A diver had a lucky escape when 2 cylinders he was filling exploded due to being fitted with incorrect valves. Phil Luxford, 63, owner of the caravan park Trevair Touring Site near Penzance, which also offers air fills for divers, said the bottles exploded through his roof.
The explosion knocked him into a water tank. He was lucky to survive.The two cylinders, a 12-litre and a 15-litre, exploded one after the other. They hit the roof. Another cylinder was sent flying through a window where it smashed into a car parked nearby, narrowly missing a diver who was asleep in the car. The explosion knocked Luxford out and he had no recollection of the bang. Witnesses outside claimed 1 cylinder was at least 30m in the air.
Covered in bruises and suffering from painful lungs he, and others in the vicinity are lucky to be alive.Over the late May Bank Holiday weekend the two cylinders had been left to be filled by a visiting diver. No one was aware that the British standard cylinders had been fitted with European standard metric valves. European standard valves are smaller than British standard valves, which Luxford blamed for the explosion.
Throughout the world conservationists are appealing to divers to take part in a clean up day, to help remove harmful rubbish from seas, beaches, rivers and lakes. Organised by the Project AWARE Foundations, on Saturday 15th September 2007 dive centres in more than 100 countries and territories throughout the world will be taking part in the 2007 International Cleanup Day.‘Litter is not just a surface problem,’ said Suzanne Pleydell, Project AWARE Foundation director. ‘In addition to being an eyesore, debris can pose a real danger to both divers and marine wildlife.’During the 2006 Project AWARE International Cleanup Day, 103 tonnes of debris was removed from 3,105 miles of river and sea bed by more than 7,000 divers.
Non-divers as well as divers are invited to take part by organising their own beach or underwater clean up or join one of the many events listed. For more information, see the Project AWARE website www.projectaware.org. www.projectaware.org
Photo above by David Oldale, story coming soon in holiday diver.
The baby Giant Manta Ray, born 16th June (see previous story) died four days after its birth. Its abusive father constantly chased and attacked the baby and its death was most likely caused by multiple bruises.It is a mystery why the father was so violent and an investigation into its death continues.
First time ever in the world a Female Giant Manta Ray gave birth in an aquarium.
Date: Saturday June 16, 2007
Time: 10:25 PM
Place: Kuroshio tank of Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, Japan
Size: 2.0 Meters Wide
Father: Measures 3.5m in width, kept since May, 1992
Mother: Measures 4.2m in width, kept since August, 1998
Very little is kniown about the life of Manta Rays (Manta birostris) even the length of a pregnancy. Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium has been succeeding in keeping the Manta Rays (Manta birostris) for the first time successfully in the world since November, 1988. On Jun 16th, after over a year of waiting, its marine life experts observed the very first Giant Manta Ray birth EVER in captivity.
The manta ray, or giant manta (Manta birostris), is the largest of the rays, with the largest known specimen having been nearly 7.6 meters (25 ft) across its pectoral fins (or “wings”) and weighed in at 3,000 kg (6,600 lb). It ranges throughout the tropical seas of the world, typically around coral reefs…
The live birth was captured on video and broadcast on Japanese television nationally. In a videotape of the actual delivery, the baby manta was rolled up like a tube and slid out of its mother. She immediately spread her fins like wings and swam very gracefully. The baby was over 6 feet wide!
The giant manta ray mother’s pregnancy lasted roughly 374 days. She was brought to the Aquarium in 1998 after swimming into a fishnet off the southern island of Okinawa, about 1,000 miles southwest of Tokyo. Little did she know that she would be making history and teaching humans about the reproductive habits of giant mantas 
For the complete story visit: Rare Giant Manta Ray Born at Japan Aquarium. For photos of the baby and her dad, visit: Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium
Sources: Time; Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium; Wikipedia
A JELLYFISH plague is threatening shipping and fishing worldwide.
Scientists believe depleted fish stocks have removed competition for jellyfish, allowing them to breed to plague proportions. Jellyfish blooms, where the creatures multiply rapidly into untold millions, clog water intakes on ships and power stations, ruin fishing nets and can wreck engines.
Kylie Pitt, from the Griffith University School of Environment, said Japan was experiencing plagues of the giant jellyfish nemopilema.
“At more than a metre wide and up to 200kg, they become caught in fishing gear and damage boat engines and mechanical equipment,” Dr Pitt said.
