Scuba Diver Destinations #9

DEEP DIVE DUBAI

JOHN KENDALL EXPLORES THE DEEPEST POOL ON THE PLANET

THE SS YONGALA

WHY THIS AUSSIE WRECK IS CONSIDERED SO SPECTACULAR

PUERTO GALERA

RONI BEN-AHARON LOOKS AT THIS FILIPINO FAVORITE

WALT STEARNS SHINES A LIGHT ON FIVE DIVE HOTSPOTS

AZOTH O’DIVE DOPPLER

DIVERS ALERT NETWORK ISSUE #9

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EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Mark Evans Email: mark@scubadivermag.com EDITOR (North America) Walt Stearns Email: walt@scubadivermag.com DESIGN & PRODUCTION MANAGER Matt Griffiths Email: matt@scubadivermag.com PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Ross Arnold Email: ross@scubadivermag.com BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Penney Evans Email: penney@scubadivermag.com CONTRIBUTORS John Kendall, Roni Ben-Aharon, Jason Brown, Adrian Stacey

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Are you ready?

T

he world has certainly changed since March of 2020. With all that’s happened these past two years, I know I have let a lot slip through the cracks, particularly when it comes to my travel planning and routines.

If you’re ready to book some dive trips like I am, there are a couple things you might want to consider to make sure you are ready for the journey ahead. I don’t mean psychologically ready; I know I am. But I’ve also realized there are a few matters that I haven’t thought about for a while.

Let’s say that you’ve made your plans and are ready to pull the trigger on airline tickets and a resort / liveaboard package. Have you checked your passport recently? My passport has spent nearly two years in a drawer, and I recently realized I need to renew it before it expires in January 2023, as many destinations require at least 90 days of validity to enter their country - and when the Philippines reopened recently, it was with a requirement for six months time remaining on your passport before expiration.

Another thing to consider is vaccination. While countries like Australia, the Philippines, and Indonesia are reopening their doors to international visitors, it doesn’t mean they’ve lifted all Covid restrictions. On 21 February, Australia reopened their border to fully vaccinated international travelers. As many countries follow suit, they may not require you to quarantine after arrival, but they could require proof of full vaccination before entering. Regardless of your opinion on the subject, once you step foot on their soil, it’s their rules.

To help get you inspired to pack and go we’ve put together a great issue. This includes another Philippines feature, this time on Puerto Galera, and a behind the scenes look at Deep Dive Dubai, the world’s deepest indoor pool. There is also a feature on the wreck of the SS Yongala in Australia. And for the dive techno geek, we’ve included a piece on the Azoth O’Dive doppler, which enables you to personalize your dive profile according to bubbles in your system.

Walt Stearns, Editor (North America)

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DEEP DIVE DUBAI

JOHN KENDALL EXPLORES THE DEEPEST POOL ON THE PLANET

THE SS YONGALA

WHY THIS AUSSIE WRECK IS CONSIDERED SO SPECTACULAR

PUERTO GALERA

RONI BEN-AHARON LOOKS AT THIS FILIPINO FAVORITE

WALT STEARNS SHINES A LIGHT ON FIVE DIVE HOTSPOTS

AZOTH O’DIVE DOPPLER

DIVERS ALERT NETWORK ISSUE #9

Cover.indd 1

Bahamas

09/03/2022 19:05

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF WALT STEARNS

Cuba

Turks and Caicos Islands

Mexico Cayman Islands

GET ONLINE! CAN’T WAIT FOR YOUR NEXT ISSUE OF SCUBA DIVER DESTINATIONS? THEN LOG ON TO THE WEBSITE: WWW.SCUBADIVERDESTINATIONS.COM You’ll find all the latest diving news from around the world, in-depth travel reports, unbiased and comprehensive equipment reviews, hints and advice on diving techniques, underwater photography and videography, insights into diving medical issues, articles on conservation initiatives, Q&As with industry icons and legends, exciting competitions, and much, much more!

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NEWS IN BRIEF

The Kona Aggressor II ceases operation after 33 years, Buddy Dive launches Thru the Lens UWP event, Peru oil spill is bigger than was initially thought, an ancient shipwreck off Israel yields a ‘Good Shepherd’ gold ring, the Shark Trust announces Great Shark Snapshot, and the dive industry mourns the death of Tom Mount.

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GLOBAL DIVE HOTSPOTS, PART ONE

As we all look forward to life getting back to some semblance of normality through 2022, North America Editor Walt Stearns dives into his back catalogue to give us some global destinations to add to our diving ‘bucket list’.

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TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS

In this column sponsored by Aggressor Adventures, we look at the top five dive sites in the Turks and Caicos Islands, and offer some handy travel advice for this Caribbean favorite.

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Uni ted Arab Emirates T he Philippines

Australia

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DIVERS ALERT NETWORK

The experts from Divers Alert Network offer useful advice on ways to minimise the risk of decompression sickness, or DCS, which occurs when nitrogen bubbles form in the blood and can cause severe joint pain, among other symptoms.

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THE PHILIPPINES

A timely piece with the Philippines just recently reopening their borders to tourists. Here we put our focus on Puerto Galera and the surrounding area. There is an amazing diversity of diving in and around this part of the Philippines, as Roni Ben-Aharon explains.

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UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

The world’s deepest pool has opened in Dubai, and John Kendall was lucky to see it - and dive in it - during construction. Here he tells us more about the ultimate underwater theme park.

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AUSTRALIA

Nigel Marsh is left awe-struck by the SS Yongala, which he believes rightly deserves its place in any top 10 shipwrecks of the world list. It may have a tragic backstory, but it is now a magnet for marine life, and attracts everything from sea snakes and turtles to bull sharks and humpback whales.

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AZOTH O’DIVE DOPPLER

Science tells us that every diver bubbles after every dive, but how do you know how bad you are bubbling and what can you do to improve the safety of your dives? Jason Brown gets in a fizz about Azoth’s new doppler device.

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GEAR TEST EXTRA

Scuba Diver Editorial Director Mark Evans gets his hands on different incarnations of the Fourth Element Scout mask, and the Swift transmitter from Shearwater Research, and takes them out for a series of test dives to rate and review them.

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PERU OIL SPILL ‘BIGGER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT’

KONA AGGRESSOR II CEASES OPERATION

Aggressor Adventures is saying goodbye to the Kona Aggressor II, which has been part of its extensive fleet of worldwide liveaboards for 33 years. In a statement released on social media, Aggressor Adventures’ CEO Wayne Brown explained that after extensive topside remodeling on the Kona Aggressor II, the remaining work was to be done in a shipyard to complete any hull repairs before putting the yacht back into service.

Last week, the yacht duly traveled to a shipyard in Honolulu, which is where it is now. The aluminum inspection revealed the repairs would require removing the entire superstructure to repair the pontoons at an estimated cost in excess of $500,000. Due to the excessive costs to repair the vessel to Aggressor’s safety standards, the Kona Aggressor II yacht owner has made the decision to cease operations in Kona, Hawaii, effective 14 February 2022. www.aggressor.com

ANCIENT SHIPWRECK OFF ISRAEL YIELDS ‘GOOD SHEPHERD’ GOLD RING

A gold ring harking back to the Roman era has been found by marine archaeologists excavating two shallow-water shipwrecks off the Mediterranean coast of Israel.

According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, the gold ring is set with a green gemstone carved with the figure of a shepherd carrying a sheep on his shoulders – early Christians symbolised Jesus in such a way, and in the Bible, he was described as the ‘Good Shepherd’.

The gold ring was among several items found on the two shipwrecks, which were located in just 13ft near the ancient port of Caesarea. Other artefacts included hundreds of silver and bronze coins from the mid-3rd Century, a huge haul of silver coins from the early 14th Century, bronze bells, figurines in the form of an eagle and a theater performer, and another ring, this one set with a red gemstone carved with a lyre.

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The oil spill off the coast of Peru, which was blamed on waves from the volcanic eruption in Tonga, is ‘much bigger than previously thought’, according to the authorities.

It was initially thought that around 6,000 barrels of oil had leaked into the sea, but Environment Minister Ruben Ramirez has now said that almost 12,000 barrels entered the sea on 15 January, causing an ecological disaster responsible for the deaths of fish and seabirds in the area.

According to Repsol, which operates the refinery at La Pampilla, the Italian-flagged tanker Mare Doricum was hit by unusual waves caused by the volcanic eruption in Tonga, which is some 6,000 miles away.

Repsol has said it is putting all of its efforts into cleaning up from the catastrophe, but Peru has demanded compensation from the company and prosecutors have opened an investigation into the incident.

BUDDY DIVE LAUNCHES THRU THE LENS UWP EVENT

Popular Bonaire dive resort Buddy Dive has announced the date of its first-ever underwater photography event, Thru the Lens. The event will take place 20-27 August and is aimed at new underwater photographers, and helping them to develop their skills and techniques.

During the week-long event, Buddy Dive’s resident photo pro Guillermo Alcorta Heyer will provide guests with a comprehensive program to develop their skills, including workshops on buoyancy, presentations, and more.

The event is sponsored by SeaLife and is the perfect opportunity to get some hand’s-on experience with the latest offerings from the company.

As well as a host of photography dives on dedicated underwater photography boats, there will also be presentations by world-famous underwater photographers, the opportunity to notch up the PADI Underwater Photography Specialty, plus much more. www.buddydive.com

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DIVING WORLD MOURNS TECH PIONEER TOM MOUNT

SHARK TRUST ANNOUNCES GREAT SHARK SNAPSHOT

As part of their 25th anniversary celebrations, the Shark Trust has launched a brand-new community science initiative aimed at divers and snorkelers – the Great Shark Snapshot – which will take place during the last week of July.

Divers from all over the world will be invited to record all the shark, ray and skate species that they see during that week. The information of what they find over the week will be added to the Shark Trust’s Shark Log. This will, over time, allow shark scientists to build a picture of species distribution and any changes that occur.

Sharks are threatened by destructive fishing, climate change and habitat loss. The data collected during the Great Shark Snapshot will help scientists put effective conservation plans in place. Dive centres, resorts and boats can sign up to show their support for this exciting new event and advertise their planned dives on the Great Shark Snapshot registration page. Divers looking to join an event will be able to use the map to find Great Shark Snapshot dives taking place near them. As well as gathering vital data, the event will provide a chance to celebrate the incredible shark and ray species that live close to you. The Great Shark Snapshot is a way for divers to get together, go diving, and do something to help shark conservation.

