Dive Vava'u

Season Warp Up for the Whales 2011

2011-10-15T08:49:00.000+13:00

Yesterday was our last whale day for the year, though there is still a few around, we always have a cut off date. The ones that are left here, need time to feed their calves and prepare for the long migration south.

Full story here

Whale Updates

2011-09-28T11:23:00.000+13:00

Still busy with the whale season for 2011 here, check out our updates and stories on here

PADI Dive Resort 22550

2011-07-26T11:28:00.000+13:00

Even though we have always taught PADI courses, we had not confirmed ourselves as a Dive Centre. This year as always to expand and better our business we have become a Resort Dive Centre. We will soon be offering e learning for PADI courses.

For more information on the courses we provide email us at info@divevavau.com

Ocean Conservation and Culture: one does not have to look far to find conflict

2011-06-19T17:21:00.000+13:00

Ocean Conservation and Culture: one does not have to look far to find conflict

Another great post on the Shark Fishing tournaments, and how there are still so many conflicting ideas about sharks, conservation and fishing.

Baby Turtle Update

2011-05-06T10:29:00.000+13:00

On Wednesday morning we received a call from Lisa at Tropicana Cafe who had been given a tiny baby turtle by a taxi driver. The taxi driver had come across a nest and seen the little baby turtle and scooped it up. The turtle was very weak and in a small pot, so we brought it down here to see what could be done.

We found a bigger tub to put it in and placed rocks and seaweed in the bowl. It took the turtle a little while but he slowly began to swim. Dancing Rooster restaurant contributed small pieces of fish so that we could get the turtle some food.

On the first day the carapace was only 2.5cm long, under advice from SPREP and others, for the turtle to have a greater chance of survival we should raise the turtle for a couple of weeks, until its is bigger and stronger. So we are now on day three and he is feeding well, diving down and managing to get around his baby bath well.

We will keep the updates coming as the turtle grows and is released back into the wild, where it belongs. We will be keeping charts on the growth of the turtle and his health.

Turtle Conservation Conundrum

2011-05-06T09:42:00.001+13:00

As we have mentioned in previous posts, turtle species apart from Leatherback turtles are allowed to be hunted from April to August. There has been a previous moratorium on the hunting of turtles, however this was lifted in 2005.

Seeing turtles being caught during the hunting season is not easy to deal with, we have a few times managed to persuade the fishermen to release the turtles. However this is not easy to do without covering some costs to the fishermen such as the money he would have sold the turtle for at the market.

This is my conundrum, only yesterday I was told about a large Green turtle that had been caught and one of my Tongan friends asked if I would buy the turtle and then release it. I want the turtles to be released, we tag them, measure them and record pictures of each one. However, by paying for turtles, does this not encourage the fishermen to catch more, or do we have a better chance of saving more?

The plus side is that if the fishermen do not lose finacially, they do not kill the turtle immediately. But right now I feel between a rock and a hard place as to the pros and cons.

The ultimate goal would be to gain better protection for the turtles, including protected nesting areas, no taking of eggs and the ultimate to prevent the hunting of turtles. The main period of hunting is around the Easter celebrations, where the turtles are brought to the churches for the feasts.

However, until laws and enforcement come better into play, we need to protect as many turtles as we can.

If anyone has any thoughts on how a plan could be devised which does not encourage fishermen to catch turtles, but dissuades them in some way I would be grateful for comments.

Quiet Shores

2011-04-23T13:45:00.000+13:00

As the USS Cleveland departs Vava'u today, our shores are once again quiet. People are missing the hustle and excitement of the last 10 days and the effects of the mission have been spread far and wide through the communities.

The medical, veterinary and engineering teams worked wonders around the island, woman's health day was a huge success. Much of the action took place in the hospital and communities, though the night time action returned to the town and flooded the bars and restaurants with people.

To all those on board the Pacific Partnership, we thank you for your commitment, for your help and smiles. There is still much to be done and we hope to continue to engage the communities as we work together for the future.

Shark Defenders: The Future of Sharks: A Review of Action and Inaction

2011-04-20T10:47:00.000+13:00

Shark Defenders: The Future of Sharks: A Review of Action and Inaction

An analysis of fisheries information provided to the UN to identify the top 20 shark-catching countries. Analysis is provided by PEW Group and TRAFFIC.

Many thanks Shark defenders for posting, keep up the hard work.

Fun Staff Times

2011-04-20T09:06:00.000+13:00

Paul and I had found a printer in our house that we never used, so we decided to give it to our staff for their childrens' school projects etc. However, they had to ride the mechanical bull at Tonga Bob's for up to a minute in the most entertaining style to win it.
Here are the pics of Isi and Langi riding the bull. Well done to Langi on the win, managing to give dive signs through his ride. Good fun!

Heart Breaking

2011-04-20T08:49:00.000+13:00

The pictures below are quite graphic of a turtle we found and were alerted to yesterday. The shell had been removed as well as the meat of the turtle. Here in Tonga, turtle species are allowed to be hunted between March and August, this covers all species apart from Leatherbacks, which are protected in Tongan waters. In 2004 there was a ban on hunting of all turtle species, however this was lifted in 2005. The restriction is the shells must be 45cm or wider, however there is very little enforcement and small turtles are being caught.
The turtles that come to Tonga migrate between Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. We will continue to work here for further protection of turtles and marine life. We will alongside VEPA, provide greater biodiversity and conservation projects in con junction with Ministry of Environment and Climate Change as well as outside support from SPREP.

Eco-Tourism?????????

2011-04-10T07:51:00.000+13:00

Eco-tourism is considered as responsible travel options to see fragile and pristine areas, and to further protection and conservation for species. It is meant to be less intrusive on the species and habitats that the visitors come to see.

That is why this article to me was so shocking, sharks are currently considered by many including myself to be one of the most hunted and over fished species in the ocean today. Shark fining is constantly blogged and protested and many NGO's and conservationists are trying to tackle this head on. If you want to read more on shark plights these are some other blogs to read.

Southern Fried Science
Fiji Shark Diving
Shark Diver

However, this article refers to some shark diving operators who have been purchasing shark livers from fishermen to feed the sharks for tourists. The sharks being caught by the fishermen are currently not protected, this irks me however what irks me more is operators that would use the product of one species to feed and attract in another species for the benefit of tourists. It makes the efforts of conservationists such as Lesley Rochat much harder to work with the fishermen to greater the shark protection and reduce the amount of sharks being caught.

Sharks need protecting and that includes all shark species, eco tourism is a way to teach people about the environment and conservation needed. I hope the work being done in South Africa to protect sharks and increase eco-tourism can move on from this and provide better conservation and tourism efforts for the sharks and marine life.

Pacific Partnership

2011-04-05T09:48:00.000+13:00

In just a over a week, Vava'u will be the home to the hundreds of Navy personnel and volunteers aboard the USS Cleveland. The Pacific Partnership of 2011 will bring medical teams, veterinary teams, engineers and more to our wonderful islands.

Roaming medical teams will be seeing communities to assist on general health and issues. Engineers will be working on school projects and much more.

On the 18th April, Navy personnel and communities will be hosting recycling and waste management of public areas including the market, parks and down town.

We look forward to welcoming and meeting the Navy and volunteers and being a part of all the projects that they will be involved in. Vava'u is the first of 5 stops they will make in the Pacific and we will be posting information both on here and on the VEPA site as the projects make way.

"Vac from the Sea"

2011-03-13T11:26:00.000+13:00

I missed this last year but think it is a brilliant initiative from Electrolux to high light the issue of marine plastic debris. Marine debris is a huge issue that occurs in all oceans. The most highlighted being the Pacific Garbage Patch. Only yesterday, as we cam back in from our dive we spent 5 minutes picking up plastic bags that were floating on the surface.


Pacific Version

Electrolux has designed 5 vacuum cleaners all made of marine debris, different methods were used to collect the plastics, this included volunteers from all over the world.

"Our intention is to bring awareness to the situation and the need for better plastic karma. So far, over 60 million people have been reached and we are continuing the initiative following the great response," added Cecilia Nord, vice-president of floor care sustainability and environmental Affairs, Electrolux.

The full article can be found here or go to the Electrolux website for more details.

Kudos to you, Electrolux on your initiative and bringing attention to a much needed conservation area.

Thoughts with Japan

2011-03-12T10:27:00.000+13:00

The huge earthquake and even more devastating Tsunami that struck the North East coast of Japan yesterday, will be in our minds for a while.
We thank everyone for the messages, we are fine here in Vava'u. Some tidal surges this morning but all is settling back down again now.
Please keep your mind on the people of Japan, so tragically hit by this. Japan is still feeling masses of aftershocks of high magnitude, and we hope that the tremors will calm down soon
Below is the map of how the Tsunami spread out..................

http://magicseaweed.com/Tsunami-Warning--Content/3105/

Collaboration on Environment Projects

2011-03-02T13:07:00.000+13:00

An update on some of our collaboration projects with VEPA, after the mangrove day, we took all the students out to study the coral reefs using coral health charts from Coralwatch. Just in putting the data we collected from the 8 teams that carried out the surveys. Beautiful fish life and a couple of squids kept us very entertained.

What in store for 2011?

2011-01-03T11:27:00.000+13:00

Here at Dive Vava'u, we are always continuing in our efforts to engage our visitors in the environment of Vava'u and Tonga. In line with this we will be offering more educational and environmental aspects to our trips. Both through the Coralwatch program and a new edition for us is we have become a REEF Field station. This allows our staff as well as guests to participate in collecting valuable data on the marine life in Tonga.

As we speak our fish id slates are on their way, we will be giving slideshows on fish identification and coral monitoring. We have an extensive range of fish identification books here in store for the divers use, and snorkelers can join in these excursions as well.

We are also continuing in our efforts to offset our carbon usage through the sponsorship of mangrove planters through VEPA. A new website to show this and how you can join in will be up and running shortly, this is work being done in conjunction with Beqa Adventure Divers in Fiji.

We look forward to a happy and healthy 2011 with lots of diving, whale interactions and more.......

