Current Online Updates*
The Latest Dive News   What's this?

Does Your Regulator Taste Musty?
Exuma’s Famous Swimming Pigs Poisoned
Sri Lanka Aggressor Ceases Operation
Shark Feeding For Divers – Good or Bad?
Our New 40-page book – Eight Great Dive Liveaboards – and One Disaster – is yours, at no charge,
Lost at Sea?
Wet Dining and Flat Champagne?
A Taste of How Subscribers Benefit
Costa Rica Finally Gets Tough
Raja Ampat Reef in Peril
What You Missed in March’s Undercurrent

Does Your Regulator Taste Musty?  March 15, 2017

If you’ve stored it away while it was still damp from rinsing, it might have grown some bacterial mold within it. No problem! How about simply soaking it in the same solution that is used to sterilize baby’s feeding bottles? Rebreather divers use proprietary disinfectants like Chemgene or Steramine for their valves, hoses and counterlungs, and they’re just as effective with traditional open-circuit breathing kit too.

Exuma’s Famous Swimming Pigs Poisoned  March 15, 2017

Being given the wrong food or possibly even tots of rum by clueless tourists has poisoned and killed a third of 21 the pigs familiar to divers to the Exuma Cays in the Bahamas. The government has outlawed feeding of the surviving pigs on Big Major Cay, and will implement that law as soon as it is practical, they say. The pigs were featured in Undercurrent’s August 2016 review of the Aqua Cat in The Bahamas.

Sri Lanka Aggressor Ceases Operation  March 15, 2017

Undercurrent exposed and published problems in the operation of this new boat and we have just learned that it has suspended operation as of March 11. The full story in our April issue.

Shark Feeding For Divers – Good or Bad?  March 15, 2017

This month Undercurrent asked subscribers if they approved of feeding or baiting of sharks for the benefit of viewing divers. It’s an emotive subject with strong opinions one way or the other. Would you like to respond to our survey? We’d like to hear from you, but do tell us if you’ve had any actual experience of such a dive or not and please tell us your name, town and state. Go here.

Our New 40-page book – Eight Great Dive Liveaboards – and One Disaster – is yours, at no charge,  March 15, 2017

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, so you can pick your next trip with no worries. Click HERE for details.

Lost at Sea?  March 15, 2017

It’s every diver’s nightmare, to find no boat waiting when you surface. It happens far too often. We came up with recommended solutions to getting spotted by a searching dive boat in Undercurrent’s November 2016 issue. They included low-tech kit like over-sized surface marker buoys and flags on extending poles, plus the latest electronic devices such as the Seareq autonomous diver locator system and the Nautilus Lifeline Marine Rescue personal GPS and radio beacon.

Wet Dining and Flat Champagne?  March 15, 2017

Brussels’ Nemo33 is a pool designed for training scuba divers and as such is 33m (107 feet) deep. Now, if you dive 16 feet (5m) below the surface, you’ll find a 2m-wide (6.5 feet) sphere, which serves as a restaurant. For US$106 per person, you may enjoy Foie gras, lobster salad, and champagne, delivered in waterproof containers by scuba diving waiters. You’ll need to don your scuba gear before surfacing inside the sphere, and we suspect the champagne will taste a little flat served at one-and-a-half times normal air pressure.

A Taste of How Subscribers Benefit  March 15, 2017

With more than 600 independent reader’s reports filed with Undercurrent each year, subscribers get access to first-hand accounts not available elsewhere. Our reader’s reviews of dive operators, liveaboards, and resorts they’ve dived are available to any other Undercurrent subscriber, who may even email the reader who filed the report to get more information. Indispensable when planning dive trips. You can get a taste of these reports abridged in an article this month that’s free for you to read – Subscriber’s Travel Tips in www.undercurrent.org

Costa Rica Finally Gets Tough  March 15, 2017

Taiwanese businesswoman Tsung has been sentenced to 6 months in prison in Costa Rica after authorities discovered her fishing boat Wan Jia Men 88 loaded with illegally caught shark fins. Initially acquitted in 2014, she was found guilty on appeal. The sentence sends a clear message of intent that Costa Rica will no longer tolerate shark finning in its waters. It has banned such activity since 2012.

Raja Ampat Reef in Peril  March 15, 2017

The cruise ship Caledonian Sky ran aground on Crossover Reef, just north of Kri Island in West Papua, on the 4th March. Those who know there area are surprised such a large vessel was awarded a permit to sail there. When a US Navy ship ran on the Tubbataha Reef in the Philippines, the US government paid nearly 2 million dollars in compensation.

What You Missed in March’s Undercurrent  March 15, 2017

A different take on a liveaboard trip to Tiger Beach in the Bahamas counterbalanced by a campaign to stop shark-feeding dives in Federal waters . . . The story of an unlucky Dutch television presenter who got on the wrong end of a shark feed . . . A shore-based trip to Raja Ampat in Indonesia . . . Those pesky liability waivers and what our subscribers think about them . . . The medical men have their say about in-water recompression . . . plus a reader reports a day in the chamber . . . The quick fix for jpegs taken underwater . . . A new way to get killed . . . A call to stop critter manipulation by macro photographers in competitions . . . and much, much more.

Ben Davison, editor/publisher
Contact Ben

Website News

Accessing Undercurrent Easily on Your Mobile Phone:  March 15, 2017

As announced last time, we've been working on making our website and emails easier for you to read and navigate on your mobile phone. We just finished this task for all the issues and articles. So now the vast majority of our website is "mobile-friendly", but there's still more to do. Those pages that ARE mobile-friendly now include:

• Reader Report pages
• Issue and article pages
• Blogs
• Monthly Online Update and issue emails
• Home page

Most mobile phones in use now should display all of these correctly. But older ones running old browsers, e.g. iPhone 4 with ios 4) may not display these pages corectly. Please report any issues you have to me, Dave Eagleray and include enough details so I can reproduce the problem.

Site Search Significantly Improved:  March 15, 2017

We just fixed some issues that confused the results produced by our Site Search. At times there apparently would be a number of pages repeated, as well as some extraneous results. Now that's resolved.

Our Site Search is a good way to find what you're looking for. Either follow the "search icon" (magnifying glass) on pages of our site, or do an advanced search at /UCnow/SearchFF.php. We think you'll like the results.

Dave S. Eagleray, webmaster
Contact Dave

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

Highlights of Previous Online Updates*

Here are past Online Update emails sent out . You can sign-up for free to receive these in the future here.

Online Updates* Archive, 2000-2015

* Sometimes referred to as Upwellings