Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 1 - 2016 i Asian Diver

“Let me, O let me bathe my soul in colours; let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow.” Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) IT IS LIKELY you have seen these sea sapphires, but mistaken them for floating fish scales. The crystal structure of the backs of these tiny copepods reflects light in the most amazing shades of blue, green or purple. Only the males shimmer, to attract the less shiny females, who live inside pelagic tunicates, known as salps. This shot, taken in Raja Ampat, shows six male sea sapphires sharing a salp with a non-descript female just visible at the top right.…

FIVE SCARY STATS 1 The populations of fish we like to eat have fallen by HALF 2 Types of tuna could soon be off the menu – some species are down to just 4% of their original population 3 Every year 300,000 small whales, dolphins and porpoises die from entanglement in fishing nets 4 Average per-capita fish consumption globally increased from 9.9kg in the 1960s to 19.2 kg in 2012 (Source: FAO) 5 If we continue as we are, our oceans will be empty by 2048 – within a lifetime (Source: WWF Living Blue Planet Report) WHERE DOES OUR SEAFOOD COME FROM? The area known as the Coral Triangle is not just a natural beauty, with fabulous dive spots, it defines one of the most important coral reef systems in…

INDONESIA HAS MANY LOCATIONS with healthy reefs, but I have never experienced such rainbow-infused, multicoloured reef as the walls in Wakatobi – it’s seriously psychedelic. The sea fans may not be huge but they come in so many different colours with soft coral and sea whips protruding in between them, and colourful sea squirts covering any remaining bare rock. There are all sorts of tiny critters making use of the hiding spaces, pygmy seahorses, whip crabs and even boxer crabs in the shallow areas but this is definitely a place for wide-angle photography; the only problem is there is too much stunning reef to get in a single image. DIFFICULTY LEVEL: 5 LOCATION: Wakatobi, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia DIVE PROFILE: Steep wall, max depth 30m, current can sometimes be strong so…

TRYING TO FORECAST where we’re going is made infinitely easier when we’re able to look back and see where we’ve been! More often than not it’s a fascinating exercise in hindsight, one that manages to reveal that where we are today is not necessarily where we thought or hoped we’d be when we dreamed – a decade or more ago – of what the future might hold. Recreational diving is no exception – as I discovered while flicking through the musty pages of my hoard of old diving magazines. Reflecting the changes that have taken place in our approach to diving over the last half-century, many of those publications have become nothing more than vague memories. With small circulations and appealing to an equally small number of diving enthusiasts, much…

We have a grand selection of Facebook groups, each bringing divers and dive industry players together. Come over and check out: VOICE OF THE OCEAN www.facebook.com/groups/VoiceOfTheOcean HISTORICAL DIVING SOCIETY ASIA www.facebook.com/groups/HDSAsia DIVEAHOLICS www.facebook.com/groups/DiveaholicsScubaDiver ASIAN DIVERS NETWORK www.facebook.com/groups/AsianDiversNetwork SCUBA DIVER OCEAN PLANET www.facebook.com/groups/ScubaDiverOP SCUBA360 www.facebook.com/groups/Scuba360…

AT THE BASE of Sangeang Volcano, Indonesia, a remarkable dive site known as Hot Rocks sits just a few metres offshore. The beach’s black volcanic sand hints at the composition of the sea floor. The moment you slip in, you find the “hint” woefully inadequate, as you drop onto an incredible, unfathomable panorama – as far as you can see, a dark, tumbling plain stretches away in every direction. Large volcanic boulders lie jumbled about, each one covered and overgrown in a riot of twisting, swaying soft corals, crinoids, gorgonians, black coral bushes and wire corals of every hue in Nature’s arsenal. Anthias, butterflyfish, sweetlips, angelfish and schools of yellowfin surgeonfish and golden-lined snappers hover like painted motes, and streams of bubbles – escaping hot volcanic gas – twinkle in…

“KAL’S DREAM” IS A SEAMOUNT peaking at five metres and plummeting hundreds of metres into the blue, like an oasis in the dessert which attracts all creatures big and small. Being a seamount located offshore from the main island of Alor means this underwater mountaintop receives some serious current, topping seven knots of water movement. So your timing for any dive here needs to be perfectly calculated to enjoy the show in relative comfort and safety as well as being accompanied by an experienced divemaster who knows the area. Once you are submerged and immersed into “Kal’s Dream”, the next 40–60 minutes will change your idea about what fantastic diving really is. To say the colours of the reef and fishes are vibrant is a huge understatement. Unfortunately, you won’t…

ISOLATED ACROSS THE CHANNEL from Taveuni Island, this reef system gets its name from its spectacular combination of hard and soft corals which come in a diversity more akin to a well-planned aquarium than a single reef. This series of sites are well suited to drift diving due to the varying currents in the channel. This fast-flowing water is what gives you the chance to experience vast arrays of bright yellow cabbage-like corals right through to beautiful purple and orange soft coral trees, huge red fans, and green branching corals protruding from the reef walls in a single dive. Rainbow Reef isn’t just about the corals though; every head of coral is littered with a plethora of coloured fish life with intermingling schools of purple and orange fish dancing in…

FREEDIVING, it changed my life; I have been falling in love with this sport from the moment I first dived into the sea. Today, I am both a freediving instructor and freediving competition judge, but I’ve also got two other surprising titles: “underwater model” and “mermaid”. I never would have thought that I could actually make a job out of these last two. My friend took the first picture of my first dive. It certainly wasn’t a professional picture, taken by a camera wrapped in a plastic waterproof bag. It is not clear at all, but it was the first time I had seen myself in the water, and I loved the way I looked in it. I seemed taller and more slender, fully relaxed, flowing in space, surrounded by…