Get involved in the Great Shark Snapshot

It is easy to join in. Just go diving between 24 and 31 July (inclusive) and record every shark, ray and skate that your dive group sees. If possible, take photos and some video footage too. The Shark Trust really want to see what species you encounter on your dives. Then make sure that you record your sightings on the Shark Trust Shark Log recordings website or on the new app (which is coming soon).

If you need help identifying a species of shark, head over to the Shark Trust website: www.sharktrust.org, where you will find ID guides to help you. Join the shark and dive communities online and let other divers know what you saw during your dives.

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© Jason Brown

The diving world is mourning the death of Tom Mount, who founded the renowned International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers (IANTD) and is credited as being one of the pioneers of technical diving as we know it today.

Tom did much during his long life – he was a US Navy Diver, a NOAA Aquanaut and saturation diver, was one of the four founding members of the USA’s first cave diver training agency (NACD), and wrote many books that are considered ‘go-to’ diving literature, including the Technical Diver Encyclopedia, Exploration and Mixed Gas Diving Encyclopedia and Tek Closed Circuit Rebreather.

Many people are referred to as ‘pioneers’, but Tom Mount truly encapsulated the meaning of this word when it came to diving. He was at the forefront from the early cave and deep air diving days, through the introduction of mixed gas diving to the recreational market, continuing on to formulate many of the original concepts now widely accepted in closed-circuit rebreather diving. Tom received diving’s mostprestigious award, the NOGI (for sports education), as well as numerous other awards. He was also an accomplished martial artist in multiple disciplines, and was a three-time inductee to the United States Martial Arts Association Hall of Fame. Not to mention a pilot, and a boat captain.

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As we all look forward to life getting back to some semblance of normality through 2022, Editor Walt Stearns dives into his back catalogue to give us some global destinations to add to our diving ‘bucket list’ Photographs by Walt Stearns

Part One 10

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Bahamas Life on the Bahia Mar

The Bahamas encourage divers to ‘Discover our Diversity’. This slogan is actually an accurate representation of the underwater opportunities that await visitors to this nation of islands. The 750-mile-long archipelago that is the Bahamas includes some 100,000 square miles of water and more than 700 small islands and cays. Most sit atop a pair of magnificent sub-sea plateaus – Great Bahama Bank and Little Bahama Bank – that also encompass huge expanses of shallow water.

Early Spanish explorers named this region ‘Bajo Mar’ or ‘Bahia Mar,’ which means ‘broad shallows’. Over time, English colonists would shorten the phrase until Bahia Mar simply became Bahama.

Tiger sharks have broad diets...

They eat everything from albatrosses, venomous sea snakes and other sharks to manmade objects like paint cans, leather jackets, rubber tires, and even vehicle license plates!

Those interested in unique adventures can delve into the stunning crystal cave systems in the Abacos, or the sublime experience of swimming with wild dolphins off Bimini or Grand Bahama. But the surest source of underwater excitement in the Bahamas is sharks WWW.SCUBADIVERDESTINATIONS.COM

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Stretching more than 190 miles in length, the Andros Barrier Reef in the Bahamas is one of the biggest barrier reefs in the world – and the third largest living organism on the planet!

For encounters with the guys in the gray suits, divers can count on everything from reef, hammerhead and lemon sharks to tigers, bulls and whitetips

The Bahamas is famous for its crystal-clear turquoise waters. It’s possible to see the ocean floor 200ft below the surface – approximately equal to the height of a 20-storey building!

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While early mariners considered the reefs of Bahama Banks to be a navigator’s nightmare, for divers they represent something altogether different – a region offering a spectacular variety of undersea ecosystems ranging from colorful shallow coral gardens and sand flats to stunning walls and mysterious blue holes.

Among the most notable are the reefs and wrecks in the waters surrounding Nassau, which have served as the cinematic backdrops for feature films from Thunderball to Into the Blue. Those interested in unique adventures can delve into the stunning crystal cave systems in the Abacos, or the sublime experience of swimming with wild dolphins off Bimini or Grand Bahama. But the surest source of underwater excitement in the Bahamas is sharks.

For encounters with the guys in the gray suits, divers can count on everything from reef, hammerhead and lemon sharks to tigers, bulls and whitetips. In fact, the Bahamas is considered among the best destinations in the world for shark encounters. Altogether, life on the Bahia Mar is about possibilities for those seeking new and exciting underwater experiences.

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PREVIOUS PAGE Tiger sharks off Grand Bahama TOP LEFT Caribbean reef shark FAR LEFT Coral and sponge growth off the Bahamas is lush and vibrant LEFT Spotted dolphins frolic off Bimini ABOVE The Bahama reefs are home to large shoals of reef fish

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ABOVE INSET Southern stingray at Stingray City ABOVE Hard coral formation ABOVE RIGHT French angelfish

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With literally a dive site for every day of the year, the Cayman Islands offers a lifetime of diving possibilities. And quite often, these remarkable dive sites sit in close proximity to one another.

Underwater, one seldom needs to travel more than a couple hundred feet to reach a neighboring dive site with its own set of distinguishing features. For most every dramatic, colorful wall site, there is a proportionally attractive shallow reef or wreck only a short distance away.

This physical eccentricity is created by the geography of the three islands — Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac — which sit atop individual towering seamounts rising up from abyssal plains some 3,000ft to 4,000ft below. This topography bestows the destination with the mostspectacular collection of vertical descents of any destination in the Caribbean.

But walls are not all the Cayman Islands have to offer. Through the collective efforts between the Cayman government and island watersports operators, Cayman Brac is the only island in the Western Hemisphere with a modern-era Russian warship wreck to dive outside of Cuba.

Renamed the MV Capt Keith Tibbetts Memorial, the former Soviet Missile Frigate (sunk September 1996) remains rest close to the edge of the Brac’s North Wall, with the vessel’s two large deck gun installments protruding from their protective turrets at depths of 42ft and 48ft.

On Grand Cayman, the wreck of the USS Kittiwake lies offshore of Seven Mile Beach. Sunk in 2011, the 250-foot former submarine rescue ship makes for an eye-catching scene and sits atop a white sand bottom at a depth of 70ft, canted hard to port next to the crest of a coral reef.

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Cayman Islands Wall to wall

diving pleasure

With literally a dive site for every day of the year, the Cayman Islands offers a lifetime of diving possibilities

And no mention of the Cayman Islands would be complete without a mention of the rays. Few dive or snorkel sites in the world are as well-known as Stingray City, which was once awarded the title of the ‘world’s best 12ft dive’.

At the mouth of a bay on Grand Cayman’s north shore, these friendly, delta-winged members of the shark clan provide an interaction both divers and snorkelers seldom forget.

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TOP Deck gun on the MV Capt Keith Tibbetts ABOVE USS Kittiwake LEFT Sponge growth on the gun turret

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Snorkelers (if they dare) can go face to face with some of the mangrove lagoon’s saltwater crocodiles

Saltwater crocodiles are the largest crocodile species in the world, and the biggest living reptile on the planet.

Long off-limits to American divers, the waters of Cuba are now ripe for exploration. With more than 3,500 miles of coastline, the largest island in the Caribbean offers a sea of possibilities. The most notable of these is the area known as Jardines de la Reina — or in English, the Gardens of the Queen.

The Gardens of the Queen are part of Cuba’s second-largest archipelago, comprised of some 600 cays and small islands paralleling the main island’s southern-central coast for 93 miles. One part of this string of islands is called the Laberinto de las Doce Leguas (The Labyrinth of the Twelve Leagues). The middle portion known as Jardines de la Reina was so named by Christopher Columbus in honor of the Queen of Spain, Isabella I of Castile. Fidel Castro made the archipelago his personal park because at one time he loved to scuba dive. This executive exclusivity had the benefit of keeping all fishing interests out. In 1996, the Jardines was designated as a no-take zone and a marine protected area with limited visitation. As such, the reserve, which encompasses 840 square miles, is considered one of the Caribbean’s last pristine coral reef and mangrove forest environments.

On the ocean side of these islands, the underwater landscape is dominated with coral formations with steep ledges, canyons and towering pinnacles — some more than 60 feet tall - mangrove islands and an underwater landscape dominated with coral formations with steep ledges, canyons and towering pinnacles. The fish life is prolific, and

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Cuba

Gardens of the Queen

divers will encounter abundant numbers of Nassau and large black grouper with the occasional Goliath grouper or school of tarpon thrown in. If you like sharks, Cuba’s Garden of the Queens is the place to be. Warm, clear waters with visibility typically in the 100-foot range create ideal conditions for interactions with Caribbean reef and silky sharks, while stingrays and eagle rays glide across sandy plains. Should you want to ratchet things up a bit, snorkelers (if they dare) can go face to face with some of the mangrove lagoon’s saltwater crocodiles.

TOP Saltwater crocodile ABOVE Cuba’s reefs are healthy and full of life

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Cozumel

Colorful and easy to reach

There is no bad time for diving in Cozumel. Water temperatures remain constant year-round 7882ºF and cool only slightly during the winter months of SeptemberDecember. You can dive approximately 300 days of the year!

Coral ramparts perch on the edge of deep water, growing upwards and outwards in convoluted patterns that create maze-like networks of canyons, swim-throughs and arches Cozumel brings together all the elements for a perfect dive vacation. The western shores of this small Caribbean island are sheltered from prevailing winds and waves, and washed by currents that bring warm, clear waters. This life-giving flow nurtures luxuriant growths of brightly hued sponges and soft corals that overgrow hard-coral ledges, ridges and drop offs. A menagerie of fish and invertebrates thrive on these reefs and enjoy the full protection of a marine park.

The waters are home to 260-plus species of fish, more than 100 types of coral, and a wealth of colorful sponge life. Coral ramparts perch on the edge of deep water, growing upwards and outwards in convoluted patterns that create maze-like networks of canyons, swim-throughs and arches. Less dramatic but no less enchanting are the mid-depth sites where divers can fly the currents over ridges, sand flats and

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coral heads, or drop behind the shelter of a ledge for an up-close look at the comings and goings of the smaller residents of the reef.

Because all dives are conducted as live drifts, there’s no need to swim to a down line or mooring.

