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SCUBA Vacation Checklist

There is nothing worse than getting to that dive destination after saving up money and vacation days to find you forgot that one thing that makes a good vacation great from sun glasses and lotion to fins and extra fin straps. This list comes from experience. Many of these things I have forgotten and many more my travel companions or students have forgotten. As often as not it is just a matter of overlooking the obvious and not lack of knowledge.

This list is a starting point. Feel free to tell me what I forgot to add and I will add you it to the list... with proper credit ,of course.

COMPLETE ARTICLE

I hope this helps and make sure you send me pictures of your trip.

Tom

Sea Lampreys in Great Lakes

Just when you though it was safe to go in the water.

Sea Lamprey: The Battle Continues

http://www.global-adventures.us/2010/02/24/sea-lamprey/

Chicago (Global Adventures): Scuba divers exploring the Great Lakes are now warned to pressure wash all gear before using it in other bodies of water to avoid spreading the sea lamprey, an invasive species that destroys native lake trout populations by attaching themselves and drawing blood and nutrients from the fish. Victims typically die from excessive blood loss or infection.

“Invasive species are deadly to the ecosystem and costly to control,” said Elizabeth Latenser of Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium. “Without natural predators or a niche in the food chain, invasive species are able to out-compete native fish for food and habitat.”

Sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) is a predaceous, eel-like fish native to the coastal regions of both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The species is native to the inland Finger Lakes and Lake Champlain in New York and Vermont. It is not clear whether it is native to Lake Ontario, where it was first noticed in the 1830s, or whether it was introduced through the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825.

Most scientists believe that sea lamprey entered Lake Erie through the Welland Canal about 1921. It did not take long to spread to Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, and Lake Superior. In the 1940s and 1950s, they contributed to the collapse of the lake trout, whitefish, and chub fisheries. Annual catches of lake trout in Lakes Huron and Superior dropped from 15 million pounds to 300,000 pounds by the early 1960s. While the population has been reduced by 90 percent in most areas due to chemical control, the St. Marys River is still considered a “hot zone.”

The life cycle of sea lampreys is anadromous, like that of salmon. The young are born in inland rivers, live in the ocean as adults, and return to the rivers to breed. Young emerge from the egg as larvae, blind and toothless, and live that way for 3 to 7 years, buried in mud and filter-feeding. Once they have grown to a certain length, they metamorphosize into their parasitic form, after which they migrate to the sea. They become sexually mature after several years, stop feeding, and return to freshwater rivers and streams to spawn.

Through public outreach, educational programs and the invasive species exhibit in the Local Waters Gallery, the Shedd Aquarium encourages the public, including scuba divers, to take action and help to prevent the spread of invasive species.

Crawling Back To Life - a story of hope for the reefs.

I found this at http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/01/sewage-santa-monica-bay.html If is nice to hear good news about the reefs.

Greenspace
Environmental news from California and beyond

Crawling back to life
January 12, 2010 | 5:43 pm

Surf

You have to be a scuba diver to see the difference, but areas of Santa Monica Bay that were historically fouled by sewage discharges are making a strong comeback.
The new State of the Bay report notes the revival of bottom-dwelling marine life in the wake of treatment upgrades at the two big wastewater plants that empty into the bay several miles from shore.

Diver surveys have documented sea animals and plants on the sea floor “where really it was barren before,” said Shelley Luce, executive director of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, which issues the report every five years. "I think this is one of the more remarkable recoveries we've seen," she added. "It's right up there with the return of the bald eagle and brown pelican."

Maybe not as visually dramatic: We're talking about snails and worms and other invertebrates crawling back into areas that for decades lacked the oxygen to support all but the most pollution-tolerant sea life.

