Is sustainable whaling possible? Are statements like “All whales are endangered” misleading? Read more…

Overfishing is rapidly becoming a hot environmental issue, as the rapid rise and equally rapid fall of fisheries for Patagonian toothfish, known as Chilean seabass on dinner menus to sound more appetising, illustrates. But it’s not just toothfish that are disappearing in record numbers and time Read more…

As expected, the crowds came in force on over the weekend, with people packed into the aisles at times. Near our booth, one of the exhibitors organised a “gearing up” contest, where people had to compete to see who could gear up the most quickly — not as easy as you might think with a crowd looking on and commenting liberally on your agility or lack thereof.

Exhibitors were no doubt happy with all the action. Our friends at Wahoo Travel got lots of attention as always. Good friends Sea Paradise, who’ve just put out a new book, were full of smiles, and had lots of food on hand to keep us (too) well fed throughout the show.

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Pro-whaling nations are feeling confident of their ability to overturn the 20-year old IWC moratorium on hunting of whales. Read more…

Many of the dive operators and tourism officials from Sabah are currently at the Thai Travel & Dive Expo, and of course, the recent incident at the Sipadan Dropoff is a matter of great concern. After conferring with their relevant counterparties in Sabah, the dive operators have prepared a message for the global diving community: Read more…

Today started with an interesting find — a new portable training pool concept from Crea Dist in Phuket. Called Mobideep, this portable pool can be set up in any calm body of water such as a lake, and the built-in filtration system creates a safe environment for scuba training, swimming lessons, or even just relaxing — a novel and intriguing concept worth checking out.

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Ahead of a meeting by governments to review the UN Fish Stocks Agreement, the WWF has issued a statement of concern regarding global overfishing. Read more…

In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Oceanic Worldwide of San Leandro, California, is voluntarily recalling Oceanic Versa Pro revision 2A Digital Dive Computers. While operating in the User Selected Digital Gauge Mode, displayed Elapsed Dive Time can be in excess of actual elapsed time.

Oceanic has received a report of two Versa Pro revision 2A units that experienced the offset time displayed while operating in User Selected Digital Gauge Mode. No injuries have been reported. Read more…

Today marked the opening of the Thailand Travel & Dive Expo , the largest travel show in Thailand. Along with official show supporters TAT, Wahoo Travel, PADI, and DAN SEAP, FiNS was invited to take part in the Opening Ceremony. In practical terms, this entailed having FiNS contributor Tony Wu go up on stage and do his best (unsuccessfully) not to look silly.

TDEX is a 4-day event, with literally hundreds of thousands of visitors. Even the first day, a Thursday, was crowded at times.

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Talk about being under pressure. And a lot of it too. Commercial divers get the big bucks, sure, everyone knows that. But with that comes one nightmarishly claustrophobic and dull existence, especially after 36 straight days of being inside a prison of Heliox pressure, alternating between a cramped living chamber and a tight diving bell.

Former FiNS contributor Lin Shin Chuan, who went off to become a serious commercial diver (and who probably regrets it now), shares some snapshots of his sentence on an oil rig somewhere in the Gulf of Thailand.

Look out for the full story soon on the FiNS Blog!