Underwater navigation is equally easy, as all routes lead northward with the currents. By going with the flow, divers may find they use less air and can enjoy longer and more relaxing bottom times. When it’s time to resurface, the boat will be right there and waiting. This is drift diving at its easiest.

Adding to the island’s appeal are direct flights from the US, a wide range of beachfront hotels to enjoy, and dive boats that make easy runs in calm waters to sites less than a mile from shore. After the dive, the picturesque waterfront town of San Miguel delivers an authentic helping of Mexican hospitality.

ABOVE Cozumel’s currents create pristine and healthy reefs NEXT PAGE TOP The cenotes make for fabulous cavern and cave dives NEXT PAGE BOTTOM The waters in this area are also home to various shipwrecks

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Riviera Maya Land of the cenotes

The cenotes are home to approximately 15 species of fish including mollies, catfish and tetras. Because the freshwater to saltwater ratio changes from cenote to cenote, so does the number of fish.

Among the more-popular of Mexico’s cenotes is Dos Ojos (Two Eyes) 20

The coastal region south of the resorts of Cancun is known as the Riviera Maya. This 100-mile stretch of the Yucatan Peninsula is a land of coastal coral reefs and magnificent beaches. It is also the land of the cenotes. The limestone substrate of the Yucatan’s plateau is riddled with the world’s largest network of freshwaterfilled caves.

These underground rivers form complex labyrinths as they flow toward the sea. Along the way, portions of their ceilings have collapsed, creating windows to the sunlit world above.

These water-filled sinkholes, known as cenotes, punctuate the landscape by the hundreds. Some cenotes lie hidden deep in the jungle, yet to be discovered, while some have been explored and mapped by adventurous cave divers. Cenotes take every from small entrances to flooded caves to expansive basins rimmed by semi-flooded caverns where sunlight penetrates deep into shadowed overhangs.

Among the more-popular of Mexico’s cenotes is Dos Ojos (Two Eyes), which features two large sunlit caverns where snorkelers and open-water divers can experience the wonders of the Yucatan’s hidden underworld without swimming far from sunlight or an air-filled portion of the cavern. Under the watchful eye of trained cenote guides, open-water divers can follow networks of guidelines deep into the shadowy recesses of the caverns to view intricate collections of stalactites and stalagmites formed from bone-white limestone. The region also offers coastal pools such as Cenote Manatee, where mangrove-lined channels create a natural aquarium filled with colorful tropical fish.

Close to Cancun, boats depart from Isla Mujeres for openwater swims with whalesharks and dives beneath swirling schools of baitfish corralled by sailfish. Big thrills continue when female bull sharks congregate off Playa del Carmen each winter. Ashore there are ancient Mayan cities to explore and all the topside attractions of a world-class vacation destination. n

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Barefoot luxury in the heart of Indonesia

Bunaken National Marine Park

Siladen-US half--90x250.indd 1

09/10/2019 09:03

TOP DIVE SITES in the Turks and Caicos

The Turks and Caicos Islands are often described as a ‘wild frontier’ where the Atlantic Oceans meet the Caribbean Sea, and are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and the smaller Turks Islands

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Double D

One of French Cay’s most-renowned sites, Double D can best be described as some sort of aquatic ‘Garden of Eden’, as the wall is so vastly overgrown with corals, sponges and more. As you’d guess from the name, the site consists of two coral mounds which are absolutely teeming with marine

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life, and out in the surrounding blue, you can often see spotted eagle rays and other pelagic species.

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G Spot

Another unusually named dive site – so called because ‘it is hard to find’ – G Spot is an absolutely stunning wall that is smothered in huge deep-water gorgonians, massive elephant ear sponges and vast barrel sponges. The abyssal depths are amazing in their own right, but throw in all the usual reef dwellers, plus a plethora of pelagics and you know you are in for a treat.

ABOVE The Turks and Caicos Aggressor II TOP RIGHT Expect a warm welcome from the crew RIGHT Turtle FAR RIGHT Nassau grouper

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Hints and advice

The Turks and Caicos Islands are part of the Bahama Archipelago, which comprises the T&Cs and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.

They sit to the southeast of the Bahamas, and north of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Talk about diving in the T&Cs and one of the first thing which springs to mind is abyssal walls. The 1.8km deep Turks Islands Passage separates the island chain, and some of the wall dives are simply staggering, and made even more dramatic by the usually epic visibility.

The Turks and Caicos Aggressor II departs from Providenciales, known as ‘Provo’, and sevennight charters run from Saturday to Saturday. You can clock up 27 dives on seven-night charters (including night dives), and all dives are conducted from the liveaboard. The charter schedules take in some of the best dive sites off Provo, West Caicos and French Cay. From January to April, the Turks and Caicos Aggressor II runs special snorkel-only trips to the Silver Banks off the Dominican Republic to swim with humpback whales, which congregate to court, mate and give birth. As many as 3,000 can meet up in this area over these few months.

The Turks and Caicos Aggressor II has an 18-foot tender which is used to take guests off on optional shore excursions (usually one or two excursions per trip).

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T he Turks and Caicos Aggressor II Length: 120 ft | Beam: 22 ft Passengers: 18 | Staterooms: 9 The Turks and Caicos Aggressor II is a 120-foot yacht designed and powered for comfort, safety and stability. She is dieselpowered, cruises at ten knots and has 100-volt power on board. She has nine staterooms for its 18 passengers, and has a large salon, spacious sun deck with hot tub, shaded cocktail deck and photo-editing computer for guests. From April to January, they offer week-long itineraries taking in some of the best dive sites around Provo, West Caicos and French Cay. Expect to rack up an average of 27 dives on the seven-night trips. www.aggressor.com

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Shark Hotel

This site off the northwest coast of Provo is named as such because of the Caribbean reef sharks which are often sited cruising around the area. The wall levels off at around 90ft to form a plateau covered in plate corals, and then at 100ft, a chimney cuts through the reef, exiting at 130ft into the blue on the deep wall. A very exciting dive in its own right, made all the better for the sharks and other marine life you can encounter.

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The Anchor/Whiteface

Called ‘Whiteface’ for the sandy white cliffs along West Caicos, this site provides a swim-through gully with a 17th century anchor wedged in the north side. A beautiful large white anemone sits at around 95ft at the base of the gully, and divers are advised to keep an eye out for the resident reef shark, who is not camerashy in the slightest and will get up close and personal. This is also a fab night dive spot, with lobster, octopus and nurse sharks.

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Driveway

Another West Caicos location, this is one of the most-diverse dive sites in the area. The boat moors up in 35ft of water and offers divers the options of swimming to the wall over ‘the Driveway’, a large sand chute, cruising on top of the wall where there are many interesting isolated corals heads, or dropping over on to the deep wall itself. n

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DIVERS ALERT NETWORK

DAN is an international non-profit medical and research organisation dedicated to the safety and health of divers.

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TIPS TO BEAT THE BENDS

D

ecompression sickness (DCS) occurs when nitrogen bubbles form in the blood.

This can cause severe joint pain, among other symptoms. The common term ‘the bends’ comes from an affected person doubling over (bending) due to the intense pain caused by the condition.

While a diver’s depth/time profile is, by far, the most-important factor in decompression sickness risk, other factors that may contribute to individual susceptibility.

Exertion

The timing and intensity of exercise (also known as workload) during a dive can substantially affect a diver’s risk of DCS. Exertion increases blood flow and its gas carrying capacity. Consequently, exertion during descent and the deepest phase of a dive increases the amount of gas dissolved in tissues and the subsequent decompression stress. Mild exercise during decompression speeds up off-gassing.

Exertion immediately following a dive can stimulate bubble formation and increase the likelihood of bubbles passing through the lungs without being filtered out of the circulation.

Thermal stress

A diver’s body temperature can influence decompression risk. A warmer body absorbs more inert gas and releases it more readily. Conversely, a cooler body absorbs less gas during descent and releases less during ascent.

Divers using protective suits without active heating should avoid long exposures that may chill them. When using heated garments, a diver should stay comfortably cool at depth and warm during decompression. Staying comfortably warm during decompression and after dive promotes inert gas elimination and reduces the risk of DCS.

Post-dive air travel

Flying after diving increases decompression stress because the pressure in an aircraft cabin is lower than atmospheric pressure on the ground. The

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recommended guidelines for flying after diving are as follows: • After a single no-decompression dive, a minimum preflight surface interval of 12 hours is suggested.

• After multiple dives per day, or multiple days of diving, a minimum of 18 hours is suggested.

• After dives requiring decompression stops, a preflight surface interval substantially longer than 24 hours is considered prudent.

• Observing surface intervals longer than the recommended minimums helps to further reduce a diver’s risk.

ABOVE Dive conservatively to help avoid the bends

Medical and physical fitness

Poor health and physical fitness can compromise individual safety when diving and may increase risk of DCS. Regular exercise improves fitness and cardiovascular health, which mitigates risk of DCS: • At least two-and-a-half hours of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise per week to achieve health benefits, and five hours per week for fitness.

• Muscle-strengthening activities at least two days per week.

While individual susceptibility to DCS may vary, every diver can reduce their risk of decompression sickness by ascending slowly from every dive and following recreational diving guidelines. n

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INSURE THROUGH DAN DAN Dive Accident Insurance provides up to $500,000 of eligible medical expense coverage for diving, nondiving, and named watersports accidents and injuries.

DAN.org/Insurance

For more details, see handbooks under Compare Coverage at DAN.org/membership-insurance/dive-insurance.

For residents of NY, insurance is underwritten by The United States Life Insurance Company in the City of New York, NAIC No. 70106 domiciled in the state of New York with a principal place of business of 28 Liberty Street, Floor 45th, New York, NY 10005-1400. It is currently authorized to transact business in all states, plus DC, except PR. This summary is a brief description of benefits only and is subject to the terms, conditions and limitations. Coverage may vary by state. AG 12070 For residents of all other U.S. states and the District of Columbia, insurance is underwritten by National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, Pa., a Pennsylvania insurance company with its principal place of business at 1271 Ave of the Americas FL 37, New York, NY 10020-1304. It is currently authorized to conduct insurance business in all states and the District of Columbia. NAIC No. 19445. The issued policy and certificate will contain reductions, limitations, exclusions, definitions and termination provisions. Full details of the coverage will be contained in the issued policy and certificate. Coverage may vary by state or may not be available in all states.

