4th of July 2008 – Malaysia International Dive Exhibition(MIDE) held in Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia was entering it’s 3rd year now.

This annual event was officiated by YB Dato’ Mirza Mohammad Taiyab, Director General of Tourism Malaysia, YB Datuk Haji Za’abar Bin Dato’ Hajo Mohd Adib , Chairman Tourism, Cultural, Arts & Heritage Committee of Terengganu State and YB Dato’ Mukhriz Mahathir, President of Malaysian Sports Diving Association.

This year’s event boost 112 exhibitors from around the region and worldwide. Trade visitors were giving hands up response to this years show. Danny Wang, co-author of Deep Secret was positive on the show’s turn up as compare to dive show in the neighboring country.

But on the contrary, buying power had shifted, holiday goers are more conscious of their spending nowadays as observed by Zul Ng from Singapore. And resorts operators, and associations should put more efforts in promoting local destinations.

The show in its first years works with National Art Gallery on the children underwater painting project in Mabul Island. This year show was much bigger and attract more visitors then last year with more equipment dealers exhibiting as well as more foreign tourism board promoting their destinations.

MIDE will return again next year on 3rd – 5th July 2009 in PWTC.

See you next year !

This computer sets the new benchmark in mixed gas computers, and supports both open circuit, and closed circuit diving. It features VPM live, a real-time VPM decompression algorythm, an innovative tap control feature, a super bright OLED display, an internal compass, and much more!

Read more about it click here or contact Dive Rite Express

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — July 4th, 2008 — Conservation International, The Coral Reef Alliance, and Wetpixel.com have announce the 2009 Raja Ampat Entrance Tag Design Contest.

If you have the perfect photo that captures the excitement and beauty of Raja Ampat diving, enter the 2009 contest for a chance to have your image printed on the 4,000 park tags that will be attached BCDs of visiting divers!

In addition, the first place winner will receive a 7-day, 6-night, all-inclusive dive trip* to Raja Ampat’s original eco-resort at Kri, kindly donated by Papua Diving. (*excludes airfares)

2nd and 3rd place winners will receive a fabulous book about Raja Ampat by 10 of the world’s leading underwater photographers.

To enter the contest, submit up to 2 photos or graphic designs per contestant before midnight on Thursday, August 28, 2008. After finalists are chosen, you — the public — will vote for the best image or design until September 25, 2008. Winners will be announced on October 1, 2008.

For rules and submission details, please visit:
http://wetpixel.com/raja

For more information about Raja Ampat, visit:
http://www.diverajaampat.org.

This is limited to those 2nd stages/octopus purchased before July 2008 that have not undergone an authorised annual service.

It has come to our attention that an incorrectly assembled 2nd stage has been purchased. If you have an Apeks regulator or octopus that has never had an authorised annual service, regardless of how recently purchased, please take the regulator/octopus to your Apeks dealer to be visually inspected.
All Apeks dealers and distributors have been made aware of this issue.
Do not dive with the regulator until it has been visually inspected. If it is not possible for you to return the regulator for inspection then please contact Apeks’s Customer Service Department for assistance. Apeks apologises for any inconvenience this may cause. We are dedicated to making the world’s best diving products and ensuring diver safety at all costs.

For more information see latest Apeks news here

Apeks Marine Ltd. Neptune Way, Blackburn, Lancs. BB1 2BT.
TEL : 0044 (0) 1254 692200
FAX : 0044 (0) 1254 692211
Email: info@apeks.co.uk

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At around 18:40 on 26 June, more than 30 small cetaceans that appear to be false killer whales (Pseudorca crassidens) stranded themselves on the beach at the western side of Racha Yai in southern Thailand. 

Khun Sing of Racha Seamaster Divers reports that local residents, tourists and staff of local hotels and businesses pitched in and managed to return at least 20 of the beached whales to the sea in relatively short order. The rescuers then successfully moved another 10 individuals (that were stranded higher up on the beach) to the opposite side of the bay, where the water was more calm. 

After being returned safely to sea, the whales stayed in the bay, as if waiting for the other stranded whales to join them. Once the surviving whales were in the water, they moved off as a group, but as of now, are still in the general vicinity of the bay.

In total, volunteers on the scene were able to return all except one cetacean to the sea.

Local authorities sent the single dead whale to a marine research center in Phuket, where an autopsy is being conducted in hopes of learning more about why the whales may have stranded themselves.

See the video below for more:

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Scubacam Singapore is organising an informal underwater photography outing at Kasawari Lembeh Resort. Superb accommodation and photography facilities will be offered for all participants. 

Special invited guest will be Tony Wu, who will be available for discussions about photo techniques, tips, and advice. David Cheung and Sanah Z of Scubacam will be there to provide technical advice on equipment and maintenance.

Scubacam prizes will be offered for the best three photos taken during the week.

The trip is planned for March 2009, exact dates to be finalised.

For more information, contact Scubacam. To read more about Tony’s most recent visits to Lembeh, see the following posts here and here on his blog.

But according to an email we received from FiNS readers who recently visited and dived the area, there are many undiscovered reefs and and abundance of marine life just a couple of hours offshore.

During an an 80-minute dive at a site called the Corral, they saw: nine Hippocampus kuda seahorses, including two beautiful juveniles; Chaetoderma penicilligera (leafy or weedy filefish); ocellated (spotted) octopuses (which seemed to be in every other clam shell); a pipefish that looked like Acentronura gracilissima (graceful or bastard seahorse); Cephaloscyllium umbratile (30cm juvenile balloon or swell shark, often found in Japan but uncommon in the Indochina Sea); sting rays; dragonets; and a number of nudibranchs: Bornella stellifer, Pteraeolidia ianthina, Thecacera pennigera, and various Chromodoris.

They dived with the Dive Shop, located on the road to Serendipity Beach, right next to the well-known the Monkey Republic Bar, Restaurant and Guesthouse. The Dive Shop’s guides, Bora, Shina and Paul, were on hand to help them spot all the little critters.