Just Sad

2010-12-05T18:42:00.001+13:00

Normally I try to stay out of the media hype, however this situation in Egypt has now gotten under my skin. I am sorry for those that were involved in the attacks, but I have to say the media hype and control of the situation has gotten out of control.
Even in this article, the professional marine advocates are asking people not to go on a shark hunt. How you can easily identify from a fishing boat the "killer shark" baffles me. So now it has come to this article, where supposedly 52 divers are on the hunt for sharks, to photograph them and do what? The only thing they have in mind is to possibly kill every shark they see.

So far 2 sharks, an Oceanic White Tip and a Mako shark have lost their lives, early reports say they would be moved to deeper water but instead were taken in for dissection.

Why do sharks have to die? The tourists involved whether it be 3,4,5 or 6 people is still under speculation. What is needed is tighter regulations and practices of shark interactions.
Snorkeling with sharks especially predatory, pelagic species is ludicrous and any other species is silly. I know there are many people that do snorkel with sharks such as Felix Leander, but the difference is he understands their behavior, he studies them, spends time with them and takes corrective action if the situation is not correct.
I have spent 14 years on the ocean and would never take guests snorkeling with sharks. So why are others? Is it because swimming with sharks (and with whales) has become the new high on my list to do. Do we want these activities to be adrenaline orientated or conservation orientated? or can they be both. None of these activities should be under taken likely, and yes anytime you are swimming with a predatory animal there are risks, that is why we as operators have regulations and guidelines.
Anytime, we participate in nature watching, individuals have to assume responsibility - be it bear watching, whale watching or shark diving. Going out and killing sharks after this to me is the worst thing that can happen.

No 2 media stories match on this, so what is the truth and what is going on?

Underwater Thrills:Swimming With Sharks: New research plan provides a blueprint for addressing shark issues in the western and central Pacific

2010-12-05T09:26:00.000+13:00

Underwater Thrills:Swimming With Sharks: New research plan provides a blueprint for addressing shark issues in the western and central Pacific

Great post on the new research plan to monitor shark catches in the western and central pacific. For the full plan and report please visit the link at the bottom of the post.

Whats Killing all the corals?

2010-11-20T11:03:00.000+13:00

A good article on the basics of coral bleaching, causes and effects on the future. It is amazing that over 70% of residents in the US, through a study by Yale university, did not know about the coral bleaching occurring. That means a lot of people worldwide do not understand this, not just in the US but in all countries. So pass this article on to as many people as you can, and lets get together and teach more people about the effects that will happen should coral reefs continue to be damaged.

UnderwaterTimes | Sharks, Mantas, And Turtles To Be Protected In Raja Ampat, Indonesia

2010-11-18T12:11:00.000+13:00

UnderwaterTimes | Sharks, Mantas, And Turtles To Be Protected In Raja Ampat, Indonesia

Krill Count

2010-10-19T15:12:00.000+13:00

Krill Count

Antarctic penguins are amazing creatures. They have adapted to living in one of the harshest environments on the planet and are great Ambassadors for Antarctica. But because of melting sea ice from climate change and industrial fishing for their favorite food — Antarctic krill — these iconic species are facing unprecedented threats. Penguin colonies are finding it harder and harder to find enough krill to survive.

Antarctic krill are shrimp-like organisms that are the basis of the Antarctic food web, serving as food for whales, penguins, seals and fish. This October, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) – the international body that regulates the Antarctic krill fishery - will make key decisions about how to manage it.

You can be part of the solution! Submit a photo of yourself using the form below to become part of an international photo mosaic of a penguin. This mosaic will be delivered to delegates from 25 nations when they meet to decide on how to manage the krill fishery.

You must crop your photo before you can send it. Crop the image by dragging and dropping the shaded box. You can also resize it by dragging and dropping the squares on the edges of the box. A preview of your selection will show up underneath.

Photos can also be sent to action@krillcount.org along with your name and email to be included in the mosaic.

As we have said before Krill is one of the fundamental and most important organisms for the ocean ecosystem, so why not click on the link above and help get the message out there, that krill needs to be carefully monitored, managed and protected.

Nature crisis meeting starts in Japan

2010-10-18T14:12:00.000+13:00

the UN meeting is aimed at finding solutions to the world nature crisis. Species are going extinct 100-1,000 times faster than the natural rate, some of the reasons are created from habitat loss, more globalization and use of water supplies for increasing populations and environmental changes.

The last meeting held to discuss species, did not go well, sharks lost, Atlantic Blue fin Tuna lost as did many other species. So will anything be different at this meeting? Many of the governments involved have failed to curb trends as stipulated by the 2010 deadline. Am I holding my breath, no, can we again engage ourselves locally and personally to make our own changes, I believe so. If we sit around and wait for the governments to agree and act, there may be nothing left.

There are some great sources of information on the internet, ask your local environment organizations how you can help and get involved. Make one small change a day to your life, and share this with someone else to start the chain reaction. Every indirect effect you can have, creates better direct effort down the road.

Important information websites
Ocean: http://oceana.org
Coral Reefs: http://coral.org
Nature Conservancy: http://nature.org.
CBD: http://cbd.int

Aquarium

2010-10-17T09:07:00.000+13:00

here are some of the wonderful reef photos taken by Pat Sellars and Sue Erickson during their whale week.

Thousands of Convict Tangs, Acanthurus triostegus, filled the shallow reef areas, surrounded by healthy corals, what a wonderful snorkel we had after our whale day.

Thanks Pat, Sue and Sam for a wonderful trip, I will be posting your whale pics soon.

TIME FLIES

2010-10-01T20:25:00.000+13:00

in case you are wondering here we have been check out our whale watching reports here, sadly only a few more weeks till the whales are over for this season. There is lots to report on from this year, and we will be putting that together as soon as we can.
Went for my first 2 tank dive in 9 weeks today and it was hard to sharpen my eyes back to nudibranchs and leaf fish etc. Looking forward to blowing more bubbles soon and working on the largest mangrove reforestation project in Vava'u. For more information, check back soon, if you are here and would like to help contact me and I will let you know the plan.

Oceanic Defense: Marine Phytoplankton Declining: What this means for you

2010-07-30T18:16:00.000+13:00

Oceanic Defense: Marine Phytoplankton Declining: What this means for you

Must read about the Phytoplankton decline in the oceans, it should mean something to everyone.

The luck of the Irish

2010-07-15T20:14:00.000+13:00

I never really believed it until today. 2 PADI open water students seem to have this charm. On a confined water dive this morning we had 2 whales swimming around on the surface in front of us. Its really hard to get mask clearing done when this is happening but the girls did great.

Our first Open Water dive today at an undisclosed site (sorry fishermen) proved more than amazing when on the safety stop we had a bill fish hanging with us (my second in 10 days). This was just amazing, in all the years I have been diving I have only seen bill fish a handful of times. Throw in Open water students and where will they go from here........

Sadly no camera because I was on a training dive but hey I have 4 witnesses and so that counts..... here is to tomorrow and what other surprises the Irish can bring..........

It is nearly all over.....

2010-07-11T07:59:00.000+13:00

the World cup of 2010 that is. The world cup has certainly been interesting this year with some of the biggest teams getting knocked out in the Quarter finals. England was decidedly poor in their games and in a way I was glad not to have been able to see them play.

The best thing to come out of the World Cup is the the octopus in a German aquarium who has so far picked all the winners. In his last round he picked Spain to win against Germany (not making his carers at the aquarium or German fans too happy) and has now picked Spain to win over the Netherlands. Will he be right again? We shall find out tomorrow, but if he is he may become the most sort after octopus in the world by sports betters and fans.

Watch the video here

Weekly Clean Ups......

2010-06-20T10:26:00.000+13:00

Concerned businesses and members of VEPA have joined together to have weekly clean ups around the Neiafu town area. These clean ups have produced interest from others and we are hoping as the word spreads, more and more help will come.

The following business have been instrumental in organising and cleaning up

Sunset Grill (Paul, Brenda and Mary)
Vava'u Adventures (Ben, Lisa and Jason)
Dive Vava'u (Karen, Salia, La'ie)
Baker Hardin from Liten Up
Gordon and Kelly Allison
Coconet Cafe (Doug and Shaz)
Marina Wine Bar (Ofa)

And not to forget the Yachties that visit our waters as tourists have been coming along to help us. Yesterday Paul from Sunset Grill was interviewed by one of the local newspapers, a great way for us to spread information. VEPA is currently putting together a couple of short environment shows that will be played on the local tv, emphasizing the waste management, littering and other issues.

The best news is that coming very soon the recycling centre run by GIO from Nuku'alofa will be set up here in Vava'u. Getting this information out to the communities about recycling and the benefits will be instrumental in this project working. More news will be coming about the recycling centre in the following week.

Keeping Vava'u clean is a great project and anyone can get involved..... the next clean up will be Staurday afternoon, the meet point is Coconet. So we hope to see many people there......

Talk by Brian Skerry at TED

2010-06-14T10:59:00.000+13:00

Brian Skerry is in my mind one of the best photojournalists today, I was lucky to see a presentation and talk to him at a whale convention held in Hawaii in 2009. In this talk below, Brian talks about the oceans and the damaging effects that are happening to them.

Well done Hawaii

2010-05-29T15:16:00.000+13:00

Hawaii just became the first state to ban the sales of shark fin products. Gov. Linda Lingle signed the bill to prohibit the sales, distribution, possession and trade of shark fins.

The hopes is to prevent overfishing and the exploitation of shark species in Hawaiian waters.

A great move and well done to all those involved.

Will this work....

2010-05-08T12:17:00.000+13:00

we can only hope so, as the oil now reaches the wildlife refuges and is seriously damaging fishing areas, shark breeding areas and more. The risk of this funnel is that no one has ever put it this deep before, and there is the risk that if not placed properly could damage the already leaking pipe, creating a further problem.

I hope this works, the news is so devastating to read, so many different animal and plant life will be effected by this spill, as well as the economic losses faced by fisherman and the many that live off
Louisiana's resources.

Photo from news.bbc.co.uk

Campaign against shark sales scores first victory

2010-04-02T09:07:00.001+13:00

There has been a lot of negative conservation news recently with the CITES conventions and the failure to protect species threatened by overfishing, fishing methods, exploitation and climate change. However there have been a couple of positive stories that have gone almost unnoticed.