NUFIC-SM-12299-2022DA4AD

Puerto There is an amazing diversity of diving at Puerto Galera, as Roni Ben-Aharon explains Photographs by Simon Lorenz, Ary Amarante & Allan Piccinin

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nown for its white sandy beaches and pristine blue water, Puerto Galera is a village located in the north tip of Mindoro, the Philippines’ seventh largest island. Other than a relaxed beach vacation, it offers incredibly diverse diving in the heart of the Coral Triangle.

Just across the Isla Verde passage from Anilao, independently famous for macro diving and nudibranchs, Puerto Galera offers over 40 dive sites just along its coast, with healthy coral reefs and an abundance of fish. Many divers attribute strong current to the area, and think of it as advanced diving in terms of dive skills, but that is only partially true stronger currents depend on lunar calendar and in certain dive sites, occur two weeks of each month, with especially crazy drift dives four days after the new moon.

Puerto Galera has several inner bays, with no current, shallow coral gardens and sandy patches that are ideal for courses - Open Water students can immerse in skill learning while actually seeing some marine life! Puerto Galera also offers relaxed critter spotting dives (heaven for photographers!), interesting underwater topography and a couple of wrecks for the rusties.

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Puerto Galera has several inner bays, with no current, shallow coral gardens and sandy patches that are ideal for courses Open Water students can immerse in skill learning while actually seeing some marine life!

Coral Triangle bubble

The Coral Triangle is the habitat for 76% of known coral species in the world, 52% of Indo-Pacific reef fishes and 37% of the world’s reef fishes. Diving here offers the highest diversity of coral reef fishes in the world - more than 3,000 species of fish, and you can also find here six out of the seven species of marine turtles! The Coral Triangle estimated annual fishing export revenue is $3 billion USD – the same amount as the annual income of tourism! By diving the Coral Triangle, divers support local communities, and helping them build a sustainable income that supports conservation.

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Galera Detective Diving

Diving a macro site? Bring a magnifying glass! Many little critters come to life once divers get a chance to have a closer, bigger look, especially in sites with no current, focus on a single critter and examine color patterns, distinguishing factors and more. Cameras with a macro lens can offer the same results, but in lack of sophisticated electronic equipment, buy a regular, handled magnifying glass and get a small hole through it with a gentle drill. Jewellers and hardware stores would likely have such tools. Pass a cord through it and clip to your BCD.

Critter Diving

Puerto Galera is an excellent place for critter diving! Blue ring octopus, pygmy seahorse and mandarinfish are awaiting divers in easy, no-current, sandy slope and grassy dive sites, while dozens of nudibranchs species are easily spotted.

Couple of dive sites worth visiting include Giant Clams, a protected area in Puerto Galera bay with clams hundreds of years old which can be four feet wide. Sloping down, into the

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The Spaniards discovered Puerto Galera in the early 16th century as a safe haven for their trade ships during heavy squalls and typhoons.

Legend has it that once sailors arrived on the island; they never wanted to leave without a promise to come back!

sandy grass bottom, this is a popular site for spotting hairy frogfish, mimic octopus, wonderpus and flamboyant cuttlefish.

Less known dive sites with excellent macro include Montani and Shipyard.

Coral Cove is an excellent macro site, with a sloping reef filled with nudibranchs, ribbon eels, pipefish, frogfish, seahorses, and orangutan crabs. Sinandigan Wall is a 100ft deep wall with a blanket of nudibranchs on its sandy, bouldered bottom. This is a great place to spot leaf fish, frogfish, crocodilefish, various anemones, and plenty of small shrimp residing in the mushroom corals.

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PREVIOUS PAGE Turtles are a common sight TOP LEFT Encrusting corals add plenty of color TOP RIGHT Barrel sponges on the reef LEFT Anthias bring vibrancy to the reef BELOW Vast shoals of jacks

Wreck Diving in Puerto Galera

Divers can get a glimpse into wreck diving experience in Puerto Galera’s one proper wreck and a few smaller wrecks. Instructors can teach wreck specialty here, and true rust fanatics can continue from Puerto Galera to Coron Island, the wreck mecca of Philippines.

Alma Jane – Alma Jane is a 60-ton, 104-foot steel-hulled Filipino cargo vessel built in 1966 in Japan. She was stripped of dangerous objects and intentionally sunk in 2003. She sits upright on the sandy bottom, well within recreational limits, at 65100ft deep, with its upper deck at 72ft.

She decayed rapidly, and looks older than her 14 years underwater, mostly due to the warm water of the area (about 86 degrees F during summertime).

On the upper deck, divers can get a view of Alma Jane’s original timber deck lines, which are now rotten. The upper deck is bountiful of hard and soft corals, shrimps, crabs and macro life. Swimming through with its wide beams schools of fish swim along, while light rays entering from various skylights create a beautiful scenery. Moray eels reside in the metal structure, while the mast on its bow

How To Get to Puerto Galera

Puerto Galera is accessible by ferry via the public port in Batangas, 68 miles south from Manila. Several resorts like Atlantis offer private transportation from Manila for its guests, which shortens trip time by half.

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now houses oyster clams and hard corals. Diving on the sandy bottom offers excellent view of the ship’s silhouette. You can expect to meet snapper, sweetlips, batfish, rabbitfish, scorpionfish, pufferfish, lionfish, trumpetfish, frogfish, octopus and cuttlefish.

Dive tip – bring a torch and a good dive guide to point out everything.

St Christopher, also knows as Anton’s Wreck, this 60-foot-long wooden boat was sunk by local dive operators in 1995 to create an artificial reef. At 65-78ft deep, swim alongside large snapper, while spotting juvenile and adult frogfish and sergeant major (a type of damselfish) guarding their purple eggs. Diving St Christopher at night, the sandy bottom crawls with dozens of crabs and shrimps, on the wreck itself or in the soft sponges around it.

Snapper, batfish and frogfish are regulars on this dive site. St Christopher can have moderate to strong current during tidal changes; it’s best to dive it at slack tide, and use is as a starting point to explore the reef in Small Laguna Beach.

Dive tip – bring a magnifying glass and good guide to spot macro life.

Puerto Galera has optimal conditions for certifications – learn to dive while experiencing the marine diversity of the Coral Triangle.

Pinnacles dive site takes its name after the rocky pinnacles that rise from over 300ft deep to kiss the surface on the east side of Verde Island

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Where To Stay and Dive

Atlantis Resort on Sabang Beach offers hillside Flintstone-like accommodation in an all-inclusive dive vacation format, with excellent meals at Toko’s restaurant and up to five boat dives a day. Small dive groups, climate-controlled camera room, and new boats.

Sabang Wrecks – A set of three small sunken vessels, a small steel yacht and two wooden boats, are a haven for macro diving and photography, with eels, scorpionfish, stonefish, lionfish, flounders, pipefish, frogfish, ghost pipefish, ornate ghost pipefish and various nudibranchs. Cruising along on top the decaying vessels, present a highly diversified residence of marine life, where divers can see dozens of species within metres.

Dive tip – bring a pointer stick (to place in the sand for staying put), a torch, and a magnifying glass.

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Topography Diving

Canyons – A set of three canyons to the northeast side of Puerto Galera, right at the tip of the island, on the Verde Island passage. This dive site is like Snakes and Ladders for divers - the canyons are 65-90ft, and stages one after the other, from the shallower to the deeper. Jump in and swim on top of the first canyon, then through a narrow drop down and rise up again. Being located on the passage exposes this site to strong currents, which means rich in nutrients, which draws schools of fish, like giant trevallies, sweetlips and snapper.

TOP LEFT There is also wreck diving for the metalheads LEFT Reefs are pristine and healthy ABOVE LEFT Turtle chilling on the reef ABOVE MIDDLE Photographers love the Philippines

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Located an hour boat ride away from Puerto Galera, Verde Island offers great topography diving in one of Philippines most-diverse marine environments

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Puerto Galera

The Philippines

PREVIOUS PAGE TOP RIGHT Corals and sponges attain huge sizes ABOVE Scorpionfish and other bottom dwellers can be found RIGHT Sea snake on the reef

Located an hour boat ride away from Puerto Galera, Verde Island offers great topography diving in one of Philippines most diverse marine environments.

Pinnacles – ‘If Yosemite Park were a reef, it would look like this’ said the editor of Undercurrent magazine. Pinnacles dive site takes its name after the rocky pinnacles that rise from over 300ft deep to kiss the surface on the east side of Verde Island.

Hard and soft corals have grown all over the rocks, shaping a vertical reef with massive gorgonian fans and sponges. Butterflyfish, juvenile angelfish, schools of the small, dark redtooth triggerfish, sea snakes, frogfish and some large pelagic schools can be easily spotted here.

Dive tip – look into the blue to look for the occasional rays and tunas.

Washing Machine – watch your bubbles go round and round on a series of seven shallow gullies where, on strong current days, you’d be thrown around like on a rollercoaster. Dropping and passing through each canyon in a slalom, the rocks that once formed the canyons are all covered in colourful hard and soft corals. On a slow to no current day, take your time and gracefully drift with thousands of orange anthias who emerge and enter their coral shelter in an endless cycle, moorish idol and banded sea snakes. n

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Getting there

There are many routes into Manila from North America, and it is then three to four hours to get to Puerto Galera by bus/private car and ferry.

When to visit

The popular summer season runs from December to April, and the offpeak season is June to November.

Currency

The Philippine Peso (US$1 = 52.25PHP), though many resorts accept credit cards.

Entry Requirements

The Philippines has recently reopened its borders in the wake of COVID-19, so check what the current travel rules are.

Electricity

220 volt, but within most resorts are sockets for both North American and European two-pin plugs, but bring an adaptor if you need 110 volt.

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The world’s deepest pool has officially opened in Dubai, and John Kendall was lucky enough to see it – and dive in it – during construction. Here he tells us more about the ultimate underwater theme park, and chats to GUE’s Jarrod Jablonski and Richard Lundgren about their role in the facility Photographs courtesy of Deep Dive Dubai

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Getting into a drysuit in an air-conditioned room, looking out of floor to ceiling windows at the desert is an interesting experience

Deep Dive Dubai offer a range of globally recognized courses in freediving and scuba diving. Whether you want coaching from elite-level freedive instructors or prefer to join one of the recreational, technical and leadership programs, Deep Dive Dubai is uniquely positioned to support your diving ambitions.

