A British diver Richard Neely, 38, and his American girlfriend Allison Dalton, 40, have been rescued after drifting for 20 hours following a dive off the Great Barrier Reef.

They were separated from their boat on Friday 23 May after surfacing 200 metres away. The crew did not see them and currents carried them away.

The incident happened off the coast of Queensland. Involving 7 helicopters, 3 planes and 6 boats, and is estimated to have cost around £200,000.

The couple sold their story to a Sunday newspaper for a rumoured £500,000, There have now been calls for them to pay back the cost of their rescue.

Queensland state premier Anna Bligh said: “If they are going to profit from their story I don’t think a contribution back would go astray.”

The pair were winched to safety nine miles from where they had been diving near the Whitsunday Islands off the eastern coast.

“I truly thought we were going to die. Sharks were on our mind the entire time, but neither of us mentioned the ‘S’ word,” Mr Neely told the Sunday Mirror.
“We just had to stay positive and calm to help each other through the ordeal and not think about being eaten alive.”

Fellow divers and the crew of the boat Ozsail have since criticised the couple for ignoring instructions in the safety briefing. They did not remain on the dive site, they did not follow the clear instructions of the dive instructor they did not surface immediately upon leaving Gary’s Lagoon.

In another interview, the couple denied any wrongdoing. “I don’t consider that we drifted away from the dive site,” said Mr Neely. “We were on the dive site for the entire time of our allocated dive time.”

British diver, Alan Costello, 52 yrs, from Moss Bank, St Helens, was last seen exploring the wreck of the Rosalie Moller in Egypt’s Red Sea on 20 May.

Costello and his buddy left another buddy pair and went off to explore the engine room.

The pair became disorientated and stirred up the silt. His diving buddy made it to the surface but there was no sign of Costello.

The alarm was raised and an extensive air and sea search was launched, also involving dive boat operators.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “We can confirm that a British citizen went missing off the coast of Egypt and we are working with the local authorities there to do all we can to find him.

“We are also liaising with the family and offering them support at this difficult time.”

The Ministry of Defence has reported that a nuclear-powered submarine, HMS Superb of Britain’s Royal Navy hit rocks beneath the surface of the Red Sea. There were no casualties and the sub has now safely surfaced.
The Swiftsure-class attack submarine does not carry nuclear weapons. It remains watertight and its nuclear reactor was completely unaffected.
A ministry spokesman refused to reveal the vessel’s current mission in the area, which he said was being reassessed as its sonar was damaged.
An investigation into the cause of the accident is in progress.

The Aegean city of Bal?kesir’s Ayval?k district, one of the two places in the world where red corals live, has opened its tourism season. The district, which is also a significant diving spot, makes a good promotion of red corals and attracts domestic and foreign diving buffs who are interested in this type of coral. More »

The Twilight Zone became famous as the name of the hit TV series, but what happens in the real ‘twilight zone,’ at depths between 40 meters and 100 meters in the sea, may be even stranger than fiction - at least in the eyes of a marine biologist.

There are less than 10 dedicated teams in the world studying the dangerous twilight zone, and one of them is stationed at the northern shore of the Rea Sea in Israel. There, Oded Ben Shaprut (pic above), head diving officer for the Interuniversity Institute of Eilat (IUI), who heads the team, is helping marine biologists go where few divers have gone before. More »

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has designated ten more wrecks as war graves under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. Divers will no longer be allowed to penetrate these vessels and can now only explore them on a strict ‘look-but-don’t-touch’ basis.

The latest wrecks to be protected by war-grave status include the Second World War vessel SS Storaa, which lies at 30m off Hastings in Sussex. Veterans minister Derek Twigg said: ‘I am pleased to extend protection to these ten vessels. I hope this will be of some comfort to the families of those who lost their lives on board these ships.’

The following nine wrecks have also been protected by the MoD:
• HMS Amphion, which lies at 30m in the North Sea;
• HMS Ghurka, which lies at 30m off Dungeness, Kent;
• HMS L24, which lies at 52m off Portland, Dorset;
• HMS Delight, which lies at 62m off Portland, Dorset;
• HMS Curacao, which lies at 122m in the Atlantic;
• HMS Penylan, which lies at 66m in the English Channel;
• HMS Loyalty, which lies at 50m off the Isle of Wight;
• U-714, which lies at 57m near the Firth of Forth in eastern Scotland; and
• Falklands War vessel Atlantic Conveyor, in the South Atlantic.