Hawaii, yesterday deferred the bill to ban shark fining and fishing in the waters, citing that it would harm valuable research carried out in the area on shark populations and the protection of them as well as harm an efficient and sustainable fishing industry...... An update came in earlier that Hawaii Shark Bill SB2169, the Chairman of a state House has allowed the bill to be reviewed only 2 days after killing it. Lets hope it goes through this time....

But lets go to 2 positive stories.....

One is that of HEPCA, working on protecting the Red Sea, recently campaigned for removal of shark meat and products from Carrefour supermarkets in Egypt. Here is the full story Campaign against shark sales scores first victory.

Congratulations HEPCA and thank you to Carrefour in Egypt for their responses.

The second one that has just happened is the proposal to make Chagos a marine sanctuary has happened through the UK, which is now the largest marine reserve. These acts alone will make huge contributions in furthering the conservation movement.

Undersea Voyager Project - Alarming Squids

2010-04-02T08:43:00.001+13:00

Undersea Voyager Project - Alarming Squids

A great post from Shark Divers, on the threats our oceans face and the different ways we need to change worldwide outlook on the future.

Photography Masterclass Downloads from the BBC

2010-03-24T10:26:00.000+13:00

Published on PDF format, you can now see and learn some skills from the masters of wildlife and portrait photography.

These pages all come from 2006, but there is some really great information on them..... so enjoy.

Wow, what an amazing.......

2010-03-24T09:39:00.001+13:00

waste of time and money the CITES convention has been on the much needed protection of marine species.

Last week we wrote about the appalling vote on the Atlantic Blue Fin Tuna, this week we have seen coral species declined protection and the Hammerhead and Oceanic White Tip have also lost the vote.

What is happening is countries are lobbying small nations to go against the protection, this is politics, in my mind shameful. Lobbying should not be allowed, not for elections and definitely not for the future of species............

What we have to aim for now is localized protection of species within countries, protecting the waters surrounding these nations, and creating a better resource for local use and not for export................. You will never stop the finning of sharks completley however you can lessen the demand for it and increase the resource through protection, awareness and conservation efforts.

There have already been success stories with localized protection such as Lemon Sharks in Florida and of course shark fishing and fining bans in Palau, Maldives and Honduras as well as the Shark Free Marina organization.

The more collectively we can work together on these matters, the more chance of success....... sharks are of the up most importance, but seemingly looming whale meetings at the IWC are also considered to be a possible threat to the ban put on commercial whaling, so there is lots of work to be done. It seems no species is safe, but we can still make all our efforts seen and heard..........

Community Projects we are involved in.......

2010-03-21T10:44:00.000+13:00

Being a part of the VEPA board has really excelled conservation work in the Vava'u area, we are very happy to be involved in this organisation.

Here is our latest update on the 2nd Conservation Pilot Project we are running at the moment.

Just sad.........

2010-03-20T10:37:00.000+13:00

This week the Cites convention for the protection of species has been held in Doha, Qatar. On the table to the convention was the much needed protection for 8 shark species, Atlantic Blue Fin Tuna and Sturgeon fish, as well as other species including corals.

The protection that was sought would ban the importing and exporting of the product as well as for the Tuna a complete ban on fishing until stocks had recovered.

Blue Fin Tuna in the Atlantic have stocks recorded of 85% less than when the commercial fishing started in the 1980's.

Makes me sick quite frankly and very sad for the future of not only tuna but all the other species that need protection in order to survive. Polar bear skins are still able to be exported, another stark failure for a species in need of help.

Where do we go from here? We have to keep going on education and community awareness, we obviously are not gonna get the backing from governments............ Don't give up, we will keep trying and please do not buy blue fin tuna!!!!

Time for an update............

2010-03-16T10:47:00.000+13:00

Well it has been a while since I have blogged, we have been busy, both diving and working on continuing conservation projects through the new environment NGO VEPA.

Vava'u is back on track after Rene in February (once again I never got my valentines dinner with my husband), and we are happy to say that no damage was done to dive sites and the vast amounts of healthy reefs. The Tsunami that carried its way from Chile, over 5900 miles, showed here with some tidal surges. It has definitely been a year so far where mother nature has not been happy.........

As always the diving has been stunning, my staff Isi had his first encounter with a Goliath Grouper, and we have been in nudibranch heaven. Here are some pictures from our last dives,

All is well..........

2010-02-17T15:49:00.001+13:00

The Kingdom of Tonga was struck head on by cyclone Rene at the weekend, we are pleased to report that no major damage or destruction occurred.

Wind speeds reached approx 90 knots sustained and 110 knots gusting as the eye swooped down on Vava'u. Roofs came off of houses and schools, telephone and power poles are knocked down, but no serious injuries occurred.

Our boats and business were untouched by the storm and only damage to 2 vessels in the harbour occurred.

Air services with Chathams Pacific restarted today after checks to runways were made. Tonga Power is working hard to restore power to the island and the Department of Environment as well as many residents are cleaning up the fallen trees.

We would like to thank everyone for their kind messages....... the next week now the seas have calmed down we will be checking the reefs and having fun back diving.....

Great work Henk

2010-02-04T13:24:00.000+13:00

Henk and Sandra Gross are good friends of ours, they run Target One Fishing Charters, Adventure Backpackers and Vava'u Holiday homes.
Henk and I enjoy spirited conversations about sport fishing and fishing in general, and Henk maintains a very good record both in competitions and tag and release. Just 2 weeks ago Henk tagged and released a 150kg Blue Marlin.

But it does not end here, Henk and Sandra have just become the first signers of the Shark Free Marina Initiative to be the first operator to support this endeavour in the whole of Tonga. This is greatly thanks to Mike at BAD in Fiji, and maybe a few conversations over beers. I owe you a few when I get back Henk.

So let hope more fishing operators and marina owners will come forward and help make Tonga a Shark Free Marina destination.

Dive Vava'u featured in Environment Show

2010-01-26T12:01:00.001+13:00

Showing on the 20th and 21st February 2010 at Sirens in Port Townsend are short Environmental videos about projects around the world.

Our project here includes simple water quality testing from which we take school kids out to test the quality of the harbour using Secchi discs.

Also featured is our Coral Watch studies.

Many thanks to Shelly Solomon for her hard work in putting these together.

The importance of Marine Protected Areas.........

2010-01-08T11:16:00.007+13:00

Marine protected areas or MPA's are crucial to the enhancement and protection of fish life in all areas of the ocean. Corals reefs are a vital evolutionary hot spot, giving home to many more species than other marine environments.

A new report from Australia, after several years the protected areas showed an increase in larger fish size, less grazers (molluscs and urchins) and larger crustaceans such as lobsters.

Coral reefs and fish stocks are facing increasing pressure from over fishing, destructive fishing methods and climate change including ocean acidification. It is important that we create more protected areas with no-take zones. The no-take zones after a few years help replenish other reefs around them.

To create a marine park takes a lot of work, it involves people from all walks of life who are united by the reef either through conservation, legislation or for their livelihoods. On a small island, education on the benefits of marine parks are vital, however until the necessary steps are taken and enforced the problems are never going to ease. It takes between 2 and 5 years to see any affect of the marine park, but protecting natural reefs and fish resources around the world is one of the most critical and crucial tasks we face in 2010.

This will be a vital part of our ocean awareness campaign which we hope to start this year, introducing education programmes and field trips to identify issues and address solutions that enable sustainable living off the vital resources. For more information about our project please email us..

2010 - Year of Biodiversity

2010-01-02T17:02:00.004+13:00

As we say goodbye to 2009 and turn our attentions to the new decade ahead, we hope to carry forward the many conservation achievements of 2009 Year of the Shark.

Just as 2010 has become the Year of Biodiversity does not mean that efforts to raise and push the conservation of sharks and other species has diminished, it is just a year to high light another area that requires our attention, education and protection.

So what is involved in the Year of Biodiversity - pretty much everything. The definitions of biodiversity are varied but to sum it up ' the diversity of plant and animal life in a particular habitat (or the world as a whole), a high level of bio-diversity is desirable".

The focal area for the proposed year include protecting ecosystems, reducing the rate of loss of biodiversity and promoting sustainable use of biodiversity among others.

Unlike 2009 the Year of the Shark, which aimed to enhance education and protection for shark species, the Year of biodiversity includes terrestrial and marine ecosystems, it can even include the ecosystem that thrives in your back yard or the park in your nearest city.

This year, you can get involved, you don't have to be a diver, a marine biologist, or a professional photographer. You can sit and watch the ecosystems on your doorstep, learn about them and then stretch your ideas from there. Its not just up to the NGO's and Governments to make legislation and protests, its up to us......................

So, can we make 2010 the Year where we as a population get involved, be it on a small scale or large scale, if everyone can do one thing no matter how small, if it is a positive step, it is a good step.......................

Yao Ming speaks out about Sharks

2009-12-21T11:16:00.003+13:00

A stunning announcement from Yao Ming, professional NBA player and team owner has urged China to stop the selling of shark fin soup. His campaign includes a tv advert to encourage people to stop eating shark fin and other species that are threatened due to over fishing.

In a recent study held in China by WildAid, it was found that 2/3rds of respondents did not know shark fin soup came from sharks.

Billboards have also been pledged by individuals through various sites, promoting the end of Shark Finning, one of the most brutal and catastrophic fishing methods. Shark fins are removed from the body of the shark, which is returned to the water. As most species of sharks need to swim in order to survive, this cruel method allows a slow death for the shark as it drowns.

Shark Free Marinas has also made a huge effort into protecting sharks by creating marinas where sports fishermen are agree not to land sharks anymore.

The more attention we can bring to sharks plight and the conservation efforts being made to protect them, the better chance they have of surviving.

The Latest from COP15

2009-12-16T08:06:00.003+13:00

As tensions have risen since the start of week 2, the UN chief Ban Ki-moon has called for a decision to be

made this year, as the world can not wait any longer.

So the question is will a decision be made? The topics this week continue on cutting global emissions,

ocean acidification with some developing nations seeming to stall on making commitments.

As the world leaders will meet at the end of the summit to discuss and propose a commitment, the question

will a decision be made, or will it be another stale mate and this golden opportunity wasted.

Whatever the final outcome it does not stop us as individuals doing our part. Living as sustainably as we

can and being conscious of our decisions as individuals.............