If you’re interested in looking further into diving Cambodia, here’s some general information that the divers passed along to us: “Accommodation ranges from 8-15 USD, food costs 2-3 USD per meal (try the Cambodian Lok Lak, it’s tasty!), and Anchor Beer costs 1 USD per bottle in the bar (0.75 cents at happy hour). A day trip for diving runs about 50 USD for two dives. And lastly, there’s plenty to do in the beach town when you’re not diving…cool beach bars, wooden huts with hammocks, music clubs, and even a couple of casinos to keep anyone entertain.”If anyone else heads over there, drop us an email and let us know more.

Recently, the FiNS Team had a rare and happy opportunity. Normally scattered across the globe, we gathered for a few days in Bangkok, Thailand for a recent dive show. Having most of the team in a single location for the first occasion in recent memory gave us time to have some fun, and also to chat about the direction of FiNS.

As you may recall, FiNS initially started as a small publication in Singapore, and over the past seven years, we’ve grown into a much bigger effort, with offices in three countries and contributors, subscribers and friends around the world.

In addition, we’ve always been at the forefront of change…experimenting with and implementing new forms of communication to stay in touch with the dive community and to keep you informed.

Our website is the most popular of any dive publication in the Asia-Pacific region. Our discussion forum was the first successful English-language forum in the region. We launched our blog two years ago to keep you abreast of breaking news, and to date, we’re still the only major dive publication in Asia to use this effective media form to reach divers everywhere.

In addition, we’ve re-designed our print magazine twice, provided free PDF versions of our magazine, established the FiNS Magazine podcast on iTunes, created innovative and humourous magazine column concepts instead of copying what everyone else does, and organised the most successful Divers’ Night parties the region has ever seen.

Not bad for a bunch of divers donating their spare time, right?

That’s right. Many of you may not be aware of this, but everyone involved with FiNS works other full-time jobs. We don’t get paid or subsidised by large parent companies for our FiNS-related endeavours. In fact, we invest a lot of personal time with little to no financial reward. We create FiNS because we love the oceans and we believe in what we do.

During our group eat-and-chat sessions in Bangkok about where to take FiNS, we discussed a wide range of topics, but found our thoughts returning often to four major themes:

Our Expectations: First is our own expectations. FiNS Magazine has become incredibly popular. We get dozens of emails each day asking about subscriptions, shop orders, article ideas and contributions, general feedback, and much more.

On the one hand, we’re really happy to receive acknowledgment for our efforts. But at the same time, we’re increasingly finding ourselves unable to respond in a timely manner…which bums us out. Try as we might, we simply can’t keep up with the escalating flood of communication sent our way each day, since we all work full-time jobs to pay bills.

State of Print Media: Next, we’ve watched the health of most forms of print media decline all over the world. The highly respected and successful LIFE magazine, for instance, discontinued its print edition recently, opting to go online only. Underlying decisions like this are statistics that demonstrate a precipitous decline in newspaper and periodical subscriptions in almost every market and area of interest.

Accompanying this is a drop in advertising revenue, which is the backbone of every print publication. Newspapers in the United States, for instance, saw a 9.4% plunge in revenues last year, the worst decline in 50 years (Source: Newspaper Association of America).

In this climate, many periodicals have been forced to cut costs and streamline dramatically to survive. Newsweek, for instance, recently let 20% of their staff go (Source: Wall Street Journal, p.B1, 4 April 2008).

In contrast, both viewership and revenue for online media have been growing. As one example, internet ad revenue for major newspapers in the US has jumped from an estimated US$2 billion to US$3.2 billion between 2005 and 2007 (Source: Newspaper Association of America).

Consistent with these figures, we ourselves have seen magazine subscriptions increase, but we’ve seen website viewership, PDF downloads, and iTunes podcast accesses literally explode.

There’s a lot more data underscoring this worldwide trend, but you get the point. The writing is on the wall, so to speak.

Integrity: One thing that’s always been a concern to us is being able to maintain editorial integrity. You see, here’s the inside scoop on the dive industry.

Print magazines rely primarily on advertisers (not subscribers) to pay the bills. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that many advertisers only want (and expect) good things to be said about them. In cases where positive views are warranted, there’s no problem. In situations where there’s a need for constructive criticism or worse…most dive magazines have their hands (and tongues) tied.

During our seven years, we have chosen to speak out with constructive feedback on certain occasions, and we consequently suffered the wrath of advertisers and other parties in the dive industry (though ordinary divers rallied around us).

In addition, people have at times asked us to remove or censor opinions they didn’t like which were posted by divers on our forum, which we of course did not.

Standing on principle as we’ve done often means losing money and taking sh*t, but we believe that the lure of extra cash to pay the bills isn’t worth compromising our integrity.

Still, given the exceedingly high cost of producing and distributing a print magazine, we occasionally find ourselves biting our tongues when we really want to address controversial topics…and not being happy about it. Ideally, we’d like to have complete freedom to express opinions…good or otherwise…that are in the best interest of divers.

In other words, we believe FiNS should be created by divers, for divers, without any strings attached and without any vested interest dictating the agenda.

The Environment: Finally, there’s the environment. No matter how we dress it up, printing thousands of copies of FiNS Magazine and sending them all over the world every two months is not environmentally friendly, especially when there are now alternative forms of media available that are both easily accessible and rapidly gaining in popularity.

Magazine production, storage and transport consumes trees, generates pollution and contributes to carbon emissions.

We’re not overzealous eco-warriors, and we’re not by any means advocating a ban against the use of paper, but we do believe in optimising our own environmental impact, and we believe in practicing what we preach.

We are, after all, the first and only dive magazine in the Asia-Pacific region willing and able to state openly that we don’t consume shark fin. When it comes to environmental issues, it’s easy to talk the talk, but not necessarily to walk the walk.

