NEWS
Ultimate Explorer offer from Portsmouth
The Mary Rose Museum and the 11 visitor attractions under the umbrella of the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) have joined forces in a bid to staunch financial losses incurred during the coronavirus-enforced closure of their home at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, which reopens to the public on 24 August. Read more...
Deep-sea freeze or it’s Game Over
A retro computer game based on the original arcade "shoot-'em-up" Space Invaders has been launched by the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC) as part of its campaign for deep-sea mining to be put on hold. Read more...
‘Infinite hollow’ was first undersea cenote
A Mexican underwater photographer has made a series of surprising discoveries 14 miles off the Yucatan Peninsula - five freshwater cenotes lying beneath the Caribbean seabed. Read more...
Woman sandwiched by humpbacks
A 29-year-old woman has sustained fractured ribs and internal bleeding after finding herself trapped between two humpback whales while snorkelling on Ningaloo Reef off Exmouth in Western Australia. Read more...
Shark fatality linked to conservation success
The death of a swimmer following an attack by a great white shark last week has been linked by a shark expert to the successful restoration of seal and consequently shark populations off the USA’s north-east coast. Read more...
Peristera wreck: smile, you’re on camera
Much has been made of the liberation of Greece’s underwater heritage after decades of restriction by the archaeological authorities, but they are taking few chances as the ancient Peristera shipwreck is opened to recreational scuba divers on Monday (3 August). Read more...
Gliders reveal whales’ breakfast habits
Some of us are morning people and others not, and it seems the same is true of cetaceans. A new British-led study has found that, while some of the thousands of sperm whales in the Mediterranean are active around the clock, others start their day in a laid-back way – and the researchers think they know why. Read more...
Half-million for Sussex coast project
A boost for the English Channel coast has come with news that the National Lottery Heritage Fund has awarded a £528,600 grant to Sussex Wildlife Trust for its Wild Coast Sussex Project. Read more...
Tech divers untangle Perseus sub
Six technical divers from the volunteer group Ghost Diving have succeeded in removing abandoned fishing-gear that had covered the WW2 submarine wreck HMS Perseus. Read more...
Zero sharks on fifth of reefs
Sharks have become too rare on many of the world’s coral reefs to fulfil their normal role in the ecosystem. So say scientists behind Global FinPrint, described as the world’s largest reef shark and ray survey, concluding that the sharks have been rendered “functionally extinct”. Read more...
Dive into Malta’s Virtual Museum
A slick new website bound to appeal to wreck-divers is The Virtual Museum: Underwater Malta. Read more...
Divers set to sample Green Banana
US scientists are about to explore a mysterious “blue hole” site in the Gulf of Mexico dubbed Green Banana this August, with a follow-up expedition set for next May. Read more...
Sophie completes coldwater Lego challenge
Eleven-year-old scuba diver Sophie O’Dea pledged during the coronavirus lockdown to raise cash for her local NHS hospital trust once she was able to get out diving - and has now delivered by building a Lego model aircraft 14m down at the Capernwray inland site. Read more...
Now 10-year-olds can dive with BSAC
After decades of debate on the issue, the British Sub-Aqua Club has finally decided to emulate commercial diver training agencies and lower its minimum age for entry-level training from 12 to 10. Read more...
Diverse customers can offset their travel
UK dive-tour operator Diverse Travel is now a “Climate Aware” company, having partnered with sustainable development body ClimateCare. Read more...
PROTEUS: Undersea habitat of the future
Ocean explorer and environmentalist Fabien Cousteau has announced an ambitious plan to build over the next three years “the world’s most advanced underwater scientific research station and habitat” at a depth of 18m in a marine protected area off Curaçao in the southern Caribbean. Read more...
Dive Show secures March 2021 dates at NEC Birmingham
FOLLOWING the postponement of the forthcoming NEC Birmingham dive show from the planned October dateline, in consultation with exhibitors, speakers and prospective visitors the Dive Show is pleased to confirm that revised show dates have now been set for the prime pre-Easter 2021 weekend of 27/28 March Read more...
Blackbeard meant to run ship aground
Clues recovered by a dive-team support speculation that when the pirate Blackbeard ran his flagship onto a sandbar at Beaufort, North Carolina 300 years ago, it was a deliberate act. Read more...
Ultra-black fish reveal invisibility secrets
The ultra-black skin that renders some deep-sea fish invisible to prey is the subject of a new study by US scientists - who hope to replicate its light-trapping properties in applications ranging from solar panels to telescopes. Read more...
Brit divers sought for polar trip
The African & Oriental Travel Co ran its second diving expedition to Antarctica and the Southern Shetland Islands last December and describes the trip as “incredibly successful”. Read more...
Family fun with a purpose
Younger and non-diving members of scuba divers’ families get the opportunity to join in with immersion in all things marine biological around the UK when The Wildlife Trusts’ National Marine Week 2020 gets under way on 25 July. Read more...
Malta dive-pro cleared of manslaughter
A dive-centre owner in Malta has been cleared after being charged with the involuntary manslaughter of a British female diver five years ago. Read more...
New websites dive into history
A new website called jimsuit.com is devoted to the emergence 45 years ago of the atmospheric diving suit. Better known as the JIM suit, it was developed to enable divers to work safely as deep as 457m without the need for decompression. Read more...
August issue of DIVER Magazine out now!
TO ENSURE prompt delivery of DIVER Magazine during the current period of coronavirus disruption a special FREE digital version of the AUGUST issue has been produced to replace the normal paper copy – with no reduction to subscribers’ overall paper-copy entitlement. Read more...
Sharks in the UK – and on TV
As temperatures rise in UK coastal waters over the next 30 years, non-indigenous species of shark such as hammerheads and blacktips look set to arrive in increasing numbers. Read more...
Early warning of coral threats
A new scientific prediction tool could provide an early-warning system of the two most destructive disturbances faced by coral reefs - bleaching and crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS). Read more...
Pelagic hunt in Baja California
The Marlin Hunt, set for 20-30 October this year in Baja California, Mexico, is led by professional underwater photographer and regular DIVER contributor Henley Spiers, who was knocked out by the spectacular experiences there he described in the magazine a year ago. Read more...
Unlicensed divers warned against seahorse disturbance
At the start of June Divernet reported that divers from marine-conservation charity the Seahorse Trust had rejoiced to find that the spiny seahorses that had gone missing from Studland Bay in Dorset for two years had returned in numbers. Read more...
Diving into ancient history
Greece is open, though not yet to UK travellers at the time of writing, but if an air bridge makes the way clear later this summer the Peristera shipwreck, which was discovered in the early 1990s, will be the first ancient wreck to be opened by the government to the public, from 3 August to 2 October. Read more...
