Current Online Updates*
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You’d be Crazy to Eat Shark!
Our New 40-page book – Eight Great Dive Resorts – and One Dog – is yours, at no charge
Find yourself in Deep Trouble?
Bad Buddy Behavior
Damn and Blast!
Undercurrent on Facebook
Fish Pee in It!
Kill the Whalesharks, says God
Our Readers Reports are an important Resource
Some of the Other Things You Missed in the September issue of Undercurrent, in our 41st year of publication
Website Improvements

You’d be Crazy to Eat Shark!  September 15, 2016

We are all too familiar about the problems engendered by the shark finning industry and the harm it does to the complete food chain in the ocean. Knowing that, you’d be stupid to want to eat shark fin. Well, there’s more truth in that than you might think. New research shows that eating shark can contribute to the onset of Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases. Read the full story in in the October issue of Undercurrent. If this doesn’t make people not want to eat shark, nothing will. Eating shark might well make you crazy!

Our New 40-page book – Eight Great Dive Resorts – and One Dog – is yours, at no charge,  September 15, 2016

with your trial subscription to Undercurrent. I’ve pulled together eight complete first-hand reviews from our best travel reviewers who pay their own way and never disclose their purpose. They tell you the truth about the diving, the fish, the reefs, the food, the beds, and much much more. Click here for details.

Find yourself in Deep Trouble?  September 15, 2016

Don’t count on your dive guide to bail you out. All businesses have a duty-of-care towards their customers and it’s the responsibility of any company to ensure that you are kept out of harm’s way. However, people are willful, forgetful and at times plain stupid. Should a dive guide endanger his own health or even his life to rescue a diver who breaks the rules? This and other difficult questions are answered by members of the industry, in an article in Undercurrent. It’s free for you to read at www.undercurrent.org.

Bad Buddy Behavior  September 15, 2016

It’s common practice to pair up solitary divers but have you ever been paired with a diver you didn’t know, who dived deeper than you liked? Incautiously entered an overhead environment? Interacted with the marine life in a hazardous or unacceptable way? Ascended much too quickly for you liking? We’ve all been there at some time. Tell us about it! If we publish your comments we’ll give you a free subscription to Undercurrent for 6 months. BenDDavison@undercurrent.org

Damn and Blast!  September 15, 2016

Do you give your regulator dust cap a blast of air to dry it after a dive? That’s no better at removing water than using a towel, and it is exponentially noisier and can be harmful to the well being of a person standing nearby, by startling them. Furthermore, that blast may actually drive water droplets into the uncovered first-stage of a regulator -- now you have to service it -- or dislodge the O-ring of an international A-clamp. Using a towel can save you from scrambling around your dive boat, looking for that missing O-ring.

Undercurrent on Facebook  September 15, 2016

Under the ice, divers and sharks, free-swimming ribbon eels, amorous frogfish, amusing cephalopods and reasons to thank the President. You’ll see all this and more at www.facebook.com/Undercurrent.org

Fish Pee in It!  September 15, 2016

The urine of fish is rich in phosphorus, and their gills give off ammonia — two chemicals corals need to stay healthy and strong. Recent research published in Nature Communications, has suggested fish waste is a primary link in the good health of the reef Part of the reason coral reefs work is because animals play a big role in moving nutrients around Fish hold a large proportion, if not most, of the nutrients in a coral reef in their tissue, and they’re also in charge of recycling them Well, where did you think their pee went? Moreover, as fish are being depleted, so goes the urine — and the reefs.

Kill the Whalesharks, says God  September 15, 2016

Nelson Garcia, the mayor of Dumanjug, Cebu, has said he considers whale sharks and dolphins to be pests because they eat two tons of fish a day. In contrast, fishermen only manage to catch two kilograms of fish daily between the islands of Cebu and Negros Oriental. So, he wants to kill those whalesharks, and when asked if he was aware that killing whale sharks and dolphins is a crime under national and local laws, he responded with a biblical quote, saying God had said man should have dominion over the ocean, the fishes, the birds, and the animals.

Our Readers Reports are an important Resource  September 15, 2016

Undercurrent readers submit honest, forthright reports that can be accessed by any subscriber and unlike other publications, if a report doesn’t ring true or it looks like it was submitted by someone involved with the dive operation, we strike it from our website.

Some of the Other Things You Missed in the September issue of Undercurrent, in our 41st year of publication  September 15, 2016

Snorkeling with dolphins the Bahamas. . . Two very different experiences on the Sardine Run in South Africa. . . Has the lionfish met its match? . . . The man who made your diving safer . . . A poor payout for a diving death . . . Why so many sharks in one pass? . . . Video light or strobe? . . . A reader tells us of a seriously defective product . . . and much more. Subscribe to our monthly publication here and as our thanks, we’ll give you a new 40 page book, Eight Great Dive Resorts – and One Real Dog. Visit us to read or download free thousands of great stories from back issues.

Website Improvements  September 15, 2016

Although you are not a paid subscriber to Undercurrent, you have access to hundreds of pages of valuable diving information on our website, so we have created a cleaner, smaller navigation-bar to help you simplify and speed up your searching. Our "navbar" more readily conforms to your viewing, whether on your home computer, tablet, or mobile phone. We are making the entire website easier to view/navigate on mobile phones/tablets. It has taken far more time to make these improvements than one might imagine, and since we don't accept advertising, it has taken a while for our little nonprofit to set aside the money. Our site remains a work in progress, so if you find problems please contact our genial webmaster, Dave Eagleray, at feedback@undercurrent.org. To navigate the entire website and get Undercurrent delivered to you monthly, click here.

Ben Davison, editor/publisher
Contact Ben

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Note: Undercurrent is a registered 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization donating funds to help preserve coral reefs. Our travel writers never announce their purpose, are unknown to the destination, and receive no complimentary services or compensation from the dive operators or resort.

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