Summary: After careful reflection upon these and other related issues, we decided that it’s time once again for FiNS to evolve…in order to look to the future and embrace the rapid and exciting changes in the world, rather than to cling to the past…and also to bolster our editorial independence while minimising our environmental impact.

To this end, we have developed and set in motion plans to unveil FiNS version 4.0, the details of which we will make public in the coming months.

The one aspect of our plans that we can announce now is that we will cease printing FiNS Magazine in paper form with immediate effect. Clearly, this was a difficult decision for us, as we are proud of our print edition’s success and popularity, and we certainly enjoy the positive feedback we receive.

However, in the final analysis, we do not feel that the satisfaction we would derive from continuing our print magazine would outweigh our environmental concerns or the diminishing effectiveness of print media.

Don’t panic though! This does not mean that FiNS Magazine will disappear. Quite the contrary.

FiNS v4.0 will be packed with informative content, our trademark sense of humour, and lots of brand new features…plus FiNS will continue to be run by divers for divers, providing you with straight-up, well-informed and unbiased information.

Ironically, our plans will probably end up resulting in more work and additional lost sleep for us, but then again, innovation never comes easy.

Until we implement the changes we have in mind, our website will stay up, and if you are one of our valued subscribers, contributors or advertisers, we will be in touch soon regarding how this decision affects you. This undertaking will require communicating with thousands of people all over the world, so please bear with us.

Thank you for your support, and stay tuned for the next FiNS Evolution.

Download the PDF version of this announcement here

The FiNS Team

The good news is that local villages and government support these measures. The bad news is that non-local commercial fishing enterprises aren’t as conservation-minded.

To address the need to patrol the boundaries of the MPA, the resort is raising funds for the Misool Ranger Project in conjunction with French charity Precious Planet. For every 50 Euros donated to the Misool Ranger Project, donors will be entered into a lucky draw for a free stay at Misool Eco Resort.

The deadline for entry is 1 August, so contribute to a good cause and secure your chance to win a free stay at the resort!

For more information, click here.

Five divers were found alive today more than 40 hours after they were reported missing in Komodo National Park.

The three British nationals, Charlotte Allin, James Manning and locally-based dive-master Kathleen Mitchinson, and an unidentified Swedish woman and Frenchman, were discovered on the beach on the south of Komodo Island near Tanjung Manta at 11.10 am (Bali time) by Pt. Putri Naga Komodo’s speedboat Cakalang.

All divers, who were first reported missing at 5.30pm on Thursday evening (5 June 2008), were reportedly in remarkably good condition after their ordeal and a medical team from Labuan Bajo, the gateway to the park, is heading toward the site to rendezvous with the speedboat.

The Park is considered one of the world’s premier dive sites but is also home to some of the swiftest and most unpredictable currents and undertows on the planet. Ironically, these fierce currents, a constant concern for divers here, are at least partly responsible for Komodo’s famously rich abundance of marine life.

Three cheers for the search and rescue team!!!

Another update to follow as soon as the divers reach Labuan Bajo.

In addition, Christopher Bahnsen writes about a colony of up to 100 large green turtles that have managed to thrive in San Diego Bay, one of the busiest harbours in the world.

More information at the Wetpixel Quarterly site.

Fears grow for British divers missing in Indonesia

By Emily Dugan

Saturday, 7 June 2008

Rescuers are searching for three British scuba divers believed to have been were swept away by strong currents off a remote Indonesian island two days ago.

The divers, who were thought to be on a “drift dive” in the notoriously perilous waters of the Komodo National Park, were named as Kathleen Mitchison, Charlotte Allin and James Manning. Elena Neralairen, from Sweden, and Lauren Pinel, from France, were also missing.

Ms Mitchison, a qualified dive master, was leading an expedition of eight people through isolated waters near the Nusa Tenggara islands off the east coast of Bali. She went out at 3pm local time on Thursday in a boat called the Setuka, with an Indonesian captain and two crew, and has not been seen since.

It is understood that three of the divers returned to the boat, but the remaining five did not reappear. The dive was organised by Reefseekers, a company run jointly by Ms Mitchison and her husband Ernest Lewandowski on the nearby island of Flores.

Mr Lewandowski, also a dive master, said search efforts were being stalled by fuel difficulties. “We’ve got a big search operation happening here but we’re having trouble getting aircraft to fly because of fuel problems,” he told CNN.

Mr Lewandowski, who had been leading another dive onthe same day, only realised his wife and her dive group were missing when he came to thesurface an hour later, reports said. After a fruitless search by the dive teams, they called the emergency services.

Both the navy and local police have been involved in the search, but concern was mounting as no clues as to their whereabouts have been found. “A rescue team from the Indonesian police and navy conducted a search this morning for the five missing foreigners but there has been no result so far,” said Butje Hello, police chief of the Manggarai Barat district.

Recovery operations in the region are difficult to mobilise, as the nearest city is Bali’s capital, Denpasar, more than 200 miles to the east.

Simon Rogerson, editor of Dive Magazine, who has been on several diving expeditions in Komodo National Park, said: “To my knowledge, there’s no equivalent to the coastguard there. If you go missing in Britain you have amazing resources for people trying to find you, but such resources simply don’t exist in Indonesia; it’s horrible.”

The currents running between the islands are well-known to divers for their unpredictability. “It’s pretty wild,” said Mr Rogerson. “You have lots of ocean water running through a complex group of islands, which causes water to be funnelled in unpredictable and powerful currents.”

The dive site is known for its incredible biodiversity, caused by the convergence of the Indian and Pacific oceans. But the same meeting of waters has a far more treacherous consequence: it creates a series of strong and highly changeable currents.

Staff at the Reefseekers Dive Centre sounded panicked as they reiterated that there was no further news. “We’re still in the middle of an emergency operation,” a spokesperson said.