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Freediving is the purest form of diving. It is not only a sport but a lifestyle too – and it will take you on a journey to new emotional depths. Freediving may appear simple and easy, but you need knowledge and skills to progress.

PREVIOUS PAGE MAIN Deep Dive Dubai is absolutely immense PREVIOUS PAGE INSET You will need several dives to fully explore all levels

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I

n May of 2017, I got on a plane. This was not an unusual occurrence for me, as I regularly traveled all over the world to teach technical and cave diving classes. Florida, Mexico, Mauritius, Malta, the list of great diving locations was long and varied. Dubai had never featured on my list, so this trip was something different.

Dubai, a city known for its extravagance and wealth, known for the tallest building in the world, known for its desert - it’s not thought of as a worldclass destination for diving. Even the residents tend to travel an hour or two away to go diving. So why was I going there? Before I answer that, let’s go a bit further back in time.

In 2015, world record cave explorer and diving pioneer Jarrod Jablonski had been approached by the Crown Prince of Dubai to head up a team tasked with building a world-class diving facility. Not just any kind of diving facility though, this was going to be the world’s deepest pool, with world-class technology and customer service. Prince Hamdan didn’t just want the world’s biggest or best pool though. He wanted the world’s best divers to design and run the facility, and that brought him to Jarrod Jablonski and Global Underwater Explorers.

The first inkling of this that I knew about was

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Book your dive ‘experience’

A pool dive experience will cost around 1,200 Dirhams (about £240), including equipment and gas (technical packages are more expensive). There will be discounts for group bookings and repeat visitors. www.deepdivedubai.com

All of these areas have been given a derelict appearance, with holes knocked through the walls, and ‘trees’ growing through everything. Don’t think of this place as a swimming pool, this is an underwater theme park a fairly cryptic email from Jarrod looking for GUE instructors who would be interested in re-locating to Dubai for a minimum of two years, but that any further information would require non-disclosure agreements to be signed. It was not something that I could consider at that time, but a number of my good friends within GUE did disappear into the desert.

Skip forward a couple of years, and I’m on a plane to Dubai. I was going to visit Richard Lundgren, my friend, mentor and diving partner on the Mars Expeditions, to see what he was up to. At the airport I jumped in a taxi with a location on my phone. This got me to a security hut in what looked like the middle of nowhere. This was actually the main entrance to Nad Al Sheba Sports Complex. This world-class sports facility houses some of the most-advanced sporting training facilities in the world. Elite sportsmen and women travel to NAS from around the globe for training purposes, as everything there is absolutely

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state of the art. At the security hut, I was met by a driver, and we cross loaded my luggage into a Nissan SUV and got driven into the complex. Passing by me were a number of amazing buildings in all manner of organic curves, separated by football pitches, polo pitches, golf courses and many other things. We turned left and the whole vista changed. I was now very definitely in a building site. There was scaffolding everywhere, cement trucks, barricades and cranes.

Asking myself ‘where am I’, I was led through a door (with a no-entry sign on it) and down a corridor into an office. I was welcomed by Richard, waved to Jarrod through the window, and immediately got handed a ten-page NDA that I had to sign before I could go any further into the building. Once that was out of the way, Richard took me on a tour.

First we visited the hyperbaric facility. Yup, that’s right, Deep Dive Dubai has its very own, on-site hyperbaric facility. And what a facility it is. A flat

TOP LEFT Deep Dive Dubai is like an underwater theme park LEFT MIDDLE Freedivers can also dive Deep Dive Dubai LEFT BOTTOM Advanced filling station TOP MIDDLE Freediver Nataliia Zharkova chilling in Deep Dive Dubai ABOVE A line drops to the bottom of the 60m section for freedivers

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TOP LEFT ‘Tree roots’ run through the ruined cityscape ABOVE Football table in the arcade

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entry chamber that can seat ten people in luxurious comfort, while watching TV or movies. All the facility staff were trained as hyperbaric technicians, and they have a hyperbaric doctor on staff as well as others on call. The hyperbaric facility in conjunction to the pool have been designed not just for safety, but for research. A team from DAN have already spent time in Dubai with the team, and I expect to see and hear more from them in future.

From the hyperbaric facility we took a lift down to the ‘front of house’ areas - when I visited in 2017, and again in early 2020, these were mostly bare concrete floors and walls, but you could already feel how the building would flow. From here we visited the ‘dive base’ - the equipment store room was rack upon rack of Halcyon, Scubapro and Fourth Element equipment, all brand new, and mostly in boxes. I was taken to the gas filling room, and it was not just technologically amazing, but beautifully done. Dual compressors with nitrox membranes, as well as dual gas boosters for mixed gas meant that the facility could easily fill dozens of tanks simultaneously.

From here we went up in another lift and we were on the pool deck. At first this doesn’t look anything special. There is a curved roof above, and water below. It’s only when you get close to the edge of the pool that you realize quite how big the pool is. I got to the edge - which at the time was barricaded with safety barriers - and had a sneaky look down.

And down, and down. The water is absolutely clear,

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If you are curious to explore Deep Dive Dubai but do not want to venture under the surface, snorkeling is a great way to discover the wonders of the sunken city below. This is a great family activity, and everybody can participate.

and with the lights on, you can see all the way to the bottom. Which is a really, really, really, long way down.

I’ll take a moment here to talk a little bit about the water. The pool filters are designed to filter the entire pool in about six hours. That’s over three million gallons of water every six hours! It’s also not cleaned using chlorine, instead the water is cleaned first using a volcanic rock filter, and then passes through an ozone system developed by NASA to remove any kind of bacteria, then finally it gets exposed to UV light. This makes the water as clean as it’s possible to be. The water is also chilled – yes, chilled - down to 86 degrees F. It has to be chilled as the average ground temp around the pool is 107 degrees F! I could continue waxing lyrical about the marvels of engineering that have gone into creating the world’s deepest pool - 50ft deeper than any other pool anywhere currently - but I suspect that this is the wrong audience. You lot probably want to know about the diving. A disclaimer here - I’ve dived in the pool, but on both of my trips to Dubai, the facility

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ABOVE LEFT Inside the library ABOVE MIDDLE Arcade games for divers ABOVE There are many areas to explore with plenty of photo opportunities

The hyperbaric facility in conjunction to the pool have been designed not just for safety, but for research was still under construction and I was there as a guest of Jarrod and Richard, and so dived with them.

I’ve not had the ‘Full Customer Experience’, so can’t comment personally on that, but I expect that, like the engineering, the customer experience will be first class.

Getting into a drysuit in an air-conditioned room, looking out of floor to ceiling windows at the desert is an interesting experience. Getting into a drysuit with simply a Fourth Element J2 base layer underneath it is also an interesting experience, being much more used to wearing thick Thinuslate undergarments. Strapping my rebreather on and getting into the pool felt odd - the air temperature is actually kept slightly cooler than the water, so we warm up as we walk down the gentle slope to the entry area. From here we did our checks and swam out over the pit. Looking down you can see the bottom at 198ft, as well as the multiple shallow levels of the sunken cityscape. Yup, that’s right, the pool is designed around the concept of a postapocalyptic world, so you will see all manner of interesting objects and environments. Many of the areas shallower than 130ft have rooms, corridors and features that you can swim into and through, moving from a games room with arcade machines and a pool table into a parking garage with Mercedes cars, up through a living room with sofas and a TV. All of these areas have been given a derelict appearance, with holes knocked through the walls, and ‘trees’ growing through everything. Don’t think of this place as a swimming pool, this is an underwater theme park - and it’s an incredible, unique experience.

All the time you are swimming around, you’re being watched by the 56 HD remote cameras fitted

RIGHT Graffiti covers the walls of the cityscape

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ABOVE Oddities include a telephone and bicycle RIGHT Jarrod Jablonski and Richard Lundgren

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into the pool, both for safety and to get a record of your experience. The dive safety station has the ability to talk to the divers via underwater speakers mounted throughout the pool. There are also two habitat areas, these are basically air bells, that allow divers to surface and talk while still at depth, and are big enough to be able to fully get out of the water.

This is not just a neat thing to try, but an important safety element for divers doing dives to the deeper portions of the pool, as were there to be an oxygen toxicity or decompression issue while underwater, a diver can be taken to a habitat and stabilized.

Talking about safety, all divers in the pool will be using Nitrox 32 for dives shallower than 100ft and anyone wishing to go deeper must use Trimix - the facility has instructors on staff for anyone wanting to extend their limits able to teach the full range of GUE and PADI classes. First-time visitors have to dive with one of the guides, but once they are happy then returning visitors will not need to. But this is not just a location for scuba divers. Non-divers can go and learn to dive, but it’s also a hub for freediving.

The facility has already had many of the world’s best freedivers visit, train and help develop the freediving at Deep Dive Dubai. There are a number of freediving lines installed, including one all the way to the bottom. There are also snorkeling tours available.

Floating midwater I turned to look up, and could see up the shaft, past the city all the way to the roof of the pool building - everything felt very calm. It was amazing to be in such a big place with just two other divers in the water, and I could imagine how much of special experience it would be once the facility was open. The pool was officially awarded the Guinness World Record for the Deepest Pool on 29 June 2021, and opened on 7 July 2021. n

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Dubai

United Arab Emirates Getting there

Emirates, JetBlue and Etihad fly direct into Dubai, which is a major hub for flights going on to SE Asia and beyond.

When to visit

You can visit Dubai all year round, but the best time are the winter months, from November to April, when temperatures are more tolerable.

Currency

Dirham, or United Arab Emirates Dollar, AED (US$1 = AED3.67).

Entry Requirements

Entry requirements are shifting all the time due to COVID-19 restrictions. Check current restrictions before you travel.

Electricity

Dubai operates on a 230V supply voltage and 50Hz, so you will need a suitable adaptor for US plugs and devices.

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THE DIVER’S CHOICE FOR 30 YEARS

WORLDWIDE

AWARD WINNING SERVICE SINCE 1992

Emp2022_US-half.indd 1

10/03/2022 10:52

ISN’T JUST FOR THE OCEAN! QUARRY DIVING IS FUN FOR ALL DIVERS! BEGINNERS, EXPERIENCED, AND JUST FOR FUN DIVER! Here at Ohana Dive Co. we love diving at our local quarry! No where else in TN can you explore a 3 story Rock Crusher building, dive inside of a GreyHound Bus, or take a tour through the abandoned tree forest. Make this location a must see on your next diving destination!

