Brothers Locate Their Father's Sunken World War II Submarine - [Underwater Times]
In 2007, they found the sub a mile down, on the slope of an underwater volcano 12 miles north of Kiska, at the western tip of Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Last fall the Navy confirmed that the Abele brothers had done what it could not — solve one of World War II's biggest mysteries.

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China's Largest Shopping Sites, Alibaba And Taobao, To Ban Shark Fin Sales, Fight Illegal Wildlife Crime - [Underwater Times]

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Nikon products in 2009 -

SLRclub has a special on predictions/rumors of upcoming DSLR products in 2009. From what I hear, this is suppose to be a reputable site. The Nikon entries are:

• Nikon D400
• Nikon D800
• Nikon FX in D40/D60 body
• Nikon D4

Translation (thanks H.P.):

Q1 of 2009

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Well, after about a half dozen planned days without success, we decided to trust the swell forcast and give San Nic a shot.  75 miles southwest of King Harbor.  No other islands to block the swell, wind, or chop... Santa Barbara Island doesn't count - it has almost NO lee.  The way out wasn't too bad... I was alseep most of the ride, but that usually means it was calm enough for me to cash out.  It took almost two and half hours to get to the east end.  What a strange island; that's all I have to say.  Very flat, very bare, radar domes and a landing strip, plus this weird looking thing:

I won't even pretend to know what that is.  Also, you know you are a good way out in the Pacific when the clouds start to look like this:

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Apparently this is a big surf dive spot along Malibu's eastern shore, but never really anything that we planned on diving for work purposes.  Earlier in the day we went and did some survey work at Santa Monica Baykeeper's Escondido site, but below 15 ft it was just mud water from the swell wrapping around Point Dume.  So we headed east and gave Big Rock a whirl.

I have to say, the name is quite misleading.  Yeah, it's a big rock sticking out of the beach, but that's really about it.  It was a pretty nice dive though, 62 F and clear as can be.  The bottom is littered with boulders to about 25 ft, and sand castle worms (Phragmatopoma californica) basically bridge the gaps between them.

Nothing too exciting, but I'd imagine it could be a nice beach dive for those of you without boat access.  Just a few pictures:

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My final night dive we did the Mandarin Fish dive which is right outside the resort. It was a really nice site with sloping sandy walls with lots of critters all around. At the top of the wall was a bunch of broken corals where the Mandarin Fish will come out just before night (dusk). They would pop out just for moments so it was difficult to get good photos. We also had a non-photographer who sat in the middle and made it more difficult to get around the shot. Definitely too many divers on this dive. I ended up leaving and finding more critters down the wall. The 2nd dive was Nudi falls which has lots of critters. I did 4 dives that last day and have 1 more set from the day dives where I saw the Mimic Octopus...

Here are the photos!

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Pacific World War II Wrecks Pose Risk of Toxic Leaks - [National Geographic News]
Encased in coral, host to abundant sea life, and popular among scuba-loving tourists, some of these vessels also contain oil, gasoline, chemicals, and unexploded ordnance.

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It's amazing how a new, fully-functional boat makes trips to Catalina effortless instead of tragically painful.  35 minutes each way.

Calm calm calm oceans yesterday for the trip, but for some reason the East Rock Quarry was pumping little mini swells at us all day.  It's usually very well protected, but I guess we were in some weird pattern where the east end was angry.  The current was running a solid meter/second at the surface, but underwater it was just fine.  62 degrees the entire way to 70 ft.  About 30-50 ft vis, depending on where you were.  It was cloudy and cold, but I just can't really complain about working 12 hour days when you are doing dives like these :)

I managed to "fix" my camera issues with some scotch tape.  Classy, right?  It helped a bit, but it's certainly not the final answer.  But for now, here's what it produced:

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Group: Blue sharks facing challenges, 'extreme fishing pressures' - [Underwater Times]
The Shark Finning Prohibition Act, signed in 2000, made it illegal for a foreign vessel to offload shark fins in a U.S. port, unless they offload the rest of the shark carcass as well. The rule is aimed at drastically reducing the number of sharks finned and carcasses discarded at sea.

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