Mr Rogerson said rescuers were checking isolated beaches and coastal areas to see whether the group had made it to shore. “I’m hopeful that if they were at the surface they could be swept towards one of the small islands,” he said

A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said “We are providing the appropriate consular assistance, including liaison with local authorities in the search.”

Drift diving: a high-risk sport

*The Indonesian waters where the divers have disappeared are notorious “drift diving” sites. The high-risk sport uses the ocean’s currents to propel divers through the sea from one point to another. Unlike ordinary diving, which begins and ends at the same fixed point, it requires careful planning to ensure participants do not get lost. If the currents are strong, long distances can be covered in a very short space of time, making it difficult for a supporting boat to find divers when they return to the surface. Usually special surface marker buoys are inflated to alert boats to the whereabouts of the team, but even these are not a fail-safe if unexpected distances are covered. Tide charts and mapping are also used to predict where divers will reappear, but such measures are also not foolproof. The sport has been growing in popularity, as the effortless travel through the water recreates the sensation of flying.

The water of the Komodo National Park are particularly perilous for drift divers, as its currents are so unpredictable. The Indian and Pacific oceans meet to create changeable channels of water. For divers who are carried along by its more extreme currents they may emerge miles farther away than they predicted.

via The Independent 

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.

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! 

New warnings sought for shark fin dishes

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Legislators urged the Department of Health (DOH) to require that restaurants serving dishes with shark fins provide warnings cautioning pregnant women not to eat the prized ingredient, which can contain dangerous levels of mercury.

Ruling Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tien Chiu-chin said at a news conference attended by lawmakers from across the political spectrum that shark finning is not only cruel, but also a main cause of the rapid decline of global shark populations.

According to Tien, it is common practice for many foreign fishing vessels to remove the fins from captured sharks and then throw the sharks back into the sea because their meat is worth little and the fishermen want to leave room on board for more of the valuable fins.

When returned to the ocean, the finless sharks, unable to move, either die gradually or are consumed by other sharks, Tien added.

The lawmaker warned that sharks are at the top of the ocean food chain and their consumption of tainted small fish and organisms has left a number of them contaminated by mercury.

As a result, Tien said, random surveys conducted by local environmental groups show that some shark fins sold on the market contain mercury, which could pose a health hazard to consumers.

She therefore called on local residents not to order shark fin dishes when hosting banquets to avoid endangering their own health and the health of their guests and prevent ecological destruction.

Meanwhile, Tien said the DOH should stipulate that shark fin restaurants add warnings reminding pregnant women, women trying to have a baby and breast-feeding women not to eat dishes with shark fins in them.

Tien said she was happy to receive confirmation that shark fin dishes will not be served at the Presidential Inauguration state banquet on May 20.

In response to the lawmakers’ suggestion, DOH official Hsieh Tien-hung said once a consensus is reached at the agency, it will instruct restaurants throughout the country in writing to add warnings for dishes with shark fins.

He added, however, that details, such as what the warnings should say, are still being discussed.

DPP Legislator Twu Shiing-jer also suggested that the DOH print posters to inform people that eating shark fins could possibly have a negative influence on their intelligence.

They could also provide information on international regulations related to shark finning and data on levels of contamination in shark products, he said.

(via The China Post)

TAIPEI (AFP) — Eight Taiwanese scuba divers have been rescued nearly 48 hours after going missing off the island’s south, the coastguard said Monday.

In a remarkable feat of endurance, one of the divers managed to swim ashore and told rescuers where they could find the others, a spokesman said.

“Five were plucked from the sea by helicopters at dawn Monday and at around 10:47 am (0247 GMT) the last two missing divers were rescued,” the spokesman said.

“They all remained conscious but appeared exhausted. They are now hospitalised,” he said.

The six men and two women, all experienced divers, went diving at 10:30 am Saturday near Chihsingyen (Seven Star Rock) off Kenting national park, but failed to return to their boat an hour later as scheduled.

After a lengthy wait for rescuers, the group’s coach Ding Bo-ling set off on a more than 10-hour swim for shore, finally reaching land before midnight Sunday at Taimali, 76 kilometres (47 miles) further north.

The remaining divers saved energy by floating on their backs and held hands to avoid being separated, local ERA TV reported.

Five helicopters and nine patrol boats had been dispatched for the round-the-clock rescue operations, while the divers’ relatives also hired fishing boats to join the search.

In a similar accident in the area nine years ago, six divers were washed away by strong ocean currents, and four of them were rescued after 30 hours. 

Search for missing divers continues
By Rich Chang
STAFF REPORTER, WITH AGENCIES
Monday, Apr 28, 2008, Page 1

An extensive search and rescue effort continued yesterday for eight scuba divers missing in waters off Kenting National Park, but none had been found as of press time.

The Coast Guard Administration has been searching for the missing divers since Saturday afternoon.

Yesterday morning six cutters searched eight areas near where the group went missing. Four helicopters from an airborne police unit and six coast guard patrol boats scoured waters near Chihsingyen (Seven Star Rock), a popular diving spot off Kenting National Park.

Coast guard official Hsu Yung-kang (徐永康) told reporters that the search would last at least 72 hours.

The anxious families of the missing divers have been gathered in a small seaport near Kenting since Saturday evening. Yesterday they hired several tourist boats so they could personally join the search along with more than 20 fishing boats that also volunteered.

Hsu said the coast guard was focusing on waters off Taitung County in particular, because the strong current might have carried the missing divers to the northeast.

The seven divers — five men and two women — plus a diving coach were reported missing while scubadiving in waters near Chihsingyen, 22km southwest of Kenting, Pingtung County.

They left for Chihsingyen along with four other people aboard a yacht early on Saturday morning. The 12 began diving in waters between Oluanbi and Chihsingyen at 10:30am and were supposed to return to the yacht at 11:30am.

However, eight of them failed to return to the yacht on schedule. The yacht’s skipper could not locate the missing divers and reported the case to the Hengchun coast guard.

