We know you’re suffering withdrawal symptoms. It’s been an entire two months since you’ve had your last injection of FiNS. Life’s been uneventful, routine, dreary…altogether just too predictable.

Never fear. Just like Toyota’s vaunted just-in-time manufacturing system, the newest issue of FiNS Magazine is out now…just in time to prevent sanity from settling in.

Speaking of insanity, our beloved Gadget Guru took a vacation recently, so instead of featuring one of his illuminating(?) experiments in this issue, we tagged along and documented the many mishaps events that transpired when he decided to visit the offices of Scubapro in Hong Kong. Suffice it to say that they’re still recovering (Come to think of it, so are we.).

Also in this issue, our contributors introduce you to classy cardinalfish and pretty pygmy seahorses, and also take you to visit Bali, Yap and a wreck dive near Bangkok. And in our popular PixTips column, we show you how to analyse and learn from prize-winning photographs picked from the recent UnderwaterCompetition.com contests.

Obviously, there’s much, much more in this issue, but we’re tired of writing now, so grab your copy (or download it from our website or from iTunes.) and immerse yourself in this issue’s madness.

We’ll be at TDEX from 15 to 18th May, so if you’re in Bangkok, drop by to say hello (and bring snacks please). After the show, we’re taking off for a dive trip and ignoring all responsibilities, so don’t expect any answers to emails through the end of the month.

Sam’s Tours in Palau reports that Palau has banned the live reef fish industry, thanks in no small part to the hard work of Sam’s Tours.

In case you’re not aware, the live reef fish you see in tanks in restaurants around Asia come from all over the world, and catching the fish involves highly destructive fishing practices such as the use of cyanide. In short, it’s an unsustainable practice that caters to wealthy urban residents at the expense of reefs and the long-term welfare of local populations.

Kudos to Palau, and to the efforts of Sam’s Tours to address this issue! 

Legislators in Taiwan are considering requiring shark fin restaurants to warn consumers that shark fins often contain levels of mercury considered hazardous to human health, and also having the Department of Health print posters to let consumers know that eating shark fins can reduce intelligence. Read more…

It’s nice to have a happy ending. The missing divers in Taiwan have been rescued. Story via AFP: Read more…

Eight divers in Taiwan went missing this weekend. A massive search is underway. Story below via Taipei Times. Read more…

Realising that his beloved Suunto D9 and Mac computer were having communication issues, Singapore-based Kiwi Nick Shore created MacDive, a free application to help the two get along.

Nick says: “There wasn’t an application that had the functionality I wanted or the look and feel of a Mac application, and I thought it would be easiest to just start from scratch and make the exact app I wanted. Plus, this way I could make it free. I worked on MacDive in my spare time after work. It’s been a real labour of love. I know there are many divers who are also Mac users and who, like me, have been frustrated with the lack of options available for Macs. I hope MacDive will help make them happy.”

While developing MacDive, a number of divers in Singapore loaned him their Suuntos for testing. As a result, the application is currently compatible with the D9, D6, D3, Cobra, Cobra 2, Vyper, Vyper 2, Gekko, Vytec and Mosquito.

Nick plans to continue developing MacDive, adding support for more dive computer brands as well as additional functionality, and he’s keen to receive user feedback on where to take the application next.

At the same time, Nick is working on a project with two programmers and divers from Belgium and Canada to make it easier to develop applications for the majority of dive computers on the market.”First things first, though. I’ve got to get in the water and do some testing of my own!”

MacDive is available for free download at: http://thedoorisajar.org/macdive

Want an easy way to keep up-to-date with events in the diving world and FiNS news? Check out our events calendar, or even better, subscribe to the calendar using this link:

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And if you have an event you’d like to share with everyone, drop us a note and let us know the details.

Did you know that fish get thirsty too? Actually, they might not feel the same sensation of thirstiness that we do, but bony fish (all fish excluding sharks, rays, etc.) in the sea live in an environment in which the concentration of dissolved salts is much greater than inside their bodies.

What this means is that water will have a tendency to move from inside their bodies (lower salt concentration) to outside their bodies (higher salt concentration), particularly via the thin, permeable gill area. To replace water lost this way, marine fish need to drink. Special cells located in their gills extract and excrete excess salt in the sea water the fish take in.

Sharks and their relatives, however, don’t experience this issue to the same degree, due to the presence of organic molecules in their blood that balance out the osmotic gradient between their blood and the sea water, which means sharks may not need to drink as much as other fish in the sea.

Authorities and divers in Phuket are preparing to create what might become one of the most popular wreck-centric dive sites in the region, if not the world.

On 5 May 2008, participating parties will sink four Douglas C-47 Dakota transport planes used during the Vietnam and Korean Wars, as well as six Sikorsky S-58T helicopters. This will take place in an area with a sandy bottom, one kilometre outside of Bang Tao Bay. The dive site created by these wrecks will cover 2,500 square metres, with depths ranging between 15 and 20 metres.

Of course, all the wrecks are being properly cleaned and prepared for sinking. Participants believe that this endeavour will attract thousands of divers a year to the area.

The project involves cooperation among multiple parties, including: Phuket Provincial Governor’s Office, Cheng Tale Sub-District Administrative Organization, Tourism and Sport Authority of Phuket, Marine and Coastal Resources Conservation Office Center 4 (Phuket), Thailand Diving Association (TDA), and For Sea Foundation.

Now here’s something that could come in really handy for those of you who are intelligent enough not to want to throw away large amounts of invest money on fancy underwater photography kit, and yet still feel the need to express yourself artistically while submerged, or just want to be the geek-chic-est diver in the water.

The new Underwater Digital Camera Mask from Liquid Image is a simple, yet ingenious, concept — marry a digital camera with a scuba mask and “Bob’s your uncle.” (For you non-British-English speakers, look the phrase up in Wikipedia.) (For those of you who don’t understand the expression and also don’t know what Wikipedia is…never mind.)

Read more…