In 1998, Los Angeles' Hyperion plant upgraded to full secondary treatment and four years later the Los Angeles County sanitation districts' plant did the same. The more advanced process scrubs out most of the solids that had been previously pumped into the bay, consuming oxygen as they decayed.
Now the outfall areas, off Dockweiler State Beach and the Palos Verdes Peninsula, "have a healthy and diverse community that resembles more pristine areas," Luce said.

But historical contamination from DDT and PCBs persists in bay sediment, and urban runoff continues to pollute bay waters.

-- Bettina Boxall

Photo: A surfer in Santa Monica Bay. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Caymans train divers to fight lionfish invasion

Copied from http://in.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idINIndia-45170520100105

By Shurna Robbins

GEORGE TOWN (Reuters) - More than 300 scuba divers have been certified to catch red lionfish in a race to prevent the invasive and voracious species from consuming all the young and small fish on the Cayman Islands' famous corals reefs.

DiveTech, a diving operation in the British Caribbean territory, is running a boat each week to specifically catch the fish. Licensed fishermen also collect them on regular boat trips and dives from the shore.

"We tell them, this is not a pleasure dive and they are hunting fish," said Simon Dixon, a lionfish hunter and scuba instructor for DiveTech,

Divers typically work in teams of two, using plastic nets, gloves and sometimes sticks to capture the fish, which has a large head with reddish-brown and white stripes and elongated, venomous spines. Without careful handling, it can cause a painful sting.

"You have to be slow and careful and you have to treat them with respect. We have found they are quite clever. So if you move too quickly and scare the fish off, they will remember you and when you get close again they will retreat immediately," Dixon said.

Native to the Indian and Pacific oceans, red lionfish have no natural predators in the Caribbean and can produce 30,000 eggs each month. Within five weeks they can consume all the juvenile and small fish on a reef, threatening the delicate ecosystem, said Mark Hixon, a marine biologist at Oregon State University.

The species was first spotted in the Cayman Islands in early 2008 and quickly multiplied. Some 600 red lionfish were removed from Cayman waters in the last year, but the effort may not be enough to push back the invading fish, experts say.

Bradley Johnson, a research officer with the islands' Environment Department, said the department was receiving reports of more of the species in the waters and that their sizes also were increasing each month.

"They have been caught in all habitats around the islands including dive sites down to 120 feet (36 metres), shallow waters and in the North Sound. We have also confirmed reports from as deep as 300 feet (91 metres)."

BEATING THEM BY EATING THEM

Hixon, the Oregon State biologist, will travel to the Cayman Islands next month to scout reef sites and meet with government officials in preparation for a research project sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

"At present, the only solution to the invasion is for divers to remove lionfish from the reefs," Hixon said. "We are also working in the Pacific Ocean to study lionfish in their native range to determine why they are uncommon there relative to the Atlantic and Caribbean."

Turning the red lionfish into a seafood dish, as has been done in the Bahamas, is another possible control method. Cooking destroys the toxins in the meat, which has been compared to grouper and snapper.

"Lionfish are tasty so the government can help by encouraging a lionfish fishery. There are even expensive restaurants in the U.S. serving lionfish as a top-dollar conservation dish," Hixon said.

Scuba divers are prohibited from catching fish on most reefs surrounding the Cayman Islands, but regulators have made an exception for the red lionfish because of the threat it poses to marine life.

Environment Department staff train and license volunteer divers to safely catch the fish, which are then turned over to the government for collection of DNA and tracking.

U.S. government researchers believe the red lionfish was introduced into Florida waters during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 when an aquarium broke and at least six fish spilled into Miami's Biscayne Bay.

In recent years, its population has exploded along the U.S. eastern seaboard and the Atlantic islands of the Bahamas and Bermuda, and throughout the Caribbean into Puerto Rico, St. Croix, Turks and Caicos, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Cuba and Belize.

First-time sightings in 2009 occurred in Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras and Aruba, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

DiveTech said it intends to continue running the lionfish boat trips as long as there is enough local interest to support it.

(Editing by Jane Sutton and Paul Simao)