The yacht’s skipper Liu Chung-yu (劉中裕) returned to Kenting in the evening.

He told the officers that he had located the divers near his yacht by the bubbles produced by their exhaled breath but the bubbles suddenly disappeared and the divers did not return.

The coast guard said the eight are all experienced divers.

In an accident in the same area nine years ago, six divers were washed away by strong ocean currents, but four were rescued after 30 hours.

Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) yesterday ordered an all-out effort to find the missing divers.

Government Information Office Minister Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) said that Chang urged rescue workers not to give up.

He also called on the general public to be careful when taking part in outdoor activities, particularly refraining from diving in dangerous waters, Shieh said.

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

http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/happyfeet%40finsmagazine.com/public/basic.ics

If you have a Mac and use iCal, just select Calendar, Subscribe from the menu and insert the link. Otherwise, many feed readers will recognise the calendar too.

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

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.

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.

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.)

Sporting a 5MP capability (3.1MP at low resolution setting), the unique mask is rated to 30 metres, powered by two AAA batteries, and comes equipped with 16MB of built-in memory, with the ability to add a Micro SD card for additional storage capacity. The mask also shoots video at 18-25 fps VGA quality and provides plug-and-play interface with your computer via USB cable.

We haven’t tried one of these out yet, but the description in the press release says you line up the target subject in the crosshairs on the mask and snap away (Basically, you look directly at what you want to take photograph/video of). An LCD display and LED lights inside the mask light up to let you know stuff (How cool is that?).

Of course, there’s a catch (C’mon, you know there’s always a catch). The photographic distance is set at 1.2 metres (That’s five feet for the metrically challenged), so you gotta get pretty close to whatever you’re interested in.

The makers of this unique gadget say they’ll be announcing more neat new toys this year, so what we really want to know is when they’ll offer optional mini-torpedoes so the crosshairs take on an entirely new meaning.

Tuesday April 8, 2008
Reef fish face extinction as many end up on dinner tables
By TAN CHENG LI

The Asian craving for a particular reef fish is emptying our seas.

HUNDREDS of fish cages bob up and down in the waters of Marudu Bay, off Kudat in Sabah. In these cages are sought-after marine delicacies such as groupers, lobsters and crabs, as well as a staggering number of humphead wrasses.

From the massive number of humpheads holed up in the floating pens, it is impossible to tell that this is a fish species classed as “endangered” by the IUCN-World Conservation Union and whose trade is governed by the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).

A growing appetite for humphead wrasses (or Napoleon wrasse) has spelt doom for this species, whose numbers in the wild, already small, are being depleted further.

In Kudat, like in the Sabahan coastal towns of Tawau, Sandakan and Lahad Datu, fishermen continue to haul in humpheads (Cheilinus undulatus). Several times a week, these fish and the popular groupers, are bundled alive into air-filled plastic bags which are then packed into polystyrene boxes, transported to Kota Kinabalu, and sent on the evening flight to Hong Kong or Singapore. It is a time-perfected technique which gets seafood, alive and swimming, into restaurants.

Sabah exported 27,000 tails of humphead last year – an alarming figure since scientists believe wild humphead stocks in Sabah waters are almost exhausted and aggressive fishing can only doom the species.

Once a normal table fish, humpheads (or su mei) somehow acquired a luxury tag in the early 1990s. Those who want to flaunt their wealth and success would indulge in this pricey fish in restaurants in Hong Kong, Singapore, China and Malaysia. What used to sell for RM30 a kg in 1980 now goes for RM250 to RM300 a kg. Soon a scramble for the fish ensued.

Before long, fears of over-fishing pushed humpheads onto Appendix II of Cites in October 2004 – the first coral reef fish to be listed. Everyone thought all would be well since trade would now be controlled through import and export permits.

On the contrary, the Cites listing has done little for humpheads in Sabah as trade quotas remain high. Many are stumped by the export ration set by Sabah Fisheries Department last February – a monthly 200 tails for each of the 19 exporters. This works out to 45,600 tails annually, a figure deemed excessive by many, considering that it is five times Indonesia’s annual quota of 8,900 tails.

“There is concern over how the export quota was set as the amount of humphead wrasse exported last year is even higher than that before the Cites listing,” says Maritime Institute of Malaysia (MIMA) senior researcher Tan Kim Hooi, who has written a policy document on humphead wrasse fisheries.

Doubts also arose over the scientific rationale behind the quota. A Cites Appendix II listing requires a non-detrimental finding (NDF) study to determine that trade will not threaten survival of the species. This study is only now being done.

Sabah Fisheries, World Wide Fund for Nature and wildlife trade monitoring body, Traffic, are assessing wild humphead populations in Pulau Lankayan, Kudat and Semporna. They are expected to recommend a new export quota when the present one expires in June.

Dwindling stocks

There are already signs that Asians’ taste for steamed su mei is depleting wild stocks.

“Sabah’s export of the high-value fish last year, although high, was just over half of the allowable quota. This can mean two things – either humphead populations are not really that big or the species has been over-fished,” says Tan.

Also, Sabahan fishermen and traders all tell the same tale about the fish they call mameng: the catch has dropped as have fish sizes, when compared to the 90s.

“Ten years ago, I can get several fish of 10kg to 15kg in a week. Now, not even one in a month,” says Kudat fish trader Wong Sin Hin. Today, the harvest is mostly juvenile fish which have to be fattened up in pens over three months or more, to reach the preferred plate size of 500g to 1kg (about 30-40cm in length) before shipment.

Hundreds of fish cages bobbing up and down in the waters of Marudu Bay, off Kudat in Sabah. In these cages are sought-after marine delicacies such as groupers, lobsters and crabs as well as a staggering number of humpheads. These fish will be exported live to Hong Kong and Singapore.
Marine scientist Dr Steve Oakley warns that netting young fish before they have had a chance to breed will curtail future stocks of the species. Insisting on size restrictions for humphead harvests, he says breeding adult fish should be left in the sea. Better yet, he adds, humphead fisheries should be closed until it can be proven sustainable.