615-517-9294 | info@ohanadiveco.com | ohanadiveco.com OhanaDC_half.indd 1

10/03/2022 09:51

YONGA

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Constructed in Newcastle on Tyne in the United Kingdom in 1903, the SS Yongala was a steel passenger and freight steamer. The elegantlooking ship was 350 feet long with a 45 foot wide beam and had a top speed of 16 knots

The SS Yongala is protected as a historic shipwreck and marine reserve, that will hopefully preserve and extend the life of this incredible shipwreck for future generations to enjoy. The wreck is a worldfamous dive site attracting some 10,000 divers annually.

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Nigel Marsh is left awe-struck by the SS Yongala, which he believes rightly deserves its place in any top 10 shipwrecks of the world Photographs by Nigel Marsh www.nigelmarshphotography.com

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t had already been a remarkable dive filled with millions of fish, sea snakes, turtles, rays and sharks. But just as we were ascending something extra special happened when we spotted a large and unfamiliar shape emerging from the blue. It was an enormous stingray, over seven feet wide, being ridden by a much-smaller pink whipray and escorted by a pack of cobia. It is moments like this that seem to happen all too often at this dive site, the legendary SS Yongala.

I had never seen this species of stingray before, and considering how much I love rays I was greatly surprised that I didn’t know what it was, so I was very determined to capture an image and identify this unusual visitor. But before I could get a photograph the ray turned and glided away. Fortunately, my wife Helen, who was closer to the ray, managed to capture a few quick photos, allowing us to later identify the ray as a small-eye stingray, the world’s largest stingray species, and also one of the rarest.

This encounter, back in 2015, was the first time this species had been seen outside of Mozambique (as far as we know). Since then, small-eye stingrays have made infrequent appearances on the SS Yongala, but they are not the only rare and unusual creature that makes this dive site such a special destination.

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Due to this wreck’s protected status, access is by permit only, so make sure you use a licensed operator. That also means you are not allowed to touch or penetrate the wreck. Due to currents, this is an advanced dive.

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Up close and personal

If you’re compelled by the story of Yongala, but not ready to dive in and see it for yourself, make your way to the Townsville Maritime Museum where discovered artefacts are on display, including the ship’s bell, glass decklight, lantern, light fixtures, crockery, bottles and brass items.

The wreck itself is covered in the most-exquisite collection of colorful corals, including spikey soft corals, gorgonians, sea whips, sponges and hydroids The SS Yongala is regularly voted in the top ten dive sites in the world - and for very good reason. Not only is this historic shipwreck fascinating to dive, with an intriguing and tragic back story, but being the only solid object on a vast sandy plain, halfway between the mainland and the Great Barrier Reef, the wreck attracts marine life like a magnet - making it one of the fishiest dive sites on the planet!

The ship

Constructed in Newcastle on Tyne in the United Kingdom in 1903, the SS Yongala was a steel passenger and freight steamer. The elegant-looking ship was 350 feet long with a 45 foot wide beam and had a top speed of 16 knots. Built for the Adelaide Steamship Company, the ship had a crew of 72 and could accommodate 110 first-class passengers and 130 second-class passengers, plus carry a range of cargo. The ship first went into service taking passengers and cargo between the gold fields in Western Australia and the ports of Adelaide,

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Melbourne and Sydney. The ship was then used on the Brisbane to Freemantle route, before changing to the Melbourne to Cairns route in 1907. On 14 March 1911, the SS Yongala departed Melbourne on her 99th - and final - voyage.

The first part of the journey was uneventfully, stopping in Brisbane and Mackay to drop-off and pick-up passengers and cargo. Departing Mackay with 122 passengers and crew, the SS Yongala was never to arrive at her next port of call, Townsville, as she headed straight in a fierce cyclone and disappeared on 24 March with the loss of all hands.

What happened to the ship was a complete mystery. A small amount of wreckage washed up on local beaches, but the only body found was that of a racehorse called Moonshine. How the ship sank and where she sank was unknown until a minesweeper located a large wreck off Cape Bowling Green, south of Townsville, in 1943. The wreck was not confirmed as the SS Yongala until the first diver descended on the site in 1958.

PREVIOUS PAGE The SS Yongala wreck LEFT The wreck is teeming with color and marine life TOP MIDDLE Sea snakes are a common encounter ABOVE Fish under the mast

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The wreck

The first diver to descend on the wreck was after treasure, salvaging the safe, which was empty.

Divers since then have come to explore and marvel at this world-class shipwreck. The SS Yongala rests on its starboard side in 95ft, with the highest part of the ship at 49ft.

When I first dived the wreck in the 1980s, divers were allowed to penetrate all parts of the vessel, exploring the holds, engine room, cabins and long passageways. But it wasn’t exactly safe in some parts of the ship, with a thick layer of silt easily stirred up and dropping the visibility to near zero. Back then you could also see the remains of the unfortunate victims of the sinking, with bones and skulls casually passed between divers. A ban on entering the wreck was implemented in the 1990s, not only to show respect to the dead, but also preserve the life of the ship, by not allowing bubbles to dislodge rust and speed up the decay of the ship.

However, you don’t need to enter the ship to have a great dive, as swimming a lap of the wreck divers will see masts, derricks, winch gear, boilers, toilets, a bathtub and many other items of interest. But the SS Yongala is not a wreck you dive to simply explore the remains of a ship, as the main feature of the site is the incredible marine life.

The SS Yongala is best described as one of the fishiest dive sites on the planet!

The marine life

Cracking the code...

It wasn’t until 1958 when local skin-divers Don Macmillan and Noel Cook brought back a steel safe from a wreck that the world was forced to remember the Yongala. The anti-climactic opening revealed only mud, but the safe’s serial number was traced back to Chubb in the UK, who confirmed it was installed in the purser’s cabin aboard SS Yongala in 1903.

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The SS Yongala is best described as one of the fishiest dive sites on the planet! Swarms of fish completely engulf the wreck, and at times make it hard to actually see the structure. Constantly patrolling the wreck are schools of trevally, mackerel and queenfish that are hunting the smaller residences, like the schools of fusiliers, cardinalfish and baitfish. Also seen in schools are barracuda, coral snapper and batfish. A multitude of reef fish inhabit the wrecks, including butterflyfish, angelfish, damsels, boxfish, surgeonfish, coral trout, coral cod, lionfish, wrasse and a few giant morays. But the largest reef fish seen on the wreck are the impressive giant Maori wrasse, gold-spotted grouper and the enormous Queensland grouper.

The wreck itself is covered in the most-exquisite collection of colorful corals, including spikey soft corals, gorgonians, sea whips, sponges and hydroids. And hiding among these corals are a good variety of invertebrates, such as nudibranchs, octopus, shrimps, crabs and sea shells. Marine reptiles are well represented on the wreck, with green, hawksbill and loggerhead turtles a common sight. However, the SS Yongala is also a great place to see sea snakes, with two species, the olive and reef shallows sea snake, encountered among the corals or hunting on the sand around the wreck.

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Sharks and rays are also commonly seen on the wreck. Sleeping inside or under the wreck are large tawny nurse sharks and the occasional tasselled wobbegong, while patrolling the perimeter of the wreck are shy bull sharks. Rays are far more common, with large blotched fantail stingrays and spotted eagle rays cruising along the top of the ship, especially when a current is running. They are often joined by white-spotted wedgefish, broad cowtail stingrays and pink whiprays.

As mentioned in the introduction, it is unusual encounters with large marine life that makes the SS Yongala an extra special dive. Reef manta rays and whalesharks occasionally visit the wreck, as do bottlenose dolphins. But rarer visitors include smalleye stingrays, porcupine rays and even bowmouth guitarfish.

The conditions

Located 14 miles off Cape Bowling Green, and in the main shipping channel, the SS Yongala rests in a very exposed location in rough conditions. The wreck is also prone to strong currents, that is great for the abundant marine life, but not great for inexperienced divers. Visibility on the wreck can vary from 15 feet to 100 foot plus, and generally averages around 4050 feet. Conditions on the wreck can also change throughout the day. On a recent trip to the SS Yongala, we started with calm seas, no current and blue water on the first two dives, but by the third dive the current had picked up, the seas were choppy and the visibility had dropped. We had to cancel the planned night dive as the current was simply too strong to safely dive the wreck.

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The SS Yongala is world-renowned, but it is mainly for its impressive array of marine life, which ranges from all the usual reef dwellers to larger pelagics like manta rays, whalesharks and bull sharks, and even the odd humpback whale.

Adrenalin Snorkel and Dive

Adrenalin Snorkel and Dive is Townsville’s most-experienced dive training and marine tourism operator providing snorkeling and diving trips and training of divers as part of a full dive service. It is an award-winning, PADI five-star Dive Centre specialising in snorkel and dive trips to various reefs on the Central Section of the Great Barrier Reef, MOUA and the SS Yongala wreck off Townsville and Magnetic Island. It also operates overnight trips that visit the reef, and SS Yongala wreck on the same trip. Their experienced, professional and friendly crew work hard to ensure your stay with them is safe, comfortable and fun.

Adrenalin Snorkel and Dive is committed to protecting our natural environment. Its trips are ECO Certified by ECO Tourism Australia.

This involves a commitment to environmental sustainability and education of their guests.

Tel: +61 7 4724 0600 www.adrenalindive.com.au

PREVIOUS PAGE TOP Colorful corals and sponges PREVIOUS PAGE BOTTOM A rare porcupine ray ABOVE Inspecting a porthole TOP LEFT Impressive grouper live around and in the wreck

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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Many divers suspect that the SS Yongala is cursed, and the passengers that travelled on her on that fateful last voyage would certainly agree ABOVE Sea whips and schooling fish RIGHT Vibrant angelfish

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The curse

Many divers suspect that the SS Yongala is cursed, and the passengers that travelled on her on that fateful last voyage would certainly agree. The curse is mainly linked to weather preventing divers reaching the site, as my wife Helen will attest, as it took her four attempts to dive the wreck, with rough weather and even a broken-down boat stopping her reaching the dive site.

