Underwater News
November was a big month for Deepblu Inc. The company that built the world's first dive computer featuring social integration made waves at the DEMA Show 2016 in Las Vegas with a series of surprise announcements and product launches.
Introducing COSMIQ+
Deepblu upgraded its product line with a new addition, the COSMIQ+, introducing a brand new performance feature for technical divers in two new lines. Available in two distinct color families?Noir and Lumin? the COSMIQ+ comes in five new colors. Staying true to its roots as the best price-to-performance dive computer on the market, COSMIQ+ is priced at the same US $299 as its COSMIQ predecessor.
As for tech specs and operability, the COSMIQ+ builds on all the existing features of the COSMIQ with the introduction of Bottom Timer Mode. This feature specifically targets the needs of tech divers for a secondary device and will expand Deepblu's customer base to include an important niche in the diving community.
Slated for a Black Friday (November 25th, 2016) release in North America, the COSMIQ+ will be available globally in December 2016.
Deepblu 2.0-Everything Under the Sea in the Cloud
Deepblu also announced a beta launch of Deepblu 2.0?a major expansion of the Deepblu online platform. Accessible across mobile ...
On my Big Animals trips, it's the locals who make the difference in our journey. Observing Cubanos' colorful, robust and up beat tempo overshadows the limitations I've observed imposed on their lives. They live in a city and countryside that is basically "frozen in time". There is a fifty-year "time warp".
San Crist?bal de la Habana or Havana, Cuba's capital city is only a short ninety miles from Florida. Having visited the island country four times, I have fallen in love with its beauty, culture, and now its scuba diving. Yes, I would rate Havana as a city comparable to Paris, Rome, Oslo, London and even Shanghai.
Travel to Cuba is now permissible for US citizens through cultural exchange programs sanctioned by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, which in the first phase of my journey gave me the freedom to interact in the daily activities of the Cuban community, experiencing their architecture, history, art, culture, and the music of daily life in and around Havana.
In the second phase of the trip, I visited the Gardens of the Queen to witness first hand the efforts being taken to preserve and protect a marine ecosystem that is unique to the southern coast of Cuba. "Jardines de la Reina" was declared a Marine Park in 1996. By limiting t...
The trip is a bit long but my wife Agnese and me we got used.
And so, after 26 hours flying from Milan to Cebu, we have to drive three hours to reach the Sampaguita Resort in Moal Boal. We arrive at 8pm and after a tasty dinner and a couple of mojitos we go to the room for a good night's sleep. The next day, an employee comes to wake us up because... It's already time for lunch! When we get out from our bungalow we immediately appreciate the sunshine, the garden, the palm trees and the view of the sea.
We realize now that we will spend the holiday in very relaxing and enjoyable place. The resort is very simple and basic but the great thing is that after a couple of days you feel to be at home.
The bar's terrace restaurant is very cozy and is situated directly on the reef.
After lunch we bring our diving equipment to the diving center, and then we check and fit all our cameras in their housings: two housing for dslr cameras, one for a compact one, six strobes, four cameras, cables, batteries, arms, glasses...about seventy pounds of stuff! Of course we know that most of our dives will be dedicated to macro photography. Once everything is settled we go for a dive to test all our equipment.
We can do unlimited dives on local reefs, and every day we'll mak...
Dharavandhoo is a small Maldivian fishermen's island, located in the Baa Atoll, about 120 kilometers north of Male. Since a small airport was built, you can reach it in twenty minutes flight from the capital. It is situated near the bay of Hanifaru, Unesco heritage site since 2009, where, from late May to November, the high concentration of plankton present in these waters gathers a large number of filter feeders, including the large manta rays. That's the reason why last summer we organized this trip, together with other underwater photography enthusiast's friends. We arrived in the guesthouse that will host us (Dharavandhoo is off the beaten tourist circuit, being a fishing village) on the morning of 26 July, welcomed by Virgilio and Jessica, who run the dive center and have a deep knowledge of the Baa atoll's seabeds and are ready, together with their staff, to lead us in the discovery of this corner of the Indian Ocean. We should rest because the night on the plane has grown us tired, but the desire to begin diving in these waters is so great that we decided to "open the ball" already in the afternoon. After preparing the photographic equipment and having eaten enough, we reach the large and comfortable dhoni waiting for us at the dock, not far from our guesthouse. The sky is blue and t...
April 2015: Finally, after months of waiting, the time has come to make the TOP journey we were longing for.
We left Italy, via Madrid and Miami, and arrived in San Jos?. The next day, from the port of Punta Arenas, on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, we boarded the Okeanos Aggressor, a boat 36 meters long, capable of 10 cabins for 20 guests in addition to the crew.
Exquisitely greeted by the captain, his deputy and the crew, after a welcome aperitif and a crew and boat introduction, we finally left towards the Isla Del Coco.
During the 36 hours sailing needed to cover the 300 nautical miles, we met the other guests. Surprisingly, on board there's a group of seven Italians including us, while the others come from various Countries, including the US, Canada, France, Switzerland, Mexico, and even Israel.
Expectations about the holiday grew during the crossing, since one of our Italian fellow travelers is a regular visitor of Cocos (this will be his fourth cruise, the last in 2011), and showed us videos and photos of his previous trips.
Isla Del Coco, considered one of the best diving destinations in the world for encounters with hammerhead sharks and other pelagic fish such as manta rays, whale, gray, tiger and Galapagos sharks, i...