Oakley, whose group the Tropical Research And Conservation Centre (Tracc) has surveyed reefs in Sabah and Sarawak, believes humpheads are locally extinct over most of the South China Sea. Viable breeding populations exist in two islands protected by dive tourism: Sipadan and Layang-Layang. Another healthy group exists off Brunei – but only because it is within the Champion oil field, a protected “no fishing” zone. Tracc surveys of Layang-Layang between 1996 and 2002 found a big humphead population of 300 females, 21 males and 100 sub-adults. However, the fish were not seen last year. The reason, Oakley fears, could be because a Chinese vessel was allowed to fish there.

For now, Sabah’s humphead catch figures remain impressive only because stocks are coming from the Philippines, which does not trade in the fish. Traders and fishermen in Kudat attest to this and the fact that Filipino fishers use cyanide to stun the fish, a destructive fishing method that can kill them as well as harm other marine life and the fragile coral reef habitat.

Lax enforcement, together with difficulties in patrolling Sabah’s 1,600km of coastline and extensive fishing area of 51,360 sq km, share the blame for the prevalent fish smuggling.

As humpheads from foreign waters are traded as Sabah’s, Tan of Mima says a generous export quota will deplete humphead stocks not only in Malaysian waters, but also in Indonesia and the Philippines. Already, high demand and lucrative prices have fuelled poaching.

In December 2006, a Chinese vessel was detained at Tubbataha Marine Park in Palawan, the Philippines, with 800 live fish onboard, including 300 humpheads. In the same year, the Bunaken Marine Park in northern Sulawesi saw three cases of poaching involving 207, 450 and 36 humpheads.

Indonesia had set an annual export of 8,000 tails in 2005 but revised it to 8,900 tails last year, and only allows harvest from specified areas, namely Papua, Maluku and Nusa Tenggara.

Over-dining

But high exports of humpheads is not the only concern. Equally worrying is their being eaten in large numbers in local restaurants. Chinese and Hong Kong tourists to Sabah routinely feast on su mei as it is cheaper than back home.

Cites, however, only regulates international trade of wildlife. At the airport in Kota Kinabalu, frozen humpheads are going for RM75 a kg. The sales personnel look puzzled when asked about the need for Cites permits.

To curb local consumption, Oakley wants national and state rules tightened to bar humphead fishing and give it the protected status that it needs.

“Humpheads are even more endangered than orang utans because there are more orang utans in Sabah forests than humpheads in its waters. But you can still eat the fish in a KK (Kota Kinabalu) restaurant. We are decimating this species for a poor reason … merely to put a fish on the table.”

He adds that humpheads, being a major draw of the dive industry in Seychelles and Maldives, are totally protected there. “Malaysia needs to realise that tourists bring in more money than selling the last few humpheads would.”

Apart from harvest restrains, marine sanctuaries can further raise hope for humpheads. “With these protected areas, you will guard the habitat not only for humpheads but for other marine species too,” says WWF marine scientist Dr Annadel Salvio Cabanban.

She says the recent survey of Pulau Lankayan off Sandakan, a popular dive destination, uncovered 23 juvenile humpheads, with the largest one measuring 25cm. “With long-term protection of Lankayan, we might get a breeding population there in 20 years’ time.” And because humphead larvae travel with ocean currents, Cabanban says those produced in other protected areas might reach our waters. So she is hopeful for the species if more such sites are found.

Protection efforts should also not ignore seagrass beds and mangroves as both are important habitats for humpheads, serving as nursery ground for many reef fish. It is also crucial to safeguard the humphead’s breeding grounds. Humpheads display aggregate spawning behaviour by gathering at specific sites to breed. Fishermen can target such sites, so Mima researcher Siti Nazatul Izura Mohd Ishak recommends that they be documented and managed, such as by having a closed season during spawning period.

To safeguard humphead trade, Sabah Fisheries has held several workshops to inform traders about the risks of over-fishing and Cites requirements. Come July, a new – and most likely lower – export quota is expected. But are there enough humpheads left in the wild to repopulate our reefs? In the end, the fate of this fish hangs on just one simple gesture from people – don’t order su mei for dinner.

While we want to post everything we come across to help you keep up with what’s going on, it would be sheer overload…for you and for us. This following story, however, is worth posting, as it’s from a local publication in the Federated States of Micronesia, reporting about thousands of illegally caught sharks (many finned) to feed the seemingly insatiable appetite of Asians.

LONG LINERS CAUGHT IN FSM LAW ENFORCEMENT NET
“Unlicensed Vessel’s Catch Includes a Huge Load of Finned Sharks”
February 20, 2008

By BILL JAYNES
The Kaselehlie Press

(Federated States of Micronesia) - Within the last month, three fishing vessels were spectacularly arrested by FSM Law Enforcement officers for fishing violations in FSM waters. On February 12th the US Coast Guard Buoy Tender Sequoia serving as a platform for the law enforcement activities of FSM National Police Officer Justino Helgen facilitated the boarding of the Koshin Maru #31, a Japanese long liner operating out of Guam. On the 13th the USCG Cutter Assateague facilitated the boarding of another Japanese longliner Koyo #8, by FSM National Policeman Nicholas Raifmai.

Both vessels were licensed to fish in the FSM and were detained for fisheries violations. Neither vessel had switched on their Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS) as they are required to do when inside FSM waters. The VMS allows FSM National Police to monitor the movements of vessels in the FSM Exclusive Economic Zone. Without it the fishing vessels are invisible to law enforcement officers unless they are visible by radar within a fairly short range. The Koshin Maru was apprehended in Yap waters north of Gaferut Island. The Koyo was apprehended a day later in waters East of Gaferut also in Yap waters and well inside the FSM’s EEZ.

