Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument

by Erik Olsen on

With all the (mostly) nasty news coming out of Iraq these days, it must have been nice for the Bush folks to announce something as delightful as the creation of a new, massive marine park in the distant Hawaiian islands. (and see how happy the dolphins are in thiis photo?) Never mind that few people will ever get to go there because they’re so damn far away, but it is a delightful breathe of fresh air for those of us who love to see the National Park Service NOAA grow…and by grow, I mean with meaningful parks and additions, not pork barrel crap like <insert Senator’s Name Here> National Brick Museum or something.

Lots of folks are reporting this today, that the Prez announced the creation of the world’s largest marine protected area, called Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument (pronounced NOINAM), which will consist of some 140,000 square miles of Pacific Ocean. The new monument will surround a necklace of islands and atolls stretching from the main Hawaiian Islands to Midway Atoll and beyond. Whoopee, for divers and conservationists alike, as fishing will be phased out, and you will not be able to mine coral reefs (sometimes done for jewelry) or do other nasty things that hurt cute fishies and coral.

Bubble Blowing Video

by Erik Olsen on

Willy over at Divester has posted a link to a rather cool vide for diving fans. He does point out (rightly) that you need to put your speakers on mute, for the music is quite annoying, but later in the vid, you’ll see some pretty cool underwater trickery as a diver blows perfect ring-shaped bubbles. Oh, and there’s more. He does all sorts of wacky bubble tricks that are sure to (ha!) blow your mind.

Watch: Mind of a Demon with Fabien Cousteau

by Erik Olsen on

Folks here may remember that we did a podcast a while ago with one Fabien Cousteau, the grandson of epically famous ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau. Fabien is a big-time explorer and adventurer in his own right and several years ago he undertook an amazing project. He decided that he wanted to dive with sharks in their own habitat and to do so in a novel way: enclosed within a shark-shaped submarine. The idea was that the way we study sharks now — using chum and cages and such — is artificial. We introduce these foreign stimuli into their environments and believe we are seeing the way they really behave.

Well, Fabien’s shark sub, which we talked about at some length in our podcast, was meant to dispense with all that artificiality. Sounds pretty cool, right? Well, since Fabien is a Cousteau, he of course had the sense to bring along a camera to shoot everything he was doing, and the product of that effort will broadcast on CBS on Wednesday, June 28th at 8pm. The program is called Mind of a Demon, and having seen some of the footage myself, I highly suggest you watch it.

So get the Tivo remote out and program this baby in. You won’t be sorry.

Oriskany Video

by Erik Olsen on

I posted about the sinking of the warship Oriskany just a little while back and wouldn’t you know it, Willy over at Divester had already posted a lot about it. Figures. Willy’s always on the ball with that stuff. What’s more is that he’s not only got links to some stories about the scuttling of the ship, he’s also got some of the first video out from divers checking out the new, world’s largest manmade reef.

Navy Sinks Ship for Massive Artificial Reef

by Erik Olsen on

Here’s a bit of news that both divers and military equipment fans can both rejoice over. The US Navy last week sunk an 888-foot U.S. Navy warship into the cerulean waters off the coast of Florida. The ship is a massive vessel, and is said to create the largest artificial reef in the world. Of course, the ship was drained of its harmful fluids and fuels before being sunk, or you can bet the environmental folks would have had a conniption. Pretty neat, though. The ship will sit in some 50 -100 feet of water, making it an ideal diving spot…that is, once fish in the area discover what a great place it is to swim, mate and hang out. The ship, called the USS Oriskany, or the “Mighty O” has a fair bit of history behind it having seen battles in two major wars and several other conflicts.