No protection for Pacific Tuna

2009-12-16T07:15:00.003+13:00

A sad announcement came yesterday for the Big Eye Tuna as Asian fishing nations including South Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan blocked calls from Small Pacific Islands to reduce the tuna fishing by 50%.

Instead, the nations continued with only a reduction of 10% planned for 2010.

The Big Eye tuna (Thunnus obesus) is known as the next Blue Fin whose stocks are depleted disastrously worldwide, but whilst the big eye has a chance to sustain and manage the fisheries, calls to continue fishing at high levels will halt any terms of sustainable management.

At some stage higher protection has to be sought before further collapse of these vital fisheries, tuna farming also has its issues (another topic), someone has to listen soon.........................

Global Warming update from Copenhagen

2009-12-10T19:35:00.006+13:00

The summit on climate change started in Copenhagen, Denmark this week. A few weeks before information from emails was leaked and this has dimmed the potential in some ways for a final outcome. Skeptics on climate change took the leak as a sign of attacking any good that may be talked about at the summit.

Tuvalu today was disgruntled at the leading countries stumbling over decision making on how to cut emissions. Tuvalu suffers a grave future if no protocol is put in place to reduce emissions world wide. The islands themselves lay just a few meters above sea level and they have already suffered losses due to rising sea levels.

Climate change maps on the surface temperatures, rising sea levels and fresh water levels can be found here on the article on the BBC.

If there is no positive outcome from Copenhagen, there is always Plan B, where the geo-engineers may get their say.

Lets hope that all the 100 countries involved in the summit can find a way to put a plan together that benefits the whole world, the oceans and the future......

Hungry Oceans: What happens when the prey is gone?

2009-12-03T15:42:00.003+13:00

Earlier in 2009 Oceana released yet another paper on the pressures of fishing, aqua culture and cimate change on prey species. Hungry Oceans: What happens when the prey is gone?

The paper discusses many important factors that are overlooked in many areas and how the depletion of prey fish may be starving the oceans. Many of the large predators have very specialized diets for example the Blue Whale, due to exhaustion of the prey species, ocean predators and their young are suffering and may not survive.

Oceana was founded in 2001 and is the largest international organization focused solely on ocean conservation.

Please download this paper, and take the time to read through it.

Marine Climate Change Impacts and Adaptations

2009-12-02T07:39:00.003+13:00

Australia has released this website and downloadable report card. Over 70 scientists and authors have contributed to put together this information packet on how the ocean environment will be effected by climate change.

With the Copenhagen summit just around the corner, important issues need to be faced and resolutions made on how we can reduce our energy uses.

The packet, though targeted for Australian waters specifically can be used as a reference to other nations. Key issues in the report are acidification and warming of ocean waters, changes in the productivity of marine ecosystems and shifts in the distribution and abundance of species.

Studies conducted over the past decade have been compared and further papers can be downloaded through the website.

Sources

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091130112427.htm

http://www.oceanicdefense.blogspot.com

Skeleton

2009-11-26T05:54:00.005+13:00

During our recent scientific trip with members from New Zealand, America and Canada, we came across some very unusual and exciting sponges, nudibranchs and much more.

On one dive, as the scientists were studying the walls, Paul and myself were inside a little cave and came across the two following jaw bones on the floor.

After a quick look around we found the rest of the skeleton. The skeleton has not been down there that long probably only approx 1 month, it measures approx 5ft in length. The high vertebrate on the skeleton and the conical teeth shape caused much discussion as to whether it was mammalian or fish bones. I have never seen mammalian bones that are so blue, however with the size of the skeleton and teeth shape we were not sure.

Anton Van Helden from Te Papa Museum had a quick look yesterday and confirmed they were fish bones, so we sent our pictures last night to Jack Randall in Hawaii. Jack replied to us this morning that it looks like the bones of a Napoleon Wrasse Cheilinus undulatus. This was one of the fish species that Paul and I had discussed it could be after looking at the high vertebrate bones.

It is an amazing site to see a fish skeleton this big and intact, we will be going back next week to take other photos of individual parts................

Tonga aims for 50% Renewable energy in 3 years

2009-11-11T08:23:00.002+13:00

Matangi Tonga has released this press release for the Tonga Energy Road Map project, meetings start up here next week to discuss the process for Tonga to have 50% of its energy sources coming from renewable energy.

You need to look at this......

2009-10-29T08:01:00.003+13:00

I am cross posting this, the pictures are hard to look at, but we need to look at them.

The link is here. The photos are shot in Midway, the parent albatross are bringing home food for their chicks from the ocean, the food is plastics found floating on the ocean. The chicks ingest the plastic brought to them and killing them through choking, toxicity and starvation from the lack of natural food.

Photograph by Chris Jordan

The plastic is not just hurting these birds but all ocean life, the plastics are ingested by many ocean animals as well as the toxins killing and polluting the ocean core.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is another disaster zone twice the size of Texas, consisting of small pieces of plastics.

Please share these images and information, they are horrible to look at but they are real and killing thousands of animals a day.

Try and lessen your plastic use, reuse and recycle properly, this is not nature causing this. Its purely us!

Freezing corals..... for the future....

2009-10-26T14:25:00.002+13:00

As a child I grew up dreaming of an ocean full of life and fish, when I started diving, I was amazed at the life that inhabits the ocean and the coral reefs. Even so I will never see the oceans as rich as what they should be.

My worst nightmare is to see the ocean get so depleted that it is destroyed. Coral Reefs recently have been put as between 60 and 98% by 2050 will be gone, now with the new Climate Change meeting in Denmark to start in December, scientists from all over the world, have large decisions to make.

For coral reefs, it may be too late, so some consensus to freeze species is being looked at. Already in Europe there is a huge shelter which is becoming the frozen home to many plant species, corals may soon be joining them.

Is it too late? Its so hard to know, there are so many conflicting stories around the world about the effects of climate change. I believe this, climate change is happening, species are being effected and we as humans need to help protect their existence. Even if you change one small thing in your life, it could be enough to help. You don't have to live near the ocean to make a change.

New Website with Information on Species affected by Climate Change

2009-10-26T14:08:00.003+13:00

A new website "350 reasons" has been put out by the Centre for Biological Diversity to highlight the 350 species of flora and fauna that are at risk of extinction due to climate change. I found this on RTseablog.

In December in Copenhagen, Denmark, there is a large Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There is always a scepticism about climate change, and this website offers a chance to see some direct effects on your hometown areas as well as individual species and how they will be affected.

Sharing information and knowledge is one of the ways that we can become aware of what is going on to the planet.

Mangrove update

2009-10-24T08:24:00.006+13:00

This week, we visited the area for the proposed Mangrove Pilot project to asses what area we are going to replant the mangroves.

The village of Koloa and Holeva are our first areas, I have attached some photos of the area that we will be restoring as well as some photos of the terrible damage done to an area in Holeva. The Beche-de-mer (sea cucumber harvesting) involves the taking of mangroves for the drying process, these photos below show how the mangroves have been cut down for this process. The villagers of Holeva are very unhappy about this and we are again working to repair the damage and prevent further losses.

Below is the large area where mangroves have been removed, the area itself measures approx 100m wide and 40m deep from the tide level. For the pilot project we are looking at a smaller area, where we will build a small protecting wall around to stop the pigs from accessing the area. Next week we have a community meeting to discuss the project and to form a small group that will be working to restore their areas.

This will be an on going project, and we hope to have many communities looking at ways to improve and maintain their mangrove areas.

Our conservation group will be getting its new website up and running soon, and we are looking forward to many community projects and awareness campaigns........

Good to see....

2009-10-18T16:03:00.003+13:00

Two years ago this beautiful brain coral outside one of the famous snorkel caverns in Vava'u was graffitied with the name David in it.

The coral head is hundreds of years old, and am happy to report is looking healthy, and the damaged area has grown back again.

Pilot Mangrove Project to start this week

2009-10-18T14:51:00.003+13:00

A mangrove project that I have been trying to get off the ground, has got the go ahead from VEPA, Vava'u Environmental Protection Association and Tonga Trust.

VEPA is a new committee of teachers, government officers, peace corps and me, in its infancy but starting with some amazing projects, our aims are biodiversity and conservation, education and knowledge sharing and sustainable livelihoods.

Tomorrow, 3 of us will go to the proposed mangrove area and begin mapping and studying the area, the proposal includes replanting mangroves, education, and protecting the communities from natural disasters such as Tsunami and cyclones. The community project will be our pilot project and we are all very excited to get this off the ground and support the village in their goal.......

Mangroves are of huge importance both culturally and environmentally, protecting areas and sustaining use will be of huge benefit to coastal communities and to the species that inhabit them.......

VEPA will soon have its own blog up, and we will cross link the projects and achievements......

Last days

2009-10-17T21:41:00.001+13:00

Our whale season is drawing to a close, the whales have been amazing this year. Yesterday we had a sub-adult female flirting with us and the boat. Photos will be posted tomorrow.
Thanks to all our guests, and crew.

OCEAN - sharing environmental information

2009-10-08T11:24:00.003+13:00

David Shiffman of "Southern Fried Science" has linked like minded ocean conservationists together through OCEAN.

Blog posts, links and information will be shared through the social networking sites of Facebook, Neotorama, Digg it and Twitter. All can be joined for free, and you can vote up articles of interest.

If you would like to be involved and help spread information, please contact me on info@divevavau.com for a registration form.

Tonga hit by tragic Tsunami

2009-10-06T10:55:00.004+13:00

There are 4 main island groups within the archipelago of Tonga, the main island of Tongatapu and Eua, Ha'apai, Vava'u and the northern islands of the Niuas.

Last Wednesday an earthquake rocked the Ring of Fire causing tidal waves and catastrophic damage in Samoa, American Samoa and the Niuas. Here in Vava'u, we saw waters receding in high tidal areas and reefs were exposed. Luckily for us we were protected by the deeper waters and sheltered harbour. Some resorts suffered damage to their docks and some of the small boats were washed up on shore.

Niuatoputapu suffered heavy damages to the villages with over 90% of the houses being destroyed, nine people lost their lives.

The French Navy ship responded within 2 days and the Tongan Navy and Chathams Pacific have also been to the islands to provide support and emergency evacuation.

The whales that inhabit these waters, were rightfully restless, traveling and shallow breaths were the main behaviours we witnessed.