Those vessels are being escorted back to Pohnpei by the crew of the FSS Micronesia, one of the three Australian donated Marine Surveillance vessels that enforce marine law in the FSM. They are due in to port on February 20 where they will face FSM charges for VMS violations as well as possible other charges.

On January 18, FSM National Police operating under an increased fuel budget for the 2008 fiscal year apprehended a Chinese flagged fishing vessel 40 nautical miles from Kapingamarangi Island. The vessel was approximately 100 nautical miles within the FSM’s EEZ.

The FSM Palikir under the command of Lieutenant Commander David Marer spotted the vessel on radar at 8:30 on that morning. Officers boarded the Fu Yuan Yu 096 approximately 45 minutes later. The ship turned out to be an Illegal Unlicensed Unmonitored (IUU) vessel unlicensed to fish in the FSM, the first that the FSM has encountered in many years according to Commander R. Maluweirang of the Police Maritime Wing. fishing FSM National Police begin their count of finned sharks at the Dekehtik Marine Surveillance Headquarters. The final tally of finned shark bodies was 1766. At press time the fins had not yet been counted.

Police reports said that the Fu Yuan Yu 096 when boarded had shark fishing gear laid out on the stern (the rear) of the boat “characteristic of a vessel making ready to set a long line.” Many other fisheries violations were noted by the National Police when they boarded the vessel.

The vessel was carrying fishing gear typically used for catching sharks. Officers found that the long liner’s catch included a significant number of finned shark bodies and shark fins. It is illegal to fish for sharks in the FSM. Several other species of fish were also found in their freezers. According to an FSM National Police Press Release some of the catch was still bloody, soft and pliable to the touch indicating that they had only recently been caught.

One FSM law enforcement official expressed surprise that the Chinese long liner held a current Solomon Islands license to catch sharks in their EEZ. He said that the Solomon Islands is a member of the Forum Fisheries Agency and that most if not all of its members had made shark fishing illegal as far as he was aware. FSM officials are checking into the validity of the purported license.

Fu Yuan Yu was apprehended as part of a vigorous and concentrated maritime patrol program driven by the Chief of Police, Colonel Pius Chotailug and Commander Maluweirang with the assistance of the Royal Australian Navy Maritime advisors.

The vessel was escorted by the FSS Palikir to the FSM Maritime Wing Headquarters in Pohnpei, Micronesia at Dekehtik. It arrived on January 21. The crew and captain are confined aboard the ship while they await a formal notification of a court hearing on the matter.

FSM Shark Seizure Record?

An August 15, 2007 arrest of a Taiwanese vessel during the Rai Balang II fisheries enforcement operation in which the FSM participated made international news when law enforcement officers found 94 shark bodies, and 650 fins. In a plea bargain arrangement in Palau the ship’s captain, Tsai Nuen Teng was ordered to pay $185,000 in fines and fees and was sentenced to two years in jail, 32 days of which he had to serve. The rest of the two year sentence was suspended. He has been banned from Palau for life.

On the morning of February 13, 2008, FSM National Police officers began unloading shark carcasses from the Fu Yuan Yu. They stacked the carcasses on the dock in Dekehtik. There were more than 80 when it was decided that the rest of the count could be completed inside the holds of the ship.

The final tally was 1776 finned and frozen shark bodies. Officials had not yet begun to count the shark fins on the vessel at press time but said that based on the number of shark bodies there should be approximately 9000 aboard. If the fishermen began throwing back finned sharks into the water, a common and to conservationists, loathsome practice there could well be many more.

Floating Freezer?

In explaining how so many fish could fit aboard the vessel a police official said that most of the boat consists of holds for storing fish in a frozen condition with a space for fishing on deck. The crew, he said, sleeps in tiny berths into which they can just barely squeeze their bodies. “It’s all about fish”, he said.

In addition to the 1776 shark carcasses police found: Big Eye Tuna: 363 Barracuda: 112 Mahi Mahi: 76 Marlin: 60 Sword Fish: 56 Wahoo: 47 Yellow Fin Tuna: 18 Oil Fish: 11 Shark stomachs: 56

The FSM Department of Justice is likely to be filing charges at some point after the fish are all counted. In preparation for a trial, the FSM hired a certified ship’s surveyor from Guam to establish the value of the vessel including the volume of its holds. The figure will be used to help establish the amount of a judgment should they decide to seek it.

International Cooperation

The arrest of the Fu Yuan Yu 096 was accomplished on a vessel donated by the Australian Government. Australia also provides an expert crew of Royal Australian Navy Advisors for Marine Surveillance activities. The Japanese vessels that were apprehended north and northwest of Chuuk were apprehended under a temporary agreement between the United States Coast Guard and the FSM. Officials from both the FSM and the US Coast Guard hope that a permanent agreement can be put in place soon.

Lt. Commander Tess Neumann who is the Chief of Response for the USCG Sector Guam said that this is the second time that the FSM and the USCG have operated under a short term Sea Rider Agreement. Officials at very high levels of both governments are still trying to hammer out the terminology of a permanent agreement. She hoped that the success of the current operation will help to show the value of a permanent relationship.

She said that fisheries violations in one area of the Pacific Ocean affect fisheries in all EEZ’s across the ocean and that a cooperative agreement to aid a country like the FSM that has limited law enforcement resources benefits all of the Pacific Ocean resources. Commander Mark Sorby, of the Royal Australian Navy assigned to the FSM as its Maritime Advisor said that there are benefits to the FSM of a cooperative Sea Rider Agreement. He said that the US Coast Guard has assets that the FSM doesn’t have that would help them to cover the huge expanse of ocean that is the FSM’s EEZ. FSM waters cover an area that is only a little smaller than the continental United States.