The Port of Brisbane was experiencing blooms of catostylus or blue blubber jellyfish.
In 2004, thousands of blue blubbers stopped the P&O cruise ship Pacific Sky from sailing from Brisbane after they were sucked into a water intake.
A jellyfish bloom also shut down a coastal power station in Manila in the Philippines in 2000. A survey of Lake Illawarra, near Wollongong in NSW, found it contained 18,000 tonnes of blue blubbers.
The Moreton Bay Seafood Industry Association also had reported problems with jellyfish clogging Brisbane River trawler nets.
“At times they are in absolutely enormous quantities,” Dr Pitt said.
Port of Brisbane Authority environment manager Brad Kitchen said blooms were not a major issue for the port.
“It’s mainly just the ships with bow thrusters (used to turn ships) that have to be careful,” Mr Kitchen said.
“Bow thrusters can get clogged.”
Although Australia did not yet have the feared nemopilema blooms, jellyfish could spread quickly world-wide through ballast water.
Mr Kitchen said in an effort to avoid exotic species being transported to Brisbane, all ships entering the port were obliged to dump ballast and take on deep sea water off the continental shelf before entering Moreton Bay.
Source: Couriermail
Two of the rarest babies in the marine world are just days away from celebrating their second birthdays.
They are a pair of zebra snouted seahorses, whose arrival along with several dozen siblings in 2005 set the marine biology telegraph buzzing with excitement.
These were only the second ever babies of the species, Latin name Hippocampus barbouri, to be born in captivity.
Great Yarmouth Sea Life Centre displays supervisor Claire Little said: It was especially significant because this is one of the species most under threat from the Chinese medicine trade.
Literally millions of seahorses are taken to provide ingredients for traditional oriental medicines of very dubious actual benefit.
Fewer than a couple of any seahorse clutch survive in the wild against a gauntlet of natural hazards ranging from hungry predators to sudden temperature changes. The lucky one or two who make it then have to also avoid the fishermen.
The sea life centre in Marine Parade unsurprisingly lost most of its own zebra snout babies in the critical first few weeks after their birth, but around 20 were reared to a size that enabled all bar the remaining two to be despatched to the UK’s seahorse breeding headquarters in Weymouth, Dorset.
Source: Norwich Evening News
DAN (Divers Alert Network) is seeking information from divers about their personal experiences in diving after a colostomy or ileostomy. To find out more:-www.diversalertnetwork.org/news/article.asp?newsid=961
Your information will be kept confidential. Please contribute if you can.
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Divers in Thailand have finally uncovered the identity of two Second World War British minesweepers, lying off the island of Phuket on the country’s west coast. Following a series of exploratory dives, the team from Deep Blue Divers finally uncovered an artefact that positively identified the wrecks of the Vestal and the HMS Squirrel. The Vestal was the last warship to be lost by the British Navy at the end of the Second World War, while the HMS Squirrel sank two days before during a minesweeping operation in June 1945. Both wrecks lie to the southwest of Phuket at depths of 72m and 76m. ‘Although both wrecks were identified in 2002 and 2006 as two sister ships, the true identity of each remained unclear until April this year,’ said Joerg Zebisch of Deep Blue Divers dive centre. ‘As both ships were minesweepers of the Algerine-class and therefore structurally identical, the only hints to the identity of each were the records of eyewitness reports. According to these, we were led to believe that the wreck of the HMS Squirrel was the HMS Vestal.’ The team discovered an object bearing the name and date of production of the Vestal in an unexpected location. The team said this find, together with newly released information from the British Admiralty National Archives providing accurate details of the last known location of the HMS Squirrel, finally solved the mystery. |
To those who relate sharks to tropical waters and James Bond, the very phrase “British sharks” is absurd. Are there any? Any that haven’t got lost on the way to somewhere else? And are they all as harmless as the 4.9m (16ft) basking shark that paid a visit to Porthcurno, Cornwall, this weekend, causing great excitement among swimmers and surfers?