Our thoughts remain with the families of those affected both in the immediate region and in Sumatra who suffered a devastating earthquake days later. Funds have been set up to help provide financial relief and supplies to the affected villages........

Hard work and determination pays off in Palau...

2009-09-28T13:07:00.004+13:00

Palau in Micronesia has made a huge leap in shark conservation, banning all commercial shark fishing within its waters.

This pioneering effort brought to the public last week by President Johnson Toribiong, covering over 600,000 sqkm, is an amazing achievement and hopefully will pave the way for more countries to stand up and protect sharks and numerous other species.

Well done Palau and to all those who tirelessly worked on this project.

Many shark species are now considered highly at risk, due mainly to the practice of shark finning, please do not stop pushing for species to be protected, this truly shows us that we can make things happen......

Sea Cucumber harvesting continues......

2009-09-19T13:37:00.004+13:00

After an 11 year ban on the hunting of sea cucumbers in Tonga, it was agreed by the government to start this up again this year.

The law states that Sea Cucumber harvesting or Beche-de-Mer is from April 1st till Sept 30th, however this year has already been extended by one month past the finish date. The sea cucumbers are dried here, and then shipped to China and Singapore.

The harvesting of Sea Cucumbers brings fast money into the economy, however if the sustainability of the harvesting is not catered for it will be a short win, for the harvesters and a hard time for the environment.

Sea Cucumbers are an important part of the ocean ecosystem, they belong to the Echinodermata phylum, they are bottom feeders, sifting through the sand for miniscule particles and debris. They also decrease algae growth on reefs and sandy areas protecting the benthic zone.

Monitoring the reefs and quotas for the harvest has really not been established yet, and this is the area we are trying to achieve at the moment.

Stay tuned for updates, photos and more.............

What have we been up to?

2009-09-19T13:08:00.001+13:00

It has been a while since my last blog, whale season in Vava'u is in full swing and we spend everyday out on the ocean with them.

We have some interesting and exciting projects coming up and happening at the moment, more details will come soon................

If you want to catch up on our whale tales visit our other blog. Our fluke id catalog is coming along nicely with 35 identified individuals so far (still a lot of photos to go through yet), this will also be published on line in December.

Soon back to diving, exploring and having more fun.....

See you all soon

Krill Harvesting in Antarctic threatens many species

2009-07-25T15:42:00.003+13:00

One of the most damaging actions on our ocean ecosystems is happening as we speak, the attention is not on this as the animal concerned, may not be the prettiest thing in the world!

Krill harvesting in the Southern Ocean is being carried out for the Aquaculture industry that is creating fish farming. Many people are concerned with the health of the ocean and so believe that eating farmed fish is one of the ways of protecting the ecosystem, but in reality this may be more damaging than eating sustainable species and looking at the ways in which the fish were caught.

Killing the vital krill in order to farm fish, is eliminating not only natural resources for the ocean ecosystem but also one of the biggest carbon sinks in the world. Krill feeds animals such as the Albatross to the largest Blue Whale, and is involved at the bottom of almost every food chain.

Krill is also being used as a substitute for other fish oils in vitamin tablets, as it is high in omega-3 and is also being prescribed as a post surgery healing aid and treatment for high cholesterol.

These microscopic animals may be a great fighter in the climate change world, but as the ice flows of Antarctica continue to decline, the krill lose a little more each time.........

Whale Tales from Vava'u, Kingdom of Tonga: Whale song from 2008.

2009-06-22T12:21:00.000+13:00

Whale Tales from Vava'u, Kingdom of Tonga: Whale song from 2008.

Listen to one of our many recordings of the male South Pacific Humpback Whale from 2008.

Marine Life Keywords for Photographs

2009-06-19T15:06:00.002+13:00

For all those photographers who put the continual effort into keywording your photographs, this is for you. Marty Snyderman, Eric Cheng and Barry Guimbellot are behind this wonderful new program Marine Life Keywords. The program contains over 12,000 marine species, using common names, genus and species.

This program can save you many hours of keyboard work and make more time for underwater work, and all for the cost of US$99. Currently this program runs with Lightroom and Aperture but other programs are being looked at for compatability.

For more information visit the website for Marine Keywords

Reptile mating photo may be a first......

2009-06-12T16:12:00.006+13:00

Back in February we were sat on our deck enjoying the summer in Vava'u, when 2 very large lizards ran across our deck and started mating. They were approximately 25cm in length.

We had not seen this species here before, and so we sent off the photos to the Australia Museum of Herpetology. With no immediate reply we put our minds back to diving and continued to see these lizards every now and then.

Just recently I received an email from the Museum saying

"The skink is Emoia trossula. While known from Fiji and Rarotonga, our research scientists have told us that there have been no published accounts of mating in this species. "

So here is my mating photo and a couple of others....... pretty cool for just a snap shot.....

All images copyright karen varndell 2009

Bula Fiji Tourism Exchange

2009-06-09T18:21:00.004+13:00

Despite the economy woes, swine flu and political hardship, the tourism industry was well represented last week at the BFTE in the Sheraton on Denarau. Booth from all the South Pacific Islands stood their ground against the economy, lavishly decorating their booths. It was great to see such attendance, and as always the Fijian Bula Welcome was everywhere.

A surprise walk around by the Fijian Prime Minister Commodore Bainimarama and meet and great for many of the booths.

Are whale strandings increasing for 2009?

2009-05-31T14:33:00.002+13:00

Since the beginning of 2009 the news has been steadily reporting whale strandings around the world....... some of these include

January 2009 - 48 Sperm Whales in Tasmania

March 2009 - 194 Pilot Whales and Dolphins in Tasmania

May 2009 - Rare Blue Whale washed up in NZ

and today in South Africa after returning 20 whales to the water, over 30 pilot whales were humanely shot after rescues efforts no longer worked.

Vava'u has 3 Pilot Whales strand in January and 2 Beaked Whales strand on one of the outer islands last week.

In Ireland, the IWDG reported that though numbers of strandings are down in their area from 2008, numbers of unusual species stranding is on the rise.

As we wrote about before, strandings occur for many reasons, and have been reported from the Roman Era. As our oceans become busier with boats and tests, we may see more strandings.

This site states they are able to predict whale strandings.........

The reasons for these strandings are still largely unknown, however as our population grows and we create more technologies with which to explore the ocean with, we may have more of an effect on these events than we realise........

Trying something new........

2009-05-31T11:42:00.006+13:00

Living in remote destinations for the last 7 years, has pushed me behind in the technical aspects of digital photography. Through websites such as Wetpixel and Dive Photo Guide, its now easier to gain access to new aspects and techniques of digital photography, which has in some ways become more important than with film cameras.

I made the switch 4 years ago to digital after shooting film for many years, you ask many people there opinion and everyone has a lengthy list of pros and cons for each.

So what have I been trying recently......... diopters. I know for many of you, you have been doing this technique for years but not me. I used to shoot them on my film cameras, but when I switched I forgot about it.

Diopters decrease the working distance of a lens, in other words the lens can focus on the subject much closer than normal. The lens is not good with a

diopter on it for distance shooting.

These were all taken with a Nikor 105mm 2.8 lens on a D200 camera, sea and sea housing with YS250 and DX90 stobes.

images copyright Karen Varndell 2009

For more of my photos please visit my website

Fiji Shark Awareness Programme

2009-05-30T18:07:00.002+13:00

BAD in Fiji designed a slideshow concentrating on shark awareness, as the Tongan sponsor to this project, we carried out our own slideshow last week. It was well attended, and everyone had fun.

We will be carrying out this slideshow every 6 weeks as well as our other slideshows we will be doing......... more information will be available soon. Many thanks to Tonga Bobs for hosting this event....

Fort Myers "Shark Tournament" becomes no kill

2009-05-22T09:00:00.003+13:00

Following concerns from County commissioners and others, the Fort Myers Annual shark Tournament has be changed to a Catch and Release event only.

The tournaments target large sharks such as hammerheads, tiger sharks and bull sharks, most of the species brought in are often females and pregnant.

Thanks to a poll placed on NBC, and to the concerns raised, Fort Myers has made a great effort in helping to protect these animals.

There are many of these events around the world, and though the numbers of sharks caught in comparison to long liners and other methods are small, they still have an effect on shark populations.

Lets hope some of the other tournaments also follow suit......................

No agreement reached at Whale Talks

2009-05-12T08:32:00.003+13:00

BBC News reported today that no agreement on the subject of whale hunting has been reached. The talks have been stretched out over a year between anti-whaling and pro-whaling nations.

The Japanese Whaling Fleet did not reach its specific quotas this season in the Antarctic and are currently hunting for more whales in the Pacific.

Why healthy oceans need sharks?

2009-05-11T09:57:00.002+13:00

Here is a copy of the latest Oceana document, this document writes about the need for predators for a healthy and balanced ocean ecosystem.

It talks about how all areas of ocean life are linked together, and with the destruction and depletion of trophic levels.

Very well done it is worth a good read, and please check out there website for more projects and information on all areas of marine life.

New Goby Species from Vava'u Tonga

2009-05-05T12:57:00.002+13:00

David W. Greenfield and John E. Randall have described a new species of Goby, Eviota tigrina, a New Goby from Tonga (Teleostei: Gobiidae) .

The specimen was first collected in 1983 by John, as well as the new species there was also a new record of E. storthynx Rofen for Vava'u and a third unidentified species. We have been looking for the third as yet unidentified species, but have not been able to get a specimen to date.

We are still looking...............

Whales of Tonga

2009-04-30T12:55:00.003+13:00

In just a couple of months the waters of Tonga and especially Vava'u will be home to South Pacific Humpback Whales. The East coast of Australia have already reported sightings there, and we are gearing up ready for our season.

The South Pacific Humpback Whales spends its feeding months down off Australia and all the way to Antarctica for the single adults and older juveniles. Mother and calves are rarely spotted in Antarctica. The Oceania population are currently listed as Endangered on the IUCN Species List

The whales that migrate to Tonga are protected under a Royal decree issued in 1978 by King Tāufaʻāhau Tupou IV and re-affirmed in 2007 by HRH Princess Pilolevu Tuita. The whales are further protected under the Marine Mammal Management Act of 2002 and Whale Watching Guidelines. Only licenced operators may whale watch and swim with the whales.