For a full list of MoD-protected wrecks, see the Maritime and Coastguard Agency website at www.mcga.gov.uk

The Great Barrier Reef will soon be the most monitored reef in the world with the application of a “digital skin” of sensors that will make possible the finest resolution picture ever of the region’s dynamic systems…

The Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, will today (Friday 9 May 2008) announce the Great Barrier Reef Ocean Observing System (GBROOS), a regional ocean observation network covering the eastern Coral Sea and the Great Barrier Reef and incorporating the world’s first large scale reef-based Internet Protocol (IP) network.

In this project, AIMS is harnessing its leading capabilities in data management, as well as its extensive national and international collaborations, to move Australian reef science to a new level. More »

Nine dead dolphins, in an advanced stage of decomposition, have been found dead and washed ashore in recent days in Gran Canaria.

In the archipelago the number of dead dolphins is approaching forty this year. Eleven of these were rough-toothed dolphins - pictured left (Steno bredanensis) and now tests are being carried out to establish the cause of death.

Analysis of the stomach contents of each animal showed they had all been eating the same kind of fish normally within hours of their death.

Various theories being considered include a virus, bacteria, poison or some other form of pollution affecting vital organs or some other connecting factor to explain what occurred in the southern waters of Gran Canaria over the ten days previous to their discovery.

Antonio Fernándiz, as expert at the Cetacean Investigation Unit at Las Palmas University, said that the evidence points to the animals having “died suddenly, together and within the same group” in relatively shallow water.

“Whatever caused their deaths has been something very fast as these were all healthy specimens which had been feeding up until they died. I have never witnessed anything like it before,” he said. The dolphins washed ashore are more than likely the mere tip of an iceberg and many others will have been carried away on currents.

After a prolonged illness, Hugh Bradner renowned physicist and inventor of the neoprene wetsuit, sadly died on May 5th, 2008. His career incorporated the design of many ocean technologies as well as the first neoprene wetsuit. Hugh was a faculty member of Scripps Institution of Oceanography and UC San Diego and was one of the first Americans to make a deep water scuba dive. He was an adventurous man and had a passion for the ocean, enjoying sailing and diving. In his spare time he set about to improve the diving equipment for Navy frogmen which included the invention of the neoprene wetsuit, underwater contact lenses, a single-hose regulator and a decompression meter…

“Brad’s neoprene wetsuit was a tremendous contribution to scientific diving,” said James Stewart, professor emeritus at Scripps. “He was a great guy and a lot of fun to work with.” He enjoyed life to the max, an inspiration to us all. His travels took him all over the world, enjoying the ocean’s and passing on his love to his students, family and friends. A truly great teacher who loved to pass on his joy and enthusiasm as he led people to make new discoveries. He was a painter, a jeweller, a photographer as well as a physicist, a true intellectual and an artistic visionary creator.

His wife of 65 years, Marjorie, passed away in April of this year and they will be sadly missed by his daughter, three grandchildren and one great granddaughter. A truly great contributor to the sport of Scuba, serving on the national, state and various university diving safety committee’s. A memorial service for both Hugh and Marjorie will be held at Scripps at a later date and the family request gifts to The Hugh and Marjorie Bradner Endowment at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in memory of this pioneering man with a passion for our oceans.

Source: Science Centric

Renowned marine life guide author Helmut Debelius is searching for underwater photographs of an extremely rare seahorse found in the Red Sea.

Sightings of the seahorse have only been reported twice in the last ten years, at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula and also Hurgahda. The species is as yet unnamed, but is known to live in Dendronephthya soft corals in depths of between 15 to 35m.

Debilus requests the following information:- the exact location the photograph was taken, depth and also the month and year of the sighting,

If you have photographs of the seahorse (as pictured), contact Helmut Debelius by email at ikanuw@aol.com