Popular Dive Sites around Tioman Island
Tiger Reef
As far as I'm concerned, this is the most beautiful dive site in Tioman without a doubt. This submerged underwater pinnacle, situated between Pulau Labas and Pulau Sepoi, begins at 12 m deep and slides down to deeper than 40 m, embracing small boulders & caves covered with colorful soft coral and underwater swim-through formations in between, which makes perfect for wide-angle photography. The rock formation is simply amazing because everything is covered in soft coral, hard corals, sea whips, crinoids, sea fans and barrel sponges. The coral life here is relatively well-preserved because this site is rarely dived. Strong currents often bring schools of yellow snappers, fusiliers, barracudas, jacks, turtles and sharks whilst colorful tropical reef fish such as angelfish, butterfly fish, emperor angelfish and parrot fish, etc.often wander carelessly through diversely shaped sea fans & barrel sponge corals at the deepest part. At 45-48m deep, there is also a weirdly shaped sponge coral area, looking like a kind of sculpture museum, which is the best theme park that I've ever visited.
Bahara Rock / Bahara Light House
Locally knwon as Tokong Bahara, this is my second favorite dive site on ...
Sharks are one of, if not the most widely recognized fish in our oceans. They invoke a wide range of emotions from fear to inspiration and everything in between. People that fear sharks and think of them as mindless killing machines don't know a fraction of the story. Don't let television drama fool you, truth is, you are more likely to be struck by lightning than be bitten by a shark. People that are bitten are usually mistaken for a normal prey item or are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. No matter your opinion of them, they are important to us and our oceans. Sharks are at the top of their respective food chains and regulate populations of species below thus keeping oceanic ecosystems in check.
There are more than 440 described species of sharks and they come in a variety of sizes. They range from the deep water dwarf Lanternshark, Etmopterus perryi, which maxes out at about 17 cm to the Whale shark, Rhincodon typus, which reaches approximately 12 m. Often identified by most people as a shark by their distinct fin structure, the modern shark as we know it has been around for roughly 100 million years. Although they looked very different than modern day sharks, fossil evidence has been found that shows sharks existing roughly 420-450 million years ago.
Sh...
The alarm rings at half past five. At six the boat of "Solo Buceo" diving awaits us on the back of the Sotavento Hotel in Cancun, where there is a channel connected with the open sea.
Still sleepy we enjoy the spectacle of the sun rising over the calm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, while we circumnavigate the northern extremity of Isla Mujeres. After about an hour of navigation finally we reach this vast area of the sea in which a large number of whale sharks from all the Caribbean meet in the summer months due to the large presence of bonitos eggs that the currents concentrate here.
Soon begin to appear the first dorsal fins that cut the smooth surface of the sea. There are many spaced a few tens of meters. We reduce the speed up to stop and while drifting reaches us under the boat one of these huge beasts, so already from the boat we can see the grey back with the unmistakable grating of vertical and horizontal streaks clearer alternating series of white spots.
Wasting no time, with great excitement and emotion we wear fins and mask, grab cameras and dive in these warm waters to meet these large, harmless sharks in their natural environment. Putting our head
under the water we can see more than one with a single glance, so we start finning...
The Natural History Museum has now officially become the charming and cozy choice for the International Competition of Underwater Photography Deep-City of Venice, now in its seventh edition. The exhibition of thirty-three winning images in the Galleria Cetacean under the impressive whale skeleton has ever seen as the influx of hundreds of Italian and foreign visitors. Ninety participants from the United States, Spain, the Netherlands, Greece, Indonesia, England, Norway and Italy have submitted three hundred ninetytwo underwater photographs taken around the world.
The photographers competed in the categories SLR and Compact cameras, divided into Macro and Wide angle Tropical and Mediterranean. Added to this are the categories Crabs, dedicated to the Museum, Plastic Sea, born from a project of Eleonora De Sabata in collaboration with Medsharks, and Donna Fotosub. Claudio Bertasini, Gianni Neto and Giuseppe Pignataro had to struggle hard to select the top ten photos of each category because of the high technical level. Isabella Maffei wins again the prize Woman Fotosub, while the Spanish Elisabeth Espinalt yook the first place in the category Crabs, which was attended by 68 competitors. The ranking still speaks Spanish thanks to the laurels that have ...
I'm on board: Sachika Safari boat. I want to see "big stuff" and this is the perfect place... Life is like that: being in the right place at the right time. And this is the right boat...
It 'just after dawn and we are going to have the first dive.
6:15 am. A cup of tea and I'm ready to set my photographic equipment. The dhoni crew have already set up and checked the thanks, the jacket and all the underwater equipment. They are waiting for us.
Usually I have to assemble the equipment and check everything by myself but here I’m relieved of any task concerning diving stuff.
What are we going to discover today? Tree, four dives a day, feeling amazed and thrilled at any time.
Sharks, this morning!
So many elegant gray sharks and the harmless white tips sharks! Giacomo Ganda, the dive leader is a marine byologist, expert in maldivian dives. He tells us that there will be a lot of underwater current in this place. We will use hooks to latch on the rocks. It goes without saying: no currents, no sharks.
We go down quickly and suddendly we see grey sharks hunting near the passe. They are quiet, not concerned with us. We stop near a rock waiting for them to come nearer. Standing still, we admire their amazing...
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