The South Pacific Humpback Whale still face threats of hunting from Japan in the Southern Ocean, as well as from climate change and krill farming. These amazing mammals are "fasting" animals, this means that they only eat for 4-5 months each year. Up here in Tonga, they do not feed, but are here to breed and give birth to their calves.

We as an operator have great knowledge in the whales behaviors have studied and worked with them for 8 years around the world. We produce slideshows in the evening for our guests, to be able to explain further information not always possible on a boat.

There is never a guarantee of swimming with the whales, and our philosophy is that the more we work the whales the better our encounters will be. We carefully watch all behaviors looking for any sign that the whales have had enough, and we follow strictly the guidelines set in place.

These whales are such special, majestic creatures, we are privileged to be able to have a glimpse into their world, and we continue to work for their protection and sanctuary in the waters of Tonga and the Southern Ocean.

The Day all the Sharks Died

2009-04-03T07:14:00.003+13:00

This is a short story from the book Shark Trouble by Peter Benchley in 2002. I had the honour to work on a trip with Peter, his family and many of the great photographers and videographers of the diving world. I was reminded of this story this morning when someone else posted it on another website.

Peter lived his life to save sharks and marine species, and I only hope we have enough time left to do it.

The Day All the Sharks Died

by Peter Benchley

Once upon a time, there was a seaside village whose people lived in harmony with nature. They made their living from the sea. They caught fish on the reef that protected the village from the full fury of ocean storms. They gathered clams and oysters, mussels and scallops from the bays and coves and inlets. Some they ate themselves; some they sold to the people in other towns and villages, from whom they bought necessities like light bulbs and clothing and radios and refrigerators and fuel for their boats and cars.

Their biggest business, which employed the most people and brought in the most money, was lobster fishing. Professional lobstermen owned special boats and had special licenses that permitted them to set a certain number of pots or traps to catch lobsters. The law permitted the fishermen to catch only lobsters that were too big to pass through a special ring, which meant that they were old enough to have bred and had young of their own. Smaller lobsters were put back in the sea to live and grow, as were female lobsters carrying eggs.

Everyone worked together to maintain a healthy, stable population of lobsters, for many people’s livelihoods depended on them; not only the fishermen who caught them and the mates who worked on the boats but the wholesalers on the docks who bought the lobsters, processed them, and packed them up for shipping; the truckers who took the lobsters to stores and restaurants up and down the coast; the men and women who worked at the restaurants where lobsters were served; the businesses that cleaned the linens used in the restaurants; the bankers who financed the businesses; and so on, like ripples spreading from the splash of a stone dropped in a pond. So valuable were the lobsters to the people of the village that very few of the villagers ate the lobsters themselves. Eating lobster, they said, made them feel as if they were eating the money in their pockets. That may not make sense to you or me, but it was the way the people felt. They’d eat clams they caught themselves, or fish they caught themselves, but not lobsters.

The villagers grew vegetables in their gardens and fruit on the trees planted many years ago on the hillsides behind the village.

A small colony of sea lions lived on a rocky point of land that joined the breakwater at the mouth of the harbor, and in springtime tourists from other towns would come to the village and have lunch at one of the restaurants on the harbor, just for the fun of watching the newborn sea lion pups playing with one another, or learning how to swim and hunt for food, or sunning themselves on the warm rocks. There always seemed to exactly enough sea lions to keep the colony healthy, never so many that they had to fight for food with one another or with the village fishermen, never so few that inbreeding became a problem and pups were born dead or deformed.

The villagers’ garbage was collected by big trucks that took it away to dumps somewhere far inland. The sewage from their showers, toilets, and washing machine ran into pipes buried along the road in front of the village and was carried to treatment plants that removed the sludge and cleansed the water. They did not think much, or worry at all, about the great numbers and variety of creatures that lived in the sea. The sea and all its living things seemed infinite, indestructible, eternal.Nor did they worry about the predators that lived in the sea. They knew that sharks patrolled the reef and the deep water beyond, but never--not in living memory or in village lore--had anyone ever been bitten, let alone killed, by a shark.

The villagers had, of course, been taught from birth to respect the sea and the animals in it, so they took sensible precautions. Even on the scorching-hot days of summer no one swam at dawn or dusk, when sharks were known to feed on the reef and when, once in a great while, a dorsal fin could be spotted slicing the flat-calm surface of the water in the harbor.
They never swam near fishermen, or wherever bait was in the water. They never swam if they saw fish feeding or birds feeding on fish. No one swam or snorkeled or dove or scalloped with a fresh cut or an open sore. Nobody fished for sharks because none of the locals liked shark meat and there wasn’t a market for it anywhere nearby, and if a fisherman caught a shark by accident, on a line or in a net, he’d let it go. Nobody in the village ever killed anything just for the sake of killing. Except bugs. And spiders, now and then, although the elementary-school teacher had made it a personal crusade to teach every child in her care how important spiders were in keeping down the numbers of, among other things, bugs.

One day people noticed a big boat--big enough, in fact, to be considered a ship--lingering not far offshore. Smaller boats were put overboard from the ship, and they cruised up and down the reef, doing something or other. Village fishermen who had gotten close enough to the ship to read its name couldn’t remember it or pronounce it, because it was stenciled on the ship’s bow and fantail not only in a foreign language but in an alphabet nobody could decipher. The one peculiar thing about the ship that fishermen could describe was that on stern were two very, very big--gigantic, even--spools, each of which looked like it could hold at least a mile’s worth of thick, strong fishing line. And visible in the coils of like were baited hooks, too many to count. When the people in the village awoke on the morning of the third day, the ship was gone. Everything seemed to be okay; nothing looked different. There was not way anyone could know that, over the past two days, their village had been murdered.

The first sign that something was wrong was discovered by fishermen who went out to the reef. Scattered over the bottom, in the reef and on the sand, they saw the dead bodies of sharks. (Because sharks do not have swim bladders like other fish, when they die they do not float. They sink to the bottom.) They saw that the sharks had not only been killed, they had been mutilated; their fins had been slashed off--dorsal fins from their backs, caudal fins from their tails, pectoral fins from their sides--and the sharks had been thrown back into the sea to bleed to death or drown.

The fishermen’s first reaction was anger: so this was what the foreign ship had been doing offshore, killing our sharks for soup, an expensive delicacy. Their second reaction was frustration: what would they do about this thievery? They knew the answer: nothing. The ship had come from a foreign land, and from experience the villagers knew that their local police and wardens and marshals had no power over foreign vessels.
Their third reaction was resignation: well, the shark population will rebound. Sharks from other regions up and down the coast will come here. Nature will stay in balance. What they didn’t know was that there were no sharks in other regions up and down the coast. The big ship and the boats it carried had worked the entire coastline, taking all the sharks from all the reefs and using the long lines on the huge spools that sat on the stern of the big boat to catch the open-water sharks, the big ones that fed on sea lions.

For the first few weeks, nothing seemed much different. Fish and lobsters were caught and sold, money was earned and money was spent, and life continued as before.

Then fishermen began to notice that they were catching fewer lobsters in the pots. Slowly at first, then more rapidly, the numbers of lobsters were declining. Often lobster fishermen found in their pots not lobsters but octopuses. They had never paid attention to octopuses before. Now the octopuses seemed to be everywhere.

Within a month or two, the villagers realized that the number of sea lions had increased, too, especially young ones. As the sea lion population grew, the number of fish caught by the village’s fishermen declined. In itself, this was no mystery: sea lions subsist on fish, so as their numbers increased, they took more and more fish from the sea. The mystery was, why had the sea lion population exploded? Soon there were so many sea lions that they outgrew their rocky point and spread back toward the village. Some took up residence on docks, some on boats moored in the harbor. Normally friendly and playful, the sea lions were not accustomed to being forced to move from their perches, and some showed irritation--even aggression--toward the people who approached them.

Since sea lions poop wherever they please, boat owners found the decks and cockpits of their boats sold and stinking. When the wind blew toward the shore, the stink wafted into the village and made dining an unpleasant experience. Restaurants lost customers; waiters and waitresses were laid off, and some had to move away to find new jobs, leaving houses and apartments vacant. Lobster catches continued to drop. To make up for lost income, lobstermen wanted to raise the price-per-pound they were paid for the lobsters they did catch, but the wholesalers refused: catches elsewhere in the country had not declined, so the overall number of lobsters available was, more or less, the same as usual. If the price of local lobsters rose, markets and restaurants would simply import their lobsters from elsewhere. Most lobster fishermen had borrowed money from banks to pay for their boats. Some had borrowed to pay for their homes as well. The loans were paid back over many years, but payments were due very month. Now, with their income so low, they couldn’t make the monthly payments.

The banks were as fair and generous as they could be, but their revenues were down, too, and so eventually they had no choice but to take the lobster boats from the fishermen and try to sell them to someone somewhere else.

Every one of these decisions and actions became a new stone dropped into the pond: ripples spread, affecting businesses and men and women and their families for miles and miles around. And always the questions lingered: why? What had gone so terribly wrong so terribly fast? By the time the answer came the following summer, the village was, by almost every measure, dying. The signs of its demise were visible to anyone: the words FOR SALE printed, stenciled, painted, scribbled, and hung on houses, boats, shops, restaurants, cars in driveways, and lawn mowers on lawns; the silent streets; the nearly empty harbor; and the vast, uncountable populations of sea lions that, by now, inhabited every square inch of waterfront property in the village.

All the sea lions were unnaturally lean. Many were scrawny to the point of starvation. There were not enough fish in the harbor and on the reef to feed them all. Only those strong enough to swim far out to sea and dive very deep were able to feed themselves, and even they could barely keep themselves nourished; they had no extra to feed their young. And so, as nature had programmed them to do, mother sea lions let their pups starve to death; their natural duty was to keep themselves alive so they could breed new litters of pups every year; instinct told them that the cycle of life would eventually turn from scarcity to plenty, and soon there would be enough food for themselves and their pups. For now, though, they had to let their pups die, and the bodies of the dead young sea lions rotted on the rocks and washed around the shallows, not even fulfilling their own natural function of providing nourishment for the larger predators because, you see, there were no predators left alive.

