spanish galleons Guadalupe and Tolosa sank in Samana Bay during a hurricane in 1724. The IU group worked with representatives of the Dominican Republic Ministry of Culture and La Romana Bayahibe Hotel Association to utilize artifacts recovered from Samana Bay in the 1970s to establish the underwater preserve adjacent to Dominicus Resort at Bayahibe on the Caribbean island. Included in the museum are 18th century ballast stones, cannons, cannonballs, ceramic pieces and an anchor.
“The site is in 12 to 15 feet of water, so it is readily accessible to snorkelers and divers, allowing visitors the opportunity to see an actual 18th century shipwreck in an underwater museum setting,” Beeker said. “This is the first underwater shipwreck museum in the world created for the public benefit.” Recognizing the historical and recreational value of the new underwater museum, Project AWARE Foundation and the hotel association financially supported the project, Beeker said.
In conjunction with creation of this underwater museum, IU received approval for further underwater archaeological investigations in the Dominican Republic with the Office of Underwater Cultural Heritage. “We want to involve several IU schools and students to help establish a series of underwater park sites that would include historic shipwrecks and fresh water springs used by the Native-American Taino prior to the arrival of Columbus,” explained Beeker, who has directed IU Underwater Science projects in the Dominican Republic since 1993.
For more details on this project, contact Beeker at 812-855-5748 or cbeeker@indiana.edu. The IU Underwater Science Program’s Web site is at http://www.indiana.edu/~scuba.
Diving Restrictions in Effect on Lake Mead
Lake Mead National Recreation Area Superintendent, William K. Dickinson, announced that scuba diving in a portion of the Overton Arm of Lake Mead now requires a special permit. The restrictions are necessary to protect a sensitive archaeological resource, the B-29 Beetle Bomb, until the National Park Service’s Submerged Cultural Resource Center can assess the condition of the aircraft and document the site where the aircraft is located. After the assessment is completed, the diving restrictions will be re-evaluated.
The area between the following boundaries will require a diving permit: Northern Boundary-North 36 degrees 15 minutes (located near the Overton Islands); Southern Boundary-North 36 degrees 10 minutes (located near Middle Point)
Permits for scuba diving may be obtained by contacting the Chief Ranger’s Office at 702-293-8908.
A map of the restricted area can be found on the web at http://www.nps.gov/lame/station/news/020821.html
Lake Mead National Recreation Area is a unit of the National Park Service.
Beach Water Quality Available Online
Beach goers and users will now be able to find out easily whether their favorite ocean beach is clean enough for swimming or closed because of water pollution. By logging on to http://www.Oceana.org or http://www.Earth911.org, health advisory, beach closure and ocean pollution information will be easy to access in one location.
Oceana and Earth 911 believe the public has a right to know whether the beaches where they vacation are safe for swimming. Oceana and Earth 911 have partnered with state and local health and environmental agencies to establish the ground breaking national Beach Reporting System (BRS), which compiles the most recent data on beach water quality across the country. The results of official government water tests are reported to the system and the new web service presents the information in colorful, easy to read maps that link to descriptions of beach water quality on both organizations’ web sites.
Beach water quality is threatened by bacteria, viruses and toxic chemicals. Today, runoff pollution is a major reason that approximately 40 percent of U.S. waterways and coastlines fail to meet standards for swimming or fishing. Runoff pollution occurs when rainfall, snowmelt, or irrigation water runs over land, picks up pollutants along the way, and deposits them into rivers, lakes, and coastal waters. The new web service will offer facts on ocean pollution and community-specific resources to help reduce the impacts of runoff.
The BRS was created in response to the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (B.E.A.C.H.) Act of 2000 that created a consistent approach to public notification of water quality monitoring results. The BRS allows local health and environmental officials to notify the public of water quality sampling results and health determinations immediately as they are detected using both the Internet and a toll-free hotline. Oceana and Earth 911 launched the new web service at kick-off events in Bel Mar, NJ and San Francisco, CA.
