IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL, WARM SATURDAY IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST. We were conducting two checkout dives for an advanced open-water course at a popular dive site in Puget Sound. I had just gotten some divers out of the water, and we were debriefing onshore as divers from a basic open-water class exited the water with […]
LESLIE LEANEY IS RENOWNED for his dive history research and preservation. He has done this work through organizations such as the Cayman Islands’ International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame (where he has been the executive director for nearly 20 years), the Commercial Diving Hall of Fame, the Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences, the Santa […]
BEAUTIFUL NECKLACES, BRACELETS, EARRINGS, and other items with elaborate brown and amber patterns adorn the shelves of shops and tourist markets worldwide. They might seem like the perfect souvenirs of your latest dive trip. These items, often called tortoiseshell, may be made from the colorful plates, called scutes, covering the shells of hawksbill sea turtles […]
IN 1983-84, REEFS THROUGHOUT THE CARIBBEAN, FLORIDA, AND BERMUDA experienced one of the greatest mass mortalities of a marine species ever recorded when an unknown waterborne pathogen killed more than 98 percent of the Diadema sea urchin population.1 In February of this year, divers in St. Thomas noticed many of the Diadema were suddenly no […]
IT HAD BEEN A BUSY WEEK for the fish surveyors aboard the Avalon ll, and things were just beginning to wind down. The Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF) team of 16 volunteer research divers had recorded population estimates for 246 fish species on 26 reef, seagrass, mangrove, and ironshore sites within the benevolent boundaries of […]
DESCENDING THE LIMESTONE STAIRS OF BONAIRE’S famous 1,000 Steps dive site in full scuba gear is challenging. It’s just 64 steps down, but it feels like many more. Once you make it down, you’re rewarded with a Caribbean reef teeming with life …
OF ALL THE FISHES IN THE SEA THAT ANNA ADORES, blennies perch high atop her favorites list. Her fascination with the tribe of typically small, hole-inhabiting bottom-dwellers …
THE LONG, STRANGE TRIP OF THE Spiegel Grove began in 2001 over beers at Sharkey’s Bar in Key Largo, Florida. Several Bibb and Duane shipwrecks project organizers were musing about what they would do …
WHEN I STARTED DIVING, I fell in love with colorful coral reefs and marine life. If you had told me that Antarctica would someday become a favorite destination, I might have laughed and said I’d never …
WHILE DAN’S SUITE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS focus primarily on diving, graduates of the courses can apply the skills and knowledge they learned to many circumstances outside the aquatic realm. My wife and I were driving home from a weekend getaway to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, heading northbound on Interstate 95. As expected, I-95 was moderately […]