It was a high school student working on a paper who discovered what had killed the village, and her discovery wasn’t even very complicated. Anyone could have made it; the reason no one had was that no one had known how and where to look. Once the student began to look, answers came quickly.

She examined the food chain in the sea when the village had been thriving. At the top were the sharks. Some sharks preyed on the fish on the reef; all sharks preyed on octopuses. Octopuses, in fact, were one of the sharks’ favorite foods, which was one of the things that kept octopuses from overrunning the reef. Octopuses lay thousands and thousands of eggs at one time, but nature does not intend that all of them will survive. Many are destined to become food for small fish, many for larger fish, many for sharks. When the sharks had disappeared, the student discovered, the octopus population had boomed out of natural proportion, and many more octopuses than normal were growing to adulthood. Now, one of an octopuses’ favorite food is lobster. An octopus will trap a lobster with one or more of its eight powerful arms, squeeze it to death and crack it apart with its arms, and then eat it with its powerful beak. Even small octopuses can catch and eat small lobsters--lobsters too small and young to have had a chance to reproduce--so when the sea around the village became overpopulated with octopuses, the lobster population suddenly crashed. Very soon there were no more lobsters for the fishermen to catch.

Normally, other sharks--larger ones, including great whites-- preyed upon the sea lion colony, taking the weak, the sick, the malformed and the vulnerable, leaving only the strong and healthy sea lions to maintain the colony. When those sharks were killed by the big fishing ship, there were no predators left to control the growth of the sea lion colony. And since sharks are not only predators but scavengers as well, even the dead sea lions were not recycled into the food chain but left to rot and become hosts to flies and other carriers of disease.

The most discouraging discovery the student made was that, in all likelihood, the village would never recover. The damage done was irreversible and permanent. Although no entire species of sharks had yet been fished to extinction, what had been done to the village was being done to thousands upon thousands of towns and villages all over the world, so shark populations were being devastated worldwide. Because sharks breed late in life (some species not until they are twenty-five or thirty years old) and produce so few young, of which even fewer survive to maturity, their former numbers would never return. The marine food chain had been altered forever.

The student turned in her paper, and she received a good grade. She would have received the highest grade, but her teacher said the report lacked solutions for the problems the student had discovered.
But there are no solutions, replied the student.
Nonsense, said the teacher, there are always solutions, for everything.

In this case, however, the teacher was wrong. He did not recognize the truly significant discovery the student had made: that nature is not invulnerable, the ocean is not infinite and eternal, and that now, for the first time in history, mankind had the power to destroy the ocean that gives life to the planet that gives life to us. We can actually affect the fundamental functioning of the earth, altering the mechanisms that give us the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. What the student knew in her heart but was loath to believe and afraid to articulate was that unless mankind changes its ways --and soon-- we have all begun a leisurely stroll down a seductively gentle slope to eventual self-destruction.All this she has learned by studying the events that followed the day when the sharks died in the waters off the seaside village that use to live in harmony with nature.

Earth Hour 2009

2009-03-29T19:42:00.003+13:00

First started in Sydney in 2007, Earth Hour has now become a big event, from Antarctica through to Europe, many people switched off their lights for an hour. This is a great change, and shows their are more people aware of what is happening with our environment.

Thank you to all through out the world who participated...........

Palau Bill threatens fish and shark populations

2009-03-21T09:18:00.002+13:00

Just recently a new bill 8-44 was put into the Palau OEK, applying for the amendment to "Title 27 of Palau's National Code to allow for the commercial fishing of sharks within Palau's Exclusive Economic Zone, to impose a tax on the export of sharks and tuna-like species, and for other related purposes"

In 2004, Palau was recognized at the forefront in Shark protection with a legislation that protected sharks, rays and turtles. Now all this hard work and effort could be overturned and Palau could see a disastrous decline to their shark and fish populations resulting in the loss of the tourism industry that is centered around diving with sharks.

Find the full story and information on the Palau Shark Sanctuary Blog

I worked in Palau from 2001 till 2002, its dive sites like Blue Corner are world famous, and the efforts of operators to protect the ocean is first class.

Please join us in writing to the government to stop this bill being passed before it is too late.....

Write your comments to either

Belau Tourism Association: bta@palaunet.com

Palau Chamber of Commerce: pcoc@palaunet.com

Palau Visitors Authority: pva@visit-palau.com

Ring of Fire

2009-03-21T08:02:00.003+13:00

Tonga has made it into the news over the last few days after a Volcano erupted underwater causing ash and smoke high up into the atmosphere.

Tonga is a part of the "Ring of Fire", a band of underwater volcanoes that stretches in a horse shoe shape, through New Zealand to Samoa and widens out as far as Vanuatu and the Solomon's. There are over 400 volcanos in the Pacific Ring of Fire, and over 70% of them are active.

Up here in Vava'u they lie to our Western side approx 30 miles away, Late is above the water and stands on our horizon visible from the shores on a bright day.

Though we had a 7.9 earthquake on the richter scale yesterday, there was no damage done in Tonga, and a great atmosphere filled the town.

The Tsunami warning issued, is standard protocol after the Sumatra tragedy of 2004, however the warning was dropped after 40 minutes of the earthquake.

So we will see if the volcano settles above land, pumice is being seen on the Fijian shores 300 plus miles away.

Tongan Volcano erupts

2009-03-19T20:23:00.002+13:00

Paul and Matt were delivering a boat from Tongatapu to Vava'u and saw steam rising from the seas, later it would appear the volcano erupted in full.

Here is the news on Yahoo, wish I could have seen it.

Aim to Sustain

2009-03-17T15:04:00.002+13:00

As many people are marketing 2009 as the year for change, and inspired by slideshows I saw at Whale Quest, I have put together a new Flickr group, the role of this group is to produce a photographic display of images around the world not only stating the bad news we hear, but also as a means to look at new ways to get the message across about how our ecosystems and environments co-operate with each other.

To show the plight of animals, tends to be done in dramatic ways, and we need this, but we also need to remember and work towards other ways to get peoples attention.

I hope that you will help me in this role, and I look forward to seeing some beautiful images.

Dive Vava'u joins the Fiji Shark Conservation and Awareness Project

2009-03-14T13:41:00.003+13:00

Our friends at Beqa Adventure Divers (BAD) are once again in the forefront of marine protection, we were honored to be invited to support the Fiji Shark Conservation and Awareness Project.

As many of us are aware, but sadly not enough of us, 2009 has been declared the Year of the Shark, and no not the Chinese Year but to bring awareness to the plight of these amazing creatures that have inhabited the world for four million years and are now in jeopardy due to shark finning, by-catch, over fishing and much more.

Over in Fiji, BAD alongside International Year of the Shark and Shark Marine Reserve have brought about this new project. The project includes slideshows held about research and conservation efforts, educational materials and presentations in schools and Shark diving specialties courses to add but a few.

Check out there website and keep yourself up to date on news, events and information

Well done BAD

EU moves on protecting sharks

2009-02-06T07:57:00.002+13:00

The EU has made a further move in the effort to protect sharks from extinction. This new moves sees the fisherman having to keep the carcasses as well as the fins, though not in an exact ratio of 1:1. They are still allowed to remove the fins but the weight ratio of the total catch must match when they come back to the dock.

Although some environment agencies say this is not enough, it is a step in the right direction. The new clause also puts in protection in areas known for shark breeding, having observers on boats to survey for by-catch.

By-catch is one of the harder areas, as many sharks are brought in on long lines, and not even noted as catch.

The full story is here

Night Dive

2009-01-30T11:58:00.003+13:00

We headed out for a night dive last night and I got to take my new D200 and housing for the first time with macro. Its a very different housing to use, mine is Sea and Sea, upgraded from my D70 and I am still getting used to the various settings and controls.

It was a great dive, with Longtail Robust Ghostpipefish, Octopus, Spanish Dancers and more. Here are a few photos from the dive

"Happy Feet" may not be dancing forever

2009-01-29T07:37:00.004+13:00

The Emperor Penguin was brought to the tv screens by the animation Happy Feet, a wonderful movie about a young Emperor Penguin.

Recent studies carried out in Antarctica show that with current rates of habitat loss, the Emperor Penguin will see a drop in their numbers of over 95% by the turn of the century 2100.

Emperor Penguins are the only species that breed during the harsh Antarctic winters.

Other threats to life in Antarctica is the loss of food, Krill is being harvested to replace Cod Liver Oil as a supplement, as the Cod stocks are depleted. Krill is one of the most important factors in the ocean ecosystem, it is the basis that feeds all life.

More coming on Krill Farming soon, however help keep "Happy Feet" dancing, do one thing each day that lessons your energy use and maybe we can make a difference.

Compromise proposed on Whale Hunting

2009-01-28T10:26:00.003+13:00

A special meeting has just finished in Hawaii, where the whaling of Japan was discussed. As in the article attached, many things were not touched on, and it appears most of the compromise is that the reduction of whales hunted in the Southern Ocean but an increase in the coastal whaling of Japan. Australia, England, America and New Zealand were also among the heavy hitters in the meeting.

So is there a winning, as also mentioned none of the environmental NGO's were allowed at this meeting which is purely to try and determine if there is a way forward out of the stalemate we have now.

Iceland and Norway are again not mentioned, and most people tend to ignore that these countries also hunt and kill as many whales as Japan does.

As someone says down the bottom of the blog, there are many species in need of help, in fact probably too many for us to save, if only we could stand back and see the whole picture of what it will be like for our children in fifty years if the rates of extinction keeps going.

Dead Whale found in Vava'u

2009-01-23T21:02:00.004+13:00

I received a call this morning to let me know about a whale that had washed up on the shore. Due to the fact that we are one of the migratory places of the South Pacific Humpback Whale, it was possible that it could have been a calf. We have had one mother and calf hanging around the islands since the season of 2008.

This to me is not good news to report, the mother can be extremely undernourished at this stage having starved herself for nearly 7 months. The calf relying solely on its mother for food is depleting her stores to a possible point of no return. Also if they have not migrated along with all the other whales, why? Is there an imbalance, did she just have the calf very late in the year? Will they survive?

So when this morning I was told a baby Humpback Whale had been found it did not in some ways surprise me however it saddened me.

I decided that we should at least see if we could get any information on the whale size, and any id if possible.

