COVER STORY The Grand Turk of the Turks & Caicos A beautiful and easily-accessible wall running the leeward length of Grand Turk is certainly the island's pièce de résistance, but some of its restaurants, hotels, and dive operators are a great deal less appealing. Check out the best the island has to offer, from the Caribbean charm of yesterday to chin chucks for Alexander the grouper to dive guides that double as piano-playing balladeers. Tell me more about Grand Turk!   Worried About That Tropical Sun? Most of us traveling the tropics thought we knew what we were supposed to do to prevent skin cancer: whenever we stepped outside, we were supposed to slather on half a tube of sunscreen, preferably one whose SPF rating reached well into the double digits. Now a new study suggests that, while there are ways to minimize skin cancer risk, using sunscreen may not be one of them. The Politics of Rebreathers Although rebreathers were once again widely touted at the annual Diving Equipment and Marketing Show, very few units are in the hands of users, a fact that doesn't seem to have discouraged manufacturers in the slightest. Rebreather sales and training seem to be the latest bone of contention for those who hope to make a buck off new technology, and OSHA has been designated referee. How is all this likely to affect recreational diving? New X-Ray Machines in Airports New X-ray machines have a new warning. Are they more likely than old units to damage undeveloped film? Why Divers Die, Part II In the second installment of our series examining the causes of dive fatalities, we focus on divers' preexisting health problems and how they are compounded by the physical demands of diving, making cardiovascular disease, DCS, and embolism leading causes of dive deaths. What can you do to minimize your risk? What Are We Doing to Our Reefs? Reef Check, the first global survey of reefs ever made, has uncovered an astounding degree of damage to the 300 reefs it studied in the Caribbean, Indo-Pacific, and Red Sea regions. Learn what species have been most severely affected and where the most damaged--and most healthy--reefs are located. Benefit from the Asian Money Crisis? When Asian currencies went into freefall last summer, the logical response seemed to be to plan a trip to cash in on bargain-basement exchange rates. Instead, tourist arrivals in the region are reaching new lows, and travel industry analysts are debating which airlines will survive. Find out what the crisis means for divers and how it is affecting air travel, live-aboards, and prices for everything from hotels to taxis to tank fillings. Artificial Reefs or Ocean Dumping? One popular response to the problem of fished-out reefs is to go out and build new ones. But have the hundreds of new reefs that have been built from everything from tires to tugboats been a boon to marine populations, or are our oceans simply turning into trash dumps? Insurance for Dive Equipment A new dive equipment policy has already expanded its coverage of diving and photographic equipment to cover a host of frequently-encountered problems, from rental replacements for delayed baggage to flood coverage for camera equipment. Flotsam & Jetsam Learn the latest on a variety of subjects from spreading coral disease to recent developments concerning the Australian divers left behind by their boat last January. And check out our reports on faking everything--from Cousteau scenes to salvaged buried treasure to dive school student loans--as well as how rat research is answering dive questions from how animals get the giggles to the relationship between DCS and post-dive exercise.