In fact, says Ali Hood, director of conservation at the Shark Trust, a UK charity dedicated to promoting the study, management and conservation of sharks, there are about 30 species native to British waters. They range in size from 40cm to 11m (36ft), and include filter-feeders and predators. We have blue sharks, shortfin makos, and blackmouth dogfishes; thresher sharks, starry smoothhounds and porbeagles; frilled sharks, bramble sharks and sharpnose sevengills. They can be pretty elusive: that last trio, for example, are deep-water species, very unlikely to toddle up to a beach. Hood points out that you are “unlikely to sight any species bar a basking shark unless you’re fishing or diving”.
This isn’t just because they hide out in deep cold waters: half of British sharks are endangered. Within the past five years the angel shark has become extinct in the North Sea; the common skate (part of the shark family) is now at 10% of its former population levels.
As for the man-eating great whites, there is no solid evidence of visitations. “If white sharks were resident in our waters, we would know,” says Hood. “They’d be caught up in fishing nets or beached. That’s not to say that one hasn’t passed through. Porbeagles are very closely related - physically, visually, you can get confused.”
Will any of the British sharks attack? “Not unless provoked. As with any wild animal, if you give them due respect, you should have no cause for concern.”
Basking shark
AS it struggles to recover from the effects of two terrorist bombings, Bali’s tourism industry is facing a new threat - global warming.Experts say climate change is hitting Bali’s coral reefs hard, turning once vibrant diving locations into bleached shadows of their former glory.
The situation has been compounded by the widespread, but illegal, use of cyanide and bombs by local fishermen.
In the West Bali National Park, the once common sight of brightly-coloured clown fish swimming among healthy pink anemones is becoming rare. And larger fish are increasingly uncommon.
On Menjangan Island, a popular dive spot within the park, once-vibrant cliffs of underwater colour now look washed out and brittle, with rising sea temperatures aiding the bleaching process.
“Climate change is a major threat to the Bali’s coral reef ecosystem,” says Ketut Sudiarta, a lecturer at Bali’s Warmadewa University.
“The prediction of more frequent El Nino phenomena and increasing sea surface temperatures due to climate change is worrying.”
Foreign tourist numbers to the park have fallen dramatically, but no-one can say whether terrorism or the changing seascape is to blame. Just 3206 foreign tourists went there last year, compared to 20,168 in 2000 - before the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings.
Indonesia, along with Malaysia and the Philippines, has the most diverse marine life in the world, while Australia’s Great Barrier Reef sits on the second ring.
But coral bleaching has intensified over the past 20 years - a severe El Nino event in 1998 was blamed for the most extensive bleaching to coral reefs in Bali, as sea surface temperatures climbed.
El Nino is a powerful phenomenon in which ocean surface temperatures fluctuate and warmer currents replace cooler ones, and experts warn global warming will generate more frequent El Nino events in the future.
“The bleaching doesn’t mean the coral is dead, but it makes the corals become transparent,” says Reef Check Indonesia’s Naneng Setiasih.
“If it stays like that for along time, it will die.
“If it isn’t exposed to the (warmer) temperature for a long time, and the stress is not too big, it can return back to normal.”
Greenpeace activists in Bali’s busy Kuta tourist precinct this week staged a protest, urging greater action to tackle the problem of climate change.
“Ultimately, the survival of the reefs in Bali and other tropical regions depends on halting the catastrophic phenomenon of climate change,” Greenpeace South East Asia climate and energy campaigner Nur Hidayati said.
“And the only way to do that is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, especially burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil that are responsible for the bulk of emissions.”
Reef Check said other illegal practices were compounding problems in the West Bali National Park.
Despite a government ban, fisherman are continuing to use potassium cyanide to catch fish. They spray the highly toxic compound into holes in the coral to flush out fish, which are then scooped up.
Reef Check is also alarmed about the ongoing use of bombs by fishermen, with the devices used killing everything within a four metre radius.
“Sedimentation, bombing, cyanide, coastal development unfriendly to the environment must be stopped, if not the corals will not have a chance to survive,” Reef Check’s Setiasih said.
In some parts of the park’s marine protected zone, such as Banyu Wedang, dead coral is scattered like rubble on the sea floor.
Sudiarta says the amount of coral has fallen significantly since 1997, when it covered 43.5 per cent of the marine area off Menjangan Island.
After 2001, it was about 30.1 per cent, but has recovered slightly to be about 35 per cent currently.
Despite the problems, Sudiarta said awareness is low. Unless that changes, the marine ecosystem in West Bali is firmly on the endangered list.