I was not a big believer in the curse, as I had visited the wreck twice without incident. Then on my third trip something mysterious happened. This was back in the 1990s, when I was using a film camera.

After two great dives on the wreck I went to change the film and discovered there was no film in the camera! At the time I had done over 1,000 dives with a film camera, and never once had I failed to load the camera with film, so I still can’t explain what happened! The SS Yongala is protected as a historic shipwreck and marine reserve, that will hopefully preserve and extend the life of this incredible shipwreck for future generations to enjoy. n

SS Yongala

Northeastern Australia Getting there

There are numerous flights to Australia from main US hubs like Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Chicago.

When to visit

You can dive the Yongala all year round, but the winter months between June to August offer the best visibility.

Currency

Australian dollar (US$1 = AUS$1.37), though credit cards are widely accepted.

Entry Requirements

Australia has only just reopened its borders after COVID-19, so check on current requirements before travel.

Electricity

Power is 230 volt and via a three-pin socket, so you will need a travel adaptor for US appliances.

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11/03/2022 10:04

Rebreathers are generally more complex to use than open circuit scuba, and have more potential points of failure, so acceptably safe use requires a greater level of skill, attention and situational awareness, which is usually derived from understanding the systems thoroughly.

Science tells us that every diver bubbles after every dive, but how do you know how bad you’re bubbling and what can you do to improve the safety of your dives? Jason Brown gets in a fizz about Azoth’s new personal doppler device Photographs by Jason Brown, Richard Stevenson, Anders Torstensson and Marie Jonsson

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Popping the W

e all love bubbles. Whether they’re in our drinks, our baths or - dare I say it - our bubbly chocolate, bubbles are cool. Where they’re not so cool, though, is in our blood stream post-dive. Regardless of how safe you think your dive profile is, bubbles are an inescapable residual effect of scuba diving.

Studies conducted by DAN in the 1990s concluded that all divers ‘bubble’ after every dive, regardless of how efficient you believe your dive profile is – what varies are the amount of bubbles in your blood stream.

A controlled ascent that gives the body time to safely off-gas inerts will significantly reduce the probability of you ending up in a recompression chamber, but there are no guarantees. Modern dive computers are very smart devices, but they operate on a generic model - they’re not tuned to your own unique physiology.

Many factors affect how efficiently your body off-gases – fitness, BMI, age, hydration levels and so on – but your computer won’t account for any of these. Even those divers that cut their own deco schedules rarely adjust profiles to mitigate for variations in their own physiology.

Imagine if you could fine tune your dive computer to reflect your physiology.

France-based Azoth Systems believe they may have the answer – the O’Dive personal ultrasound doppler. Combined with a sophisticated app that runs on both iPhone and Android devices, this clever little puck-sized sensor allows you to capture post-dive bubble measurements from your own blood stream in a nonintrusive way. You don’t need a PhD to analyse the results either – Azoth’s own servers do all the heavy number crunching and return the results to your smart phone in an easy-to-digest form.

For any diver – or team of divers - involved in more adventurous diving, O’Dive could be the most-significant new diving product to see the light in recent years WWW.SCUBADIVERDESTINATIONS.COM

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PREVIOUS PAGE Advanced technical divers will seriously benefit from the Aoth system ABOVE TOP Phil Short prepping the O’Dive ABOVE MIDDLE The Azoth app ABOVE BOTTOM The O’Dive has to be correctly positioned ABOVE RIGHT The O’Dive in action

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Correct positioning of the O’Dive sensor does take some practice, but the app thankfully provides plenty of guidance. Unlike precordial dopplers used by research scientists, O’Dive is a subclavian sensor – that is, it measures bubbles via the subclavian veins that lie just below the collar bone. Using this type of sensor does have its benefits – the raised collar bone makes positioning the sensor relatively easy and measuring here gives a cleaner signal, with the sensor not having to deal with the noise generated by the heart’s own valves.

To get a bubble reading that the system can analyse, you need to take two sets of readings – the first are taken from both the left and right subclavian veins 30 minutes after surfacing from your dive.

60 minutes later, you’re then prompted to take a second set of readings. For best results, you also need to upload the dive profile data from your computer – the app can communicate directly with

both Shearwater computers and CCR controllers, plus Suunto EON Steel computers with Buhlmann via Bluetooth. The app packages up the bubble readings and dive profile data and then transmits it to Azoth’s servers.

Azoth uses the profile data from your computer to compare your bubble readings against diving databases generated by COMEX, DCIEM and the French, British, Canadian and US Navies. What is transmitted back to your smart phone is a simple-tounderstand bar graph that represents the safety of your dive using three values – a ‘QI’ (Quality Index), which scores the safety of your dive between 0 and 100, ‘Sc’ (Severity Component), which scores the relative risk of DCS between 0 and 100, and finally, a ‘Bc’ (Bubble Component), which scores the amount of bubbles detected between 0 and 40. In an ideal world, you want a very high QI and very low Sc and Bc components.

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Sidemount diving has several advantages including easy cylinder donning and removal, a lower profile and less need to wear tanks out of the water. Although it appears awkward, it is one of the most-streamlined and comfortable ways to dive.

Assuming that the results you received back from Azoth raised an eyebrow, O’Dive gives you the tools to improve the safety and efficiency of your decompression profile. Built into the O’Dive app is a sophisticated ‘simulator’ that lets you view the effect of tweaking specific factors of your dive – the gases you breathed, the gradient factor used, or the setpoint of your CCR controller at depth, and so on. By adjusting the onscreen sliders, the effect of these changes will be displayed in real time with the reduction in both the severity and bubble values and the ‘Quality Index’ of the dive displayed as a percentage. An estimated ‘safety multiplier’ is also displayed, which represents the increase in safety compared to the original profile.

Armed with the insight you’ve gained from tweaking your profile with the simulator, the theory is that you incorporate these changes into your profile and take them diving. But how well does it work in reality? Regular readers will already know Phil Short – he’s arguably one of the world’s leading deep trimix wreck and cave divers and has featured

Phil is just the sort of indestructible ‘lab rat’ you need to thoroughly evaluate the effectiveness of something like the O’Dive in the magazine on many occasions. With years of experience diving at expedition level in some of the world’s most-inhospitable regions, Phil is just the sort of indestructible ‘lab rat’ you need to thoroughly evaluate the effectiveness of something like the O’Dive. Phil has used the device on a number of recent projects, including high workload dives on a World War Two B-17 bomber aircraft laying at a depth of 230ft in Croatia and – most recently – exploration at depths of up to 426ft in the Langbans Mine in Sweden. We asked Phil for his take on how the O’Dive had performed on these projects.

ABOVE Heading off on a tech dive BELOW RIGHT Just how much do you ‘bubble’ after a tech dive?

TECHNICAL DIVING: The benefits

Tech diving attracts experienced divers who want to go places other divers cannot. These types of divers usually enjoy a challenge and are willing to focus on technical diving demands.

Tech divers are able to visit reefs and wrecks at depths well below the 130ft recreational limit. With specialized training, they can explore underwater caves and other places well beyond the reach of mainstream recreational diving. Interested? Ask your local dive store about an introduction to tech diving course, where you will learn the basic skills and procedures of technical diving.

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“The O’Dive was used to great effect daily during the B-17 repatriation project in Croatia by the entire sixman team. We were physically working at depth and to lower work of breathing, we used high helium content CCR diluent mixtures to reduce gas density. The work involved placing and operating a hydraulic water dredge to syphon away sediment inside the fuselage of the aircraft. This workload produced reasonably high bubble scores and many of our O’Dive results were processed and analysed by a technician due to this. From these results we altered our Gradient Factors in line with modern thinking pioneered by leading scientists like Professor Simon Mitchell.

“I started with modifications that rested on wellestablished methods, mainly extending the last stop before surfacing, adding an additional stop half-way between the last required stop and the surface and conducting a very slow ascent from the conclusion of the last required stop and the surface. I then started to make very small changes in the first stop depth for example, one stop difference or 10ft. The bubble count reduced, the severity component dropped and yes, I felt less tired and had more energy post-dive.

“I’ve managed to get a few dives ‘out of range’ and several dives where an email from Azoth advised me that the automated results based on Azoth’s enormous databases were being personally analysed by support technical staff. Which, to be honest, is reassuring.

“What I learnt was that my profiles needed reshaping rather than lengthening or shortening and that it would be prudent to always extend my last stop with the addition of a safety stop once my prescribed deco had cleared.”

But what benefit would the average diver gain from using O’Dive? Again, we put this to Phil. “I’ve logged over 6,000 dives in 30 years as a diver and to date, had no incidence of decompression illness. I would like to maintain that track record by monitoring and evolving my dive profiles with all available advice and methods long into my diving future. Right now, the O’Dive is a significant advance in personal dive planning that will help me meet that goal.”

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TOP Divers in the mine ABOVE Phil recording his data post-dive BELOW The O’Dive could revolutionise tech dive thinking

Praise indeed, but perhaps the most exciting aspect of O’Dive is something far less tangible. O’Dive gives us an enticing insight into the potential of this technology and what it could mean for diving moving forward. As the technology reduces in size still further, could we see a future where divers wear sensors during a dive that communicate real-time physiological data to their dive computers?

Imagine a future where your computer is generating a dive profile specific to your body.

Dehydrated? Feeling the cold? Your computer could compensate for these factors. Now that is truly exciting and could represent a seismic shift in diver safety. The future is ‘wearables’ and you heard it here first, folks.

Ok, so we’re not there yet by a long shot, but O’Dive still offers a glimpse of that tantalising future in a compact and easy-to-use package that could deliver genuine improvements in diver safety. While it may appear expensive, bear in mind that every O’Dive supports multiple user accounts so a dive

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The main advantage of using a rebreather over open circuit breathing equipment is its economical use of gas.

Armed with the insight you’ve gained from tweaking your profile with the simulator, the theory is that you incorporate these changes into your profile and take them diving ABOVE Tech diver exploring inside a mine RIGHT Every tech diver wants to minimise their risks

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club could buy just one and share it among all their club members. The first two users – the owner and their buddy, for example – get unlimited bubble analyses while additional users get 30 free analyses shared between them. Additional users then have the option of paying just $4 per analysis. For the cost of a coffee, that’s pretty good value.