Another helpful cooperative enforcement tool is a US law called the Lacey law which, by way of an oversimplified explanation allows the United States to prosecute fishing vessels who break the law in the EEZ of another country but who then dock in a US port. The law can be exercised after notification by the country where the law was broken. The US in such a case would recoup its court expenses and send the remainder of any judgment money to the country where the violation took place.

Law Enforcement Efforts Hampered by “Spies”?

Police Officials who are charged with enforcing the fisheries laws in the FSM’s EEZ say that it is often a frustrating task.

One official said that they have been having particular troubles with FSM licensed long liners operating out of Guam. FSM Licensees are required to turn on their VMS system as soon as they steam into FSM waters. He said that oftentimes vessels do not comply, and that they are able to get away with it so often that they have become recalcitrant. He said that much of the law enforcement for the FSM EEZ relies on faith in the vessel owners to do the right thing. For long liners it is so financially rewarding to not do the right thing that they just keep violating the law over and over again.

He said that unless the fishing companies sense a real threat of harsh prosecution in the FSM if they are caught violating laws they simply have no motivation to stop making money hand over fist and operators continue to build the cost of adverse judgments for law violation into the cost of doing business. Meanwhile, the FSM’s waters, which have been called the world’s last great tuna fishery, is suffering at the hand of unscrupulous operators.

The official who wished to remain unnamed said that marine surveillance activities are often hampered by the inability to keep surveillance vessel movements secret. For instance, on at least one occasion the surveillance unit noticed a large group of VMS movements in the area of Kapingamarangi. They deployed one of the surveillance vessels to investigate. He said that the ship’s agents in Pohnpei often see that “the law” is heading out of port and alert the vessels. There’s nothing to keep them from doing it. By the time the FSM law was in the Kapingamarangi area three days after departure, all of the vessels were gone having one by one disappeared from FSM monitors as they departed the EEZ. As the FSM vessel steamed back to its Pohnpei port the group was once again amassing in the Kapingamarangi area.

Commander Maluweirang said in a National Police press release, “I want to stress to all fishing vessels to take note that the targeting of shark is not permitted in the FSM and is only allowable as a by-catch to legitimate fishing operations which must be correctly justified and carefully recorded and reported. The FSM Police Maritime Wing strongly condemns any illegal activity in the FSM EEZ and will continue to closely monitor and apprehend any vessel that is operating in breach of FSM’s laws.”

Delta’s inaugural flight lands in China
Gov. Perdue welcomed, state will open trade office in Beijing

By JIM THARPE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/31/08
Shanghai, China — They served Coca-Cola along with the “braised shark’s fin soup with cucumber and fish maw” Monday night at the welcoming celebration for Delta Air Lines’ inaugural non-stop flight from Atlanta.

A blues band belted out “Georgia on My Mind” at a 10-course banquet to celebrate Delta Flight 19, which touched down at 2:09 p.m. local time — the middle of the night back in Atlanta.

“This flight fills a critical void for the 65 million people in the Southeast,” Kenneth Garrett, U.S. consul general for Shanghai, told a crowd of about 200 people at the 88-story Grand Hyatt of Shanghai.

Celebrants included veteran Delta employees on the maiden flight, Chinese officials and about 40 members of a Georgia trade delegation who made the trip. Gov. Sonny Perdue and his wife, Mary, were among them.

Delta’s Atlanta-to-Shanghai run became the first non-stop daily flight to the People’s Republic of China from an air hub in the Southeast, and one of only a handful from anywhere in the nation. Business leaders hope it opens the door to more Chinese investment in metro Atlanta and Georgia.

Perdue later this week will open a state economic development office in Beijing to promote trade between China and Georgia.

Delta Capt. Marc Holmquist, a 32-year veteran of the carrier, gently banked the 777-200ER over Shanghai’s smog-filled skies before bringing the craft in for a smooth touch down to the applause of the 268 passengers aboard. The flight took more than 15 hours and covered 7,659 miles.

Two hours later, the plane had been cleaned and refueled and was back in the air, bound for Atlanta.

The daily flight caps a decade of work by Delta and two earlier failed efforts to secure coveted route rights to China.

Shanghai, with a skyline that equals New York’s, is the bustling financial center of the nation of 1.3 billion people. Much of the metro area of 18 million people has been built in the last two decades.

There was an official airport welcoming ceremony for Perdue and state business leaders, but Chinese officials would not permit journalists traveling with the delegation to photograph the arrival.

A ferocious guard puppy protecting the show entrance.

Visitors asking about how to get FiNS Magazine via iTunes for free

Marlina and Moel (left and middle) from Hotel Sedona Manado and Euro Divers, with our Creative Director (whom we rarely allow out of the office)

Simone chatting with a visitor at the Thalassa Dive Center booth

Deep discussion at the NAUI booth

The theme for DEEP Indonesia’s drawing competition for children was “I Love Coral Reefs”, to help impart environmental awareness to the next generation.

See you again!

Mr. Dharmawan Sutanto, President Director of show organiser PT Exhibition Network Indonesia, giving the opening speech

People wearing traditional Indonesian attire at the opening ceremony

Visitor registration booth

One of many interesting activities, a cinema room with dive videos, documentaries and movies

Virginie and Emmanuel from Beuchat Asia Pacific with Angga from Jayadive.com, Beuchat’s Indonesia Distributor

Scubapro booth showing new, colourful products

Nu and Kay from Mermaid Liveaboards at the Andaman Giving Group booth

One of the most popular activities was set right in front of the main entrance. There was a long queue for the scuba tryout organised by Planet Diving.

There was a very nice show during the dinner party organised for exhibitors.

Check out the second report here

As always, there will be attractive prizes to be won. Among the highlights announced so far: Scubapro/ Uwatec will give away a top-of-the-line regulator “MK25/S600″ and a new dive computer “Galileo Terra” as lucky draws. Also, Beuchat Thailand has prepared a regulator, BCD and some accessories to be prizes for this year’s underwater photo competition.

More updates to follow as information is announced.

Already considered amazing