Shark Info.org – Photos and Video

by Erik Olsen on

Sometimes I wonder whether the Discovery Channel should start an entire network and call it The Shark Week channel. I seems every time I flip through channels with my remote control, I encounter another program about sharks, which inevitably show dagger-toothed Great Whites prowling around a couple of caged divers. The thing is, I usually can’t pull my eyes away. We are a strange species in that way: we love to watch real-life monsters who could, in unfortunate circumstances, eat us.

Well if you can’t get your fill of man-eating fish on TV, you can always pop over to a site like sharkinformation.org, which has got a multimedia chum line of shark videos and images. The videos, especially, culled form the BBC and YouTube, will pretty much ensure that you won’t be going in the water again any time soon. If you’re like me, you may also develop a sudden sympathy for seals, those lovable mammal snacks who always seem to end up caught inside the jaws of, well, Jaws.

Australia’s Open Water

by Iva Skoch on

Sleeping under the stars, with the magic of the underwater world beneath you is about as cleansing of an experience as you can get. Far from civilization, the stars are amazingly bright and–but for the waves breaking over the boat–it would be almost unbearably quiet.

The best way to enjoy the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is definitely a live-on-board scuba diving trip. Because in most places, the GBR is some 2-3 hours from shore, it is really not worth it to just do a day trip. In Cairns, a gateway town to the GBR, there are numerous establishments offering just that. We went with Scuba Pro and would recommend them to anybody. A three-day trip is about $400/pp, all-inclusive: boat trip, two nights on the boat (there are private rooms, but some people choose the sleep-on-the-deck option to enjoy the stars), food and drinks, equipment rental and 11 dives, including 2 night dives. All in, it’s a pretty good deal. This is also a good way to get certified, although after diving the GBR, you’ll be spoiled and other places will seem like a cold pool of muddy water.

Needless to say, the diving is incredible. Turtles, sharks, lobsters, dolphins…all in water so warm you don’t actually need a wetsuits, if it weren’t for the damn jellyfish.

AMAZING CGI Sharks

by Erik Olsen on

This was found via Boing
Boing and then a company called Flowline…and then I
noticed that Willy had posted about it over at Divester. So I am, as they say, a day
late and a dollar short.

But no matter. I post it here now for Gadling fans. The film features some of the
most mind-blowing CGI, that is computer generated, sharks you’ve ever seen. Actually watch this sucker.

I
watched it like three times, and kept shaking my head how real it looks. Of course, whether it looks so real on a
full-sized motion picture screen, well, we’ll have to see, but compared to the special effects we’ve seen in some shark
films, well, it kicks butt. My goodness, what Mr. Spielberg could have done with such imagery in making Jaws.