GOING FOR THE GOLD. Divers
might have a little more interest in
the summer Olympics in forthcoming
years. In the year 2000 Australian
Summer Olympics, the
traditional torch relay will include
an underwater route along the
Great Barrier Reef. Organizers
don’t say how it will be done, only
that it will be. Fin swimming is
proposed for the Athens Olympics
in 2004, but don’t expect the
speedy Force Fin to score a marketing
coup. Fin swimmers stick both
feet in a single rubber-and-fiberglass
“mono fin” up to 32 inches wide,
clasp their hands together in front,
and propel through the water with
undulating thrusts. World-class fin
swimmers, some using snorkels,
can move about 30 percent faster
than their conventional counterparts.
If you can’t wait for the
Olympics to compete, consider the
World Bog Snorkeling Championship
coming up this August 30 in
Wales. The record for the mucksoup,
120-yard course is 1:44. We
wouldn’t expect Force Fins to
score well here, either.
WE WANT MORE GOLD. In the last
issue, we reported that a week after
the Royal Caribbean Cruise line
gave $500,000 to conservation
organizations, it was fined $8
million for dumping at sea in what
we speculated was sort of a coveryour-
butt move. As we went to
press, we learned that they’d
declared a quarterly dividend of
nine cents per share, quite a
bundle given the 161 million
shares outstanding. A week later a
Royal Caribbean cruise liner ran
aground and destroyed a reef off
St. Martin. Note to Royal Caribbean
Cruise Line: how about at
least doubling last year’s pittance to
environmental groups?
GOLD LOST, FOUND, REPLACED. The
irrepressible Mel Fisher, the former
owner of Mel’s Aqua Shop in
Redondo Beach CA who discovered
millions in gold and treasure off
the Florida coast in 1986, died in
December from cancer. After
searching fifteen years, he and his
crew discovered the bulk of the
treasure of the Spanish galleon
Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which sunk
in a hurricane in 1622 with its
cargo of $400 million in gold,
silver, and gems. The affable Fisher
became one of Key West’s most
famous residents, greeting customers
in his store and carousing till
the very end. While he made
hundreds of his investors wealthy
with his discovery, in November his company pleaded no contest to
charges of selling fake coins and agreed
to reimburse the buyers $70,000.
DISCOURAGING TALE OF ALUMINUM. A
Luxfer aluminum tank exploded
while being filled in New Zealand in
early November, severing a man’s leg
above the knee. The government
banned the filling of the tanks for
several days until a Luxfer engineer
flew to New Zealand to check on the
problem. After review, the government
decided Luxfer cylinders could
be used, but noted that owners
should have them checked regularly
and be especially alert for leaks or
weaknesses near the necks.
BOAT IGUANAS. Ever wonder how
those Caribbean islands initially got
their critter population? Hurricane
Luis, which roared through in 1995,
gave us some hard evidence. Anguilla
was iguana-free until 1995, when 15
arrived on a raft of matted trees. Luis
blew down a hillside on Guadeloupe,
300 kilometers away, washing a colony
of 15 iguanas into the water. Anguilla
residents saw the critters clamor
ashore. Scientists followed their
survival, and Nature reports that at
least one remains alive today.
LOBSTERS ON A TREADMILL. Wouldn’t
you think that the faster a lobster
walks the faster his little heart beats?
Researchers at the University of
Calgary in Alberta thought so, too,
but were nonplused after putting
several crustaceans through their
paces from a gentle stroll at 1.7
meters per minute to a brisk 8 meterper-
minute stride. In the August 25
Journal of Experimental Biology, the
lobstermeisters said, “When the
exercise started, lobster heart rates
jumped almost instantaneously, but
the size of the increase seemed to
have nothing to do with exercise
speed. During treadmill sessions,
lobster hearts thumped at 80 to 90
beats per minute at all walking speeds
tested. Ventilating, an underwater
equivalent of breathing, reached 175 to
180 times per minute regardless of the
lobster’s speed.... The reason for this
phenomenon remains unexplained.”
Our apologies to reader and correspondent
Beverly Tisnower, whose
name we got wrong in the last issue.
We’ve seen so many good reports
from Beverly that we should have
known better.