In the B.E.A.C.H. Act, Congress promised funding for states to monitor and notify the public, but full funding has not been provided to states. Full funding is necessary to ensure that local governments have the tools they need to monitor and notify the public about whether it is safe to swim at local beaches.
Oceana is a brand new international environmental organization created for the sole purpose of protecting the world’s oceans to sustain the circle of life. In May, Oceana merged with the American Oceans Campaign continuing to bring together dedicated people from around the world to build an international movement to save the oceans through public policy advocacy, science, economics, legal action, grassroots mobilization, and public education. Oceana’s Beach Info Site, Media Center, WaveMaker Forum, and other information resources are available at http://www.oceana.org or by calling toll-free 1-877-7-OCEANA.
Earth 911 is a nationwide network of community-specific environmental resources and information available online (http://www.cleanup.org) or toll-free (1-800-CLEANUP), delivering yearlong local resources on recycling, household hazardous waste disposal, beach water quality and other environmental issues. Earth 911 was awarded the “Stockholm Challenge Award” and has been featured on CNN, USA Today and ENN, as well as on a variety of environmental portals and state Web sites.
10th Fish Count a Great Success
The 2002 GAFC included over 90 seminars, over 300 scheduled dive events, and over 1500 surveys throughout REEF’s survey regions. Due to the increased international interest over the past few years, this year the event’s name was changed from the Great American Fish Count to the Great Annual Fish Count (GAFC). Events took place throughout the US, British Columbia, Ontario, Cozumel, Gulf of California, Jamaica, Belize, Honduras, Bermuda, Bonaire, Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, and the Cayman Islands. This year’s fish count grew into an international event.
This year was also the first time that Invertebrate surveys were part of the GAFC, thanks to the Living Reef Project. The Living REEF Project is an invertebrate monitoring program that was created as a companion to the fish-monitoring program in the Pacific Northwest region.
The GAFC began in 1992 when a small group of recreational divers and marine biologists conducted standardized visual fish counts in the Channel Islands National Park. The effort was modeled after the Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count and has quickly grown into an international event.
“Volunteer divers and snorkelers participating in the Great Annual Fish Count provide marine resource managers with valuable data on fish populations, which can help lead to more effective protection,” said Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary superintendent Billy Causey. “Here in the Florida Key’s National Marine Sanctuary, volunteers play an integral role in the Sanctuary’s monitoring program by collecting data on fish populations in no-take areas and fished sites.”
The fish count effort is coordinated by the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF) with support from NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuaries Program. More information on the GAFC can be found at http://www.fishcount.org.
Fish surveys can also be done year round. For more information on volunteer fish surveying, visit REEF’s web site at http://www.reef.org.
Malibu Divers Awarded PADI’s Highest Honor
Malibu Divers has been awarded PADI’s highest honor. Malibu Divers has been recognized as a PADI Five Star Career Development Center (CDC). This award is the highest rating a PADI facility can achieve. The CDC rating designates a facility that provides superior service and a full range of diver training from basic certification through to the highest levels of instructor training. There are only two other CDC facilities in the Western United States and less than 20 in the country as a whole.
Malibu Divers has been providing a full range of diving education and services for over 30 years. Located in Malibu, Malibu Divers has been on the doorstep of the Pacific since it opened in 1969. Dedicated to providing superior education, service and adventure to each and every client, Malibu Divers will only continue to expand the services it can offer, having been awarded this rating by PADI. Store owner Carter Crary commented, “I am very excited by this award. We have worked very hard to reach this milestone. This has been a huge team effort. If it were not for my staff, none of this would have been possible. We plan to continue to do everything we can to exceed our clients’ expectations in all we do for them. We focus on outstanding customer service, but more importantly, we go out of our way to ensure that each client has an amazing experience.” Malibu Divers focus is on the adventure and excitement of diving.
The Professional Association of Diving Instructors, PADI, is the largest and most recognized training agency in the world. Founded in 1965, PADI certifies more than one million divers annually.
Malibu Divers is located at 21231 Pacific Coast Hwy. in Malibu. They can be reached by phone at 310-456-2396 or on the web at http://www.malibudivers.com.