p2
Next Dive Club Outings:
April 5 - Monterey/Carmel Ling Season Open
April 11th weekend - Mendocino Little House Abalone Season Open
News From the Ocean
Canadian Justice is a Wonderful Thing - from the Sea Shepard Conservation Society
In Canada if you take a picture of a seal being killed you are arrested, jailed and fined and the maximum penalty if convicted is up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. In addition when we documented the seal slaughter last year, our ship Farley Mowat was seized and is still being held by the Canadian government without any charges against it. Two of our officers Alex Cornelissen and Peter Hammarstedt were released on $5,000 bail each for the "crime" of witnessing the killing of a seal. The actual charge was violating the "Seal Protection Regulations" which makes it illegal to witness or document the killing of a seal without a permit from the government.
This week a sealer was found guilty of inhumanely killing a seal. Ashley Gould, 27, of Anchor Point, Newfoundland was videotaped smashing baby seals with a shovel and throwing them on to the boat while still alive.
What did the "Seal Protection Act" have to say about that? Mr. Gould was found guilty of using unauthorized weapons. The punishment for bashing baby seals over the head with a shovel and throwing their living bodies onto the deck of a boat is a $2,000 fine and Mr. Gould will be suspended for the 1st day of the 2009 seal hunt.
A fine of $100,000 and up to a year in prison for taking a picture of a seal being killed and a $2,000 fine for bashing it over the head with a shovel.
They say that justice is blind. In Canada justice has her eyes wide shut and she's arrogantly moronic and very sick.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Anybody want some top-secret seagoing vessels?
The Navy has a pair it doesn't need anymore. It has been trying to give them away since 2006, and they're headed for the scrap yard if somebody doesn't speak up soon.
One is called Sea Shadow. It's big, black and looks like a cross between a Stealth fighter and a Batmobile. It was made to escape detection on the open sea. The other is known as the Hughes (as in Howard Hughes) Mining Barge. It looks like a floating field house, with an arching roof and a door that is 76 feet wide and 72 feet high. Sea Shadow berths inside the barge, which keeps it safely hidden from spy satellites.
The barge, by the way, is the only fully submersible dry dock ever built, making it very handy -- as it was 35 years ago -- for trying to raise a sunken nuclear-armed Soviet submarine.
Sea Shadow, 160 feet long and 70 feet wide, was the Navy's first experimental stealth ship. Its special coatings, sharp angles and other confidential doohickeys allowed it to baffle radar and sonar. Viewed bow-on, it looks like a squat letter "A" standing on two submerged pontoons for exceptional stability on rough seas.
The Navy brought Sea Shadow out of the shadows for daylight tests in 1993, setting off a flash of publicity. It hit the cover of Popular Mechanics. Revell made a plastic model. A mad media mogul used a Sea Shadow look-alike to foment war between Britain and China in a 1997 James Bond movie "Tomorrow Never Dies."
A New Species of Frogfish from Ambon and Bali, Indonesia - Histiophryne psychedelica
"Psychedelica" seems the perfect name for a species of fish that is a wild swirl of tan and peach zebra stripes and behaves in ways contrary to its brethren. So says University of Washington's Ted Pietsch, who is the first to describe the new species in the scientific literature and thus the one to select the name.
Psychedelica is perhaps even more apt given the cockamamie way the fish swim, some with so little control they look intoxicated and should be cited for DUI. Members of Histiophryne psychedelica, or H. psychedelica, don't so much swim as hop. Each time they strike the seafloor they use their fins to push off and they expel water from tiny gill openings on their sides to jettison themselves forward. With tails curled tightly to one side –which surely limits their ability to steer – they look like inflated rubber balls bouncing hither and thither.
Put Another Dollar In Specialty of the Month - March
from the The PADI Drift Diver Course ( I can't make up stuff like this - the editor)
"The PADI Drift Diver Specialty course introduces you to the coolest magic carpet ride you’ll ever experience. This course shows you how to enjoy rivers and ocean currents by “going with the flow,” staying with your dive partner, communicating with the dive boat and knowing where you are the whole time...
Drift Diving is nearly effortless and relaxing. You simply glide along and enjoy the rush of flying underwater while the current does the work.
During your PADI Drift Diver certification course, you learn about:
- Planning, organization, procedures, techniques, problems
and hazards of drift diving
- An introduction to drift diving equipment -- floats, lines, reels
- Buoyancy-control, navigation and communication for drift diving
- Site selection and overview of aquatic currents – causes and effects
- Techniques for staying close to a buddy or together as a group
You use all the basic scuba gear plus some scuba accessories such as floats, lines and reels. Check with your local dive shop about gear rentals and packages offered with this course. You can find most everything at the scuba diving shop.
You must be:
- A PADI Open Water Diver or Junior Open Water Diver (or
have a qualifying certification from another training organization)
- At least 12 years old
The Learning Materials You Need - Coming Soon: The PADI Drift Diver CrewPak"
PADI's Specialty of the Month - April: Advanced Peeing in Your Wetsuit - a new set of Aquatic Currents
During your PADI certification course, you learn about:
- Not peeing in it while still on the diveboat
- Not peeing in your dry suit
- Not peeing in your buddy's wetsuit before they even put it on
- While going No.2 may warm you up too - it's usually discouraged
- Techniques for going together as a group