1 DiveRite Cookie Spool Designed to connect two lines together quickly and easily when diving in overhead environments such as caves or wrecks, the Cookie Spool wraps nine metres around a finger spool of only 5.8 centimetres. Uniquely, it attaches and locks to the line quickly, with notches on the spool that are similar to the notches on a line arrow or line cookie, removing the need for more hardware. MSRP USD 12 www.diverite.com 2 Apeks Guardian A low-profile full face mask that comes with a double seal silicone face skirt for a great fit no matter what, as well as a detachable second stage for easy cleaning. Also optimised for OTS underwater communications. MSRP USD 1,107 www.apeksdiving.com 3 DiveRite Nomad LTZ Sidemount divers will love the Nomad LTZ for…

COLOUR BY NUMBERS last sighting 2014 4 It is thought there are only albino orcas in the world. The last sighting of one was off the east coast of Russia. SEVERAL MILLION zooxanthellae can inhabit a single square inch of coral, and the zooxanthellae pigment cells that live inside the tissue of the clear coral polyp are what gives the coral its glorious colour. over 40% of all nitrogen fixation occurring in the ocean. The red Trichodesmium erythraeum, or sea sawdust, is a type of filamentous cyanobacteria, blooms of which are thought to have been one of the reasons the Red Sea got its colourful name. It is also important to the global ecosystem because it contributes over 40% of all nitrogen fixation occurring in the ocean. A scallop has…

FROM THE PUBLISHER Welcome to the inaugural issue of Scuba360! I’ve always seen the need to produce a B-to-B publication that focuses strictly on the dive industry and I’m incredibly happy to say we’ve finally done it! The first of its kind in the region, this quarterly e-magazine will cover seven main topics: green business, marine tourism, scuba gear, dive training and careers, dive safety, underwater photo and video equipment, and branding and marketing in Asia Pacific. As someone who’s been around long enough, I thought I might share some of my thoughts about the dive industry with you, in a regular column. Yes, the dive market is a niche one, but it’s important to make it profitable if you’re going to enter (or remain) in the business. In other…

ADEX, the largest and longest-running dive expo in Asia is celebrating its 21st birthday in 2016. From confirmed “diveaholics” to scuba babies, the must-attend event is aimed for everyone in, or interested in, the dive industry. Last year, ADEX 2015 attracted over 41,000 visitors across the three days, and with a crowd that continues to grow year by year, it’s a weekend you’ll need to leave free on your calendar. Why? Here’s why: 1 Celebrate superb seahorses Every year the show is dedicated to a species of marine life, and ADEX 2016 will see the majestic seahorse take the podium. All aspects of this fantastic species, from its conservation status to its habits, will be promoted to educate the public about the current threats and issues seahorses face and how…

IN THE COOL, nutrient-rich waters of South Komodo, Indonesia, is a unique dive site that, in this divers’ experience, may actually qualify as one of the single-most colourful places on the planet. Unimposing topside, just a wave-washed bit of rock breaking the surface of a channel’s greenish water, underwater, Cannibal is an extravagant surprise of Nature – a huge, rock pinnacle utterly buried under a layer, a metre or two thick, of the most exotic, outrageously-coloured life imaginable. Huge, purple gorgonian fans, dark green stands of Micrantha corals, lime-green sea whips, spiral corals, soft corals of seemingly every colour of the palette, and thousands of rainbow-hued crinoids are just the beginning, for much of the effect is created by the combined mosaic of vibrant, small life crammed into every possible…

LAYANG LAYANG may be known for the pelagics cruising in the blue – sharks, manta and devil rays – but it also has one of the healthiest reefs I have encountered in South East Asia. The gorgonian fans are not large; they are enormous – divers resemble tiny hobbits when swimming next to them. From Gorgonian Forest to Crack Reef, the edge of the reef becomes a steep drop-off and that’s where the wall becomes busy with lots of colourful soft coral and barrel sponges. Large bushes of black coral can also be found slightly deeper and when you are tired of shooting wide-angle shots of the wall switch to macro as this is where the Denise pygmy seahorse and ghost pipefish can sometimes be encountered. DIFFICULTY LEVEL: 6 LOCATION:…

“Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter” – African Proverb equipment To prove that worked their , risk they their would lives have , diving to metres an incredibly to the deep murky 60 , litter-strewn bottom of the harbour WALTER BENJAMIN famously said that “history is written by the victors”, and the truth of this mantra repeats throughout the inventing timeline over and over; take the unsung hero of the second industrial revolution, Nikola Tesla, whose work was stolen by Thomas Edison, or Daisuke Inoue who never made a million from his karaoke machine. Time and time again, great inventors become overshadowed by corporations or people that take the credit for their work. What follows is just another tale in a library full…

THE LINE BETWEEN rec and tek is not all that clear. For some, diving itself is already technical, and when you add nitrox into the mix, the line becomes blurred even further; some agencies start to introduce divers to more technical diving by offering foundation courses in the use of more advanced gas blends. So, if you want to break out of your NDLs and take your diving to the next level, there are a number of ways you can make your foray into the world of tek diving – it all depends on where you want to go with your underwater exploration, and how you want to get there. Here are some of the entry-level courses that will let you start extending your bottom time by making planned decompression…

A DIVER IS HAPPILY cruising along a reef in Bonaire in the US at about 20 metres when he notices someone from the same group makes alone, but controlled, ascent from about 30 metres. Our happy (and responsible) diver watches him hit the surface (with no safety stop), spend a few moments up there, and then go back down to rejoin the rest of the group. Back on the boat, our mystified diver asks his bouncing boat fellow about this odd piece of behaviour. The man replies, “Oh, I just had some water in my mask. I needed to dump it out!”…