When we arrived, the smell hits you first and you realise that this whale has been decomposing for at least a few days. On arrival at the site, we observed the melon headed shape and determined it was not a Humpback Whale but one of the Delphinidae family which includes dolphins, pilot whales, melon-headed whales. Looking at the Pectoral fin which was one of the only remaining feature it struck me as a Pilot whale, Globicephala macrorhynchus, which is the Short Finned Pilot Whale.

It is very sad to find a dead whale, this is the third in my life, and I never forget the images or smell. To find a lone whale from the Delphinidae family struck me as odd as they travel in large social pods. The area it was found in is inshore of the islands and the whales would have had to enter through a channel and into the harbour area.

Right now we are looking at options as to why this whale may have stranded, or was it dead at sea and just washed up on the beach by the winds (this to me seems more realistic given the position and area of the whale).

These two photos below are not nice to look at, the whale was too decomposed to determine whether it had an external injury, and sadly we were unable to save the head for determining if there was an internal injury.

Shark Fin Soup in a Can

2009-01-20T15:22:00.002+13:00

With the Chinese New Year approaching and festivities being made, the consensus that shark fin soup has always been a luxury item seems to have changed. As this advert shows it is now available for purchase in a can for under US$10.

Remember 2009 has been dedicated as Year of the Shark, so lets put our heads together and find a way to protect them more.

Hippocampus kuda, everyones favourite

2009-01-15T11:53:00.002+13:00

Seahorses are one of the most delicate marine species there are, however they are struggling with habitat loss and degradation. Important tagging studies are being done to try and find out more information.

Species shrink in size due to hunting by man

2009-01-14T07:00:00.002+13:00

Certain land and marine species seem to be getting smaller and smaller, I heard about this for the Whale Shark (Rhincodon typus) this year from people who worked in Western Australia.

Richard Black from BBC writes about it in his blog.

Year of the Shark 2009

2009-01-12T08:52:00.005+13:00

Well by now most of us should be over the New Year celebrations and the Christmas lag and we can turn our attentions to matters for the rest of 2009.

This year the focus is Sharks, currently shark populations are being decimated world wide because of Shark fin soup. This popular Asian dish can be attributed to killing over 90 million sharks per year, (this number is down from over 100 million 2 years ago because well there is not enough sharks left). Fin price now is approx US$300 per pound of dried fin. The meat of the shark has a low market value.

Shark Finning is the removal of all the fins off the shark, and then dumping the carcass, while still alive, back in the water. For most shark species they need to swim in order to move the water through the gills and receive oxygen in it. These sharks thrown back in the water drown or are eaten alive by other fish.

Sharks populations are so down that for some species, if current trends do not change, will be gone from our oceans within a decade. The on going effect for the ocean will be huge, as removing trophic levels can only unbalance the already delicate ecosystem the ocean has.

The age old fear of sharks is starting to change, remember there are more people killed from bee stings per year than by sharks. The number of people swimming in the ocean has also risen, so please give sharks a break. I know for some people, they have lost family members to sharks and for that I am sorry, but we need to break the blaming of sharks, and learn that this important species may well be gone before our eyes.

Shark week is beginning on January 18th on Discovery, and it will be interesting to see if there has been a change in documentary style since the last couple of years, where it focused too much on the fear of sharks and not enough on the decimation of sharks by humans. Sharkwater by Rob Stewart, began a series of documentaries on Shark Finning which included CNN doing a special on it in Planet in Peril.

Palau has had a great success with creating a Shark sanctuary but still they face the threats of illegal shark finning. As has the Fiji Shark dive where a marine park was created to protect the sharks and fish.

Small countries are battling to keep their fisheries alive, off shore long lining is one of the most destructive ways of killing sharks, and after the costal water boundaries end, they have little they can do.

One of the ideas to battle the numbers taken is that ships finning have to bring in the whole shark carcass instead of discarding it, at least if this is done the number boats can carry will fall dramatically.

So what can we do?

Learn about the facts of shark finning as well as about shark populations.

Do not go to a Chinese/Asian restaurant that advertises and sell shark fin soup. TELL THEM WHY YOU WILL NOT GO THERE.

Watch Sharkwater with your friends.

Get your kids involved in Sharks

George Bush bows out gracefully,

2009-01-11T07:35:00.003+13:00

George Bush in his last weeks of his administration made a huge announcement this week to create the biggest Marine Reserve to date.

He managed to stand against his Vice president and the Fishery Committee, and we are all very thankful to him.

City Crab and Seafood

2009-01-11T07:31:00.002+13:00

Many thanks to the New York Eatery, who after buying themselves a 20lb Lobster have decided to release it back in to the Ocean

Full story is here

Coral Bleaching warning in the Pacific

2009-01-04T22:17:00.004+13:00

NOAA has issued a warning for coral bleaching between November 2008 and March 2009, with areas of interest from East Indonesia through to the South West Pacific as can be seen on the attached diagrams.

Bleaching effects corals as it damages and destroys the organism called zooxanthellae, this gives corals the ability to photosynthesis and also produces the wonderful colours that we see when we are snorkeling and diving. When the zooxanthellae have been dropped from the corals they appear white in colour as if they have been bleached. One of the stressers that can cause bleaching is the warming of water temperatures (El Nino), which destroyed a lot of reefs in the Pacific in 1997. Depending on the coral species some can reattach zooxanthellae within a couple of months, where as other species can take several years.

We will be monitoring the reefs here during the whole period, and hope that the effects with in the ocean are not too devestating.

Fire destroys part of Neiafu

2008-12-21T12:34:00.005+13:00

Wednesday turned out to be a disastrous day for shops in Neiafu, when a fire devastated 7 businesses. The shops located above Dive Vava'u are now only burnt out shells, and the businesses inside them may be gone forever. They include Bounty Bar, Sovereign Distributors, Friendly Island Bookstore, Arnotts Liquor store, Salesi's Bar, a small gift and mechanic store and the old Teta Tour building.

The fire started in a building that has been deserted for many years, at 3.18pm the fire brigade were alerted and fort hard to control the blaze, however within 20 minutes it was threatening our shop as it ravaged through the buildings above.

Only through the help of many people were we saved from the same fate, we emptied all our shop out, as fear that the O2 cylinders and dive tanks may explode due to the heat, but as we watched the fire swept closer and closer.

Luckily no one was hurt in the fire, it seems that some young kids playing in the first building started the fire, if only they had known the consequences.

After a day of cleaning and setting up the equipment again, we were back in action.

Planet in Peril

2008-12-11T12:05:00.004+13:00

Finally it seems a tv company and news programme are taking notice of the world and what is going on.

The likes of Discovery channel hover around the topics on occasion but never seem to make any statements about what is going on.

One of the topics of the show is Shark Finning which as most of us know has decimated the shark populations world wide. Most in the dive industry are knowledgeable about this but not everyone, this programme I hope will reach a wider audience and portray the plight of these magnificent creatures.

Why do Whales strand?

2008-12-01T15:06:00.003+13:00

In case you have not read the news recently, there have been some large stranding of Pilot Whales around Australia, the latest one claiming 150 whales despite valiant rescue attempts.

Pilot Whales are having a rough shot at the moment following the slaughter in the Faroe Islands.

So what do the scientists believe makes whales strand? To be honest I am not sure anyone knows yet, though there are a lot of theories.

The main strandings happen mainly with Toothed Whales, with the majority being Pilot whales from the Delphinidae family. These Oceanic Dolphins, travel through most oceans, they feed off shore on fish and travel in large pods, sometimes with numbers in the hundreds.

Baleen whales very rarely strand, and if so is generally only one mammal, not like the group strandings of recent times.

Toothed Whales and Baleen whales have different communication systems, Pilot Whales like their relative the dolphin will echolocate through the pod to communicate with each other. The pods are very close knit, with a variety of ages and sex of whales. This also means that how they receive sound is different.

Sonar from Navy and Research ships has been blamed for many strandings and in a lot of places has now been banned at certain times of the year. Other ideas are that one of the pod leaders become lost, unguided or sick and leads the others to their deaths.

Noise pollution from boats is also being attributed to the cause of stranding. The reality is that something is making the whales strand and we need to try and find out what it is.

Sadness in the Northern Hemisphere

2008-11-28T08:14:00.002+13:00

It is sad to say that it is the time of year when the Faroe islands slaughter the Pilot Whales as they come into the shallow waters to feed. The Faroe islands are located in betweeen Scotland, Norway and Icelend.

These images which are attached, show the gruesome slaughter of hundreds of Pilot Whales, the photos were released by Sea Shepherd.

Pilot Whales belong to the Delphinidae family, which includes dolphins. These small Oceanic Whales are found worldwide, we this year in Tonga had several encounters with them both above and below the water. We watched as these wonderful mammals, taught their young the pack methods of hunting, when in complete surprise they interacted with a Competition group of Humpback Whales. The male Pilot Whales were herding the adult Humpback Whales and chasing them around, the young and females remained away for a while before joining in on the chase.

To have these mass slaughters as the Faroe islands have just done, seems callous and unfair. This has been a tradition in the Faroe Islands dating back before the 16th Century, some reports say it has increased since the collapse of their fisheries in 1990. The collapse of the fisheries not only affects the land inhabitants of the Faroe islands but destroyed a huge food source for the Pilot Whales and other animals that come through these waters.

In the Southern Ocean as we speak, Japan's whale hunting vessel is on its way to capture Minke Whales, Endangered Fin Whales and possibly the Humpback Whale.

As these hunts continue around the world, I start to wonder if whales will every make a strong enough comeback. These wonderful mammals have lived in the oceans, far longer than we have existed here. I hope that we will not out live them.

New Toys

2008-11-10T09:32:00.002+13:00

It has been a while since I brought a new underwater housing (5 years to be exact), but this was my year of treats as I extended my equipment to put the Nikon D200 underwater. I chose the Sea and Sea Housing because I have been shooting Sea and Sea for years and the money to buy all new ports as well is too much in one year.

I went out on Friday for a test run, and am extremely happy, not only is the Sea and Sea Housing back to its original smaller size, and no longer has the polycarbonate backing, it feels much more like a solid housing.

The D200 is not a new camera anymore but is a wonderful camera to use........... so watch this space for my new images and updates on tips and tricks