Midwest Freshwater Scuba Diving

In this episode, the guys over at Talking Scuba choose some of their favorite shots from fall dive trips to Baptist Lake, Boardman River, Gilboa Quarry, and Portage Quarry.


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Experts Work to Remove Ammo Found Under NY Bridge

In a follow-up to the story we reported last week about divers discovering 1500 live ammunition shells under a NY bridge, experts are now working to remove the ammo.

It's not exactly buried treasure.

The Coast Guard said Friday experts are trying to figure out the best plan to recover unexploded ammunition found last weekend in the waters underneath New York City's Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

The material has been there for some time, based on the corrosion, spokesman Charles Rowe said, anywhere from "a few years to a few decades."

Rowe declined to pinpoint the location, but said it's not in a shipping channel or common fishing area. He said the agencies involved - which also include the police, Navy and Army Corps of Engineers - are assessing what needs to be done to retrieve the material and how best to go about it.

It wasn't clear what the source of the ammunition was. The commercial diver who discovered the cache last weekend believes it comes from a 1954 barge accident, but Rowe couldn't confirm that. The bridge, which connects Brooklyn to Staten Island, opened in 1964.

After seeing the munitions under water, diver Gene Ritter got in touch with Ken Hayes, president of Aqua Survey. The Flemington, N.J., company conducted a sonar survey of the area on Sunday.

Hayes said a sonar survey of the area was a safer way to go than diving near the ammunition, which mostly likely would not go off but was still dangerous.

"You've got to be real careful," he said.

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Halloween Weekend Scuba Diving at Gilboa Quarry

In the latest Talking Scuba episode, Bob Shoemaker and Jeff Haveman talk about their dives, pumpkin carving, and underwater adventures at Gilboa Quarry in Findlay, Ohio.


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Britain Establishes World's Largest Marine Reserve

A terrific development from our friends across the pond.

At midnight tonight, the world's largest fully protected marine reserve will come into force in the British territorial waters of the Chagos Archipelago, in the Indian Ocean.

But this new sanctuary, designated as a "no-take" zone where commercial fishing will be banned, serves to underline how catastrophically the international community has fallen short of a goal set almost a decade ago to protect marine life.

In 2002, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the World Summit on Sustainable Development made a commitment to protect 10 per cent of the world's oceans by 2012. Today, with only 15 months to go, it is estimated that just 1.17 per cent of the world's oceans are under some form of protection, and a mere 0.08 per cent classified as "no-take" zones.

Yesterday, government representatives at a UN conference on biodiversity held in Nagoya, Japan, put