For any diver – or team of divers - involved in more adventurous diving, O’Dive could be the most-significant new diving product to see the light in recent years. It’s easy to use and manages to present immensely complicated data in a form that most divers can understand and interpret relatively easily. For those who feel they may need a little guidance, several training agencies now offer O’Dive courses. Whatever your level of diving, O’Dive provides the additional insight you and your dive buddies need to increase personal safety and feel far better post-dive. For anyone that’s felt like they’ve gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson after a dive, that’s got to be a good thing. n

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“...a durable, well-made and robust drysuit which most certainly does not blend in with the endless line up of black suits.”

SCUBA DIVER Magazine August 2020

PHOTO: Silvano Barboni

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Each issue, the Scuba Diver Destinations test team bring you the latest product and equipment releases from the dive industry. Cannot wait for the next edition? Keep up-to-date with all the latest gear news and reviews by heading over to the Scuba Diver YouTube channel! www.youtube.com/ScubaDiverMagazine

FOURTH ELEMENT SCOUT | SRP: $110

Mark Evans: Fourth Element have been a bit of a phenomenon over the last 20 years. From humble beginnings when the company was seen as ‘a dive T-shirt business’, it has steadily expanded its influence through swimwear, rash guards, wetsuits, thermal undergarments and drysuits, plus ancillaries like hoods, gloves, boots, etc. Add in its OceanPositive range of products, and Fourth Element is a true powerhouse in the industry – you can’t go to any dive site these days and not see the distinctive Fourth Element logo somewhere.

Now the company is moving into diving hardware, and its first release is the Scout mask, soon to be followed up by recreational and technical diving fins.

Being Fourth Element, you know that this isn’t just going to be a run-of-themill dive mask – oh no, it is going to have some innovative elements that fit with the company’s ethos and style. Thus, the Scout comes in myriad variants. First, the basics. It is a single-lens frameless mask, available in black or white, with a steeply angled profile to maximise its field of view, and a super-soft silicon skirt for optimal comfort and fit. I was a devotee of my Hollis M3 mask until it had an unfortunate encounter with a cylinder, and found a great

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replacement in the Apeks VX1. This was the only single-lens mask that fit my face – others I found pressed on to my forehead. The VX1 is a fantastic mask, and extremely comfortable.

However, I have to say, now I have dived the Scout, I think it just edges the VX1 on the comfort front thanks to its soft skirt, and it is definitely more low-profile, which means it offers a wider field of view, but is also easier to clear.

So far, so normal. However, it all changes when it comes to the lens. The Scout can be fitted with a choice of four different lens types, so when the buyer is purchasing it, they can opt for the lens that will work best for their diving style and conditions. Shield is classed as Anti-UV and Anti-Glare, and was inspired by the gold visors of NASA astronauts. The Shield lens provides UV protection and reduces glare, making it fully suited to tropical and warmer water environments for shallower diving and snorkelling in bright conditions. UVA and UVB radiation is reflected by the lens, reducing the exposure of the eye to potentially harmful rays. Luke opted for a black mask with this lens, as he thought the gold ‘looked cool’, however, as you can see from the photographs, at the right angle, it appears blue.

Clarity is a pure clear lens, and the one I opted for after trialing all four options. It is designed to maximise the amount of transmitted light, without any tint from impurities in the glass, and thus is described

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Each issue, the Scuba Diver Destinations test team bring you the latest product and equipment releases from the dive industry. Cannot wait for the next edition? Keep up-to-date with all the latest gear news and reviews by heading over to the Scuba Diver YouTube channel! www.youtube.com/ScubaDiverMagazine

FOURTH ELEMENT SCOUT | SRP: $110 as the ideal lens for night divers and photographers. It is also the perfect lens for teaching, allowing students and instructors to clearly see each other’s eyes. The Clarity lens is manufactured with the highest level of purity to deliver maximum visual acuity during a dive.

Contrast is Anti-UV, and as it filters out some of the mid-range wavelengths of light in the visible spectrum, has a green appearance. When diving in temperate (green) waters, images seen through this lens show an increase in contrast, accentuating brighter and darker areas, increasing the perception of visual acuity. The Contrast lens provides full UVA and UVB protection from harmful ultraviolet.

Finally, there is Enhance, which is Anti-UV and AntiHEV. Filtering ultraviolet and HEV (High Energy Visible) radiation, the Enhance lens is designed to protect the eye and enhance the visual experience. It is well known that UV has a damaging effect on the eye, but it has also been shown that HEV light can interfere with the lutein proteins in the eye and alter them, so filtering out this high energy radiation can help to preserve optical health. Once you have selected your lens type, you then need to choose your mask strap color (four options are available – white, grey, black and teal).

The Scout comes with an elasticated strap that is made using rubber and recycled nylon, with clips made using recycled waste ABS plastic from the automotive industry.

The clips have also been designed so that they will fit most mask buckles, so you could retro-fit one of these straps to most other brands. This elastic strap is so comfortable and easy to use - even wearing thick neoprene gloves, I had no problems putting my mask on and off.

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Last but not least, there is the box. The Scout comes in a mask ‘box’ that is designed to replace the plastic boxes that are supplied with so many masks. Low profile and protective, this case will protect the lens thanks to its cushioned half shell, without creating bulk, meaning it can fit in the foot pocket of most fins for convenient transport. I really like this innovation – it is actually a mask-protecting solution that you can really use, both in storage and when you are out diving.

At $110, the Fourth Element Scout is keenly priced against its rivals, and I think it has put the company on the diving hardware map in a big way. www.fourthelement.com

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THE RECYCLED DIVE FIN

R E C R E D U C E

F I N S

Y O U R

F I N P R I N T

F I N D O U T M O R E AT F O U R T H E L E M E N T. C O M

Each issue, the Scuba Diver Destinations test team bring you the latest product and equipment releases from the dive industry. Cannot wait for the next edition? Keep up-to-date with all the latest gear news and reviews by heading over to the Scuba Diver YouTube channel! www.youtube.com/ScubaDiverMagazine

SHEARWATER RESEARCH SWIFT | SRP: $399

Mark Evans: Shearwater Research have always been at the forefront of technological advances when it comes to dive computers, and with the Swift, they have unleashed the next generation smart AI transmitter. Let’s talk details first. The Swift features a 3V CR2 user-replaceable battery (which provides up to 300 dive hours, or up to five years storage time) and is very compact – it measures just three inches by one-and-athird inches - but it is depth-rated to 650ft. More than enough for most divers. It also benefits from ‘no tools’ installation and removal, and features an LED status indicator for signals.

So, what makes the Swift different to previous transmitters?

Well, as Shearwater explain, it uses an advanced collision avoidance system, featuring randomized transmit intervals, to ensure reliability even when using multiple Swift transmitters simultaneously. Basically, the Swift ‘listens’ for other transmitters and only transmits when it dictates that the channel is clear.

In tests, Shearwater ran 20 transmitters in close proximity, without any issues! The Swift connects to all of Shearwater’s current air-integrated computers, so that’s the Teric, Perdix AI and the Nerd 2, but it is also compatible with many other dive computers already on the market from other brands. The latest firmware update to all Shearwater AI computers allows the gas pressure of up to four cylinders to be viewed simultaneously.

I have used the Swift transmitter with a Perdix AI and a Teric, and I can confirm that the signal is very reliable. Even using my computer on the opposite wrist to the side the transmitter is mounted on my first stage, it never dropped out.

If you have never used an air-integrated computer, they make things so simple – you just glance at your wrist and you can check your depth, dive time, no-deco limit and your gas

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level all in one fell swoop. It means you can get rid of a hose off your regulator set-up if such things really matter to you – I have a small SPG on my rig as well as the transmitter so I can cover for all eventualities, but that more dates back to the early transmitters which were, shall we say, prone to losing signal, and I preferred having a back-up SPG fitted so I didn’t have to abort my dive. These days, transmitters are far more reliable – particularly this Swift – so the back-up SPG is really not needed. The Swift transmitter comes in a neat padded and zippered case, along with a handy Karabiner, and a dinky tool for when you have to change the battery. www.shearwater.com

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Ask DAN

DAN medical specialists and researchers answer your dive medicine questions

Little Ear

Q: Can someone be certified to dive if they were born with ‘little ear’ — where the ear wasn’t fully formed in the womb and the canal didn’t open?

A: It seems like you are referencing both microtia and aural atresia. Microtia ranges from minor changes in the outer-ear shape to a very small external ear, possibly with no external canal or eardrum. Anotia is the complete lack of any ear structure, and aural atresia is the absence of an ear canal.

Your physician may not necessarily restrict diving.

The concern would be making sure your anatomy allows for proper equalisation of your Eustachian tube and any potentially remaining gas in a vestigial middle ear. If equalisation is impaired with gas still in the ear, you could risk barotrauma (a pressure injury) on your functional internal ear. If this is not an issue, then the risk would be severe barotrauma on the other fully functional ear, which could cause deafness in rare cases.

A physician might suggest you avoid diving if your hearing is already unilateral, since a dive injury to the functional ear could result in bilateral hearing loss. Consult with your ear, nose and throat specialist to discuss your ear anatomy and determine if diving is possible.

Atrial fibrillation

Q: I have a history of atrial fibrillation (AFib) and had a cardiac ablation to restore my heart’s normal rhythm.

My recovery went well with no complications, and I have returned to normal activity. Is it safe for me to dive now?

A: Opinions vary in the dive medicine community about AFib and medical fitness for diving. Some physicians completely recommend against diving, while others are more permissive.

Respected dive medicine cardiologist Dr Douglas Ebersole believes that AFib alone, with an otherwise structurally sound heart (confirmed through treadmill stress testing and an echocardiogram), should not prevent diving. As long as you control your AFib with medication and have proper exercise tolerance, you should be able to dive.

Your successful ablation has resolved the dysrhythmia issue of AFib, but it raises another concern. The ablation procedure may have required a transseptal puncture to get

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the catheter from the right atrium into the left atrium. This puncture results in an atrial septal defect, which will generally heal without any intervention over time. Unfortunately, there is no clinical definition of how long that time is. Although the hole is typically small, depending on the exact procedure (some catheters are larger than others), you would be at risk for bubbles shunting from the right to left atrium until the hole has completely closed.

The best recommendation is to wait for confirmation from your cardiologist that the hole is closed before you return to diving. An echocardiogram with a bubble study is usually the procedure to determine the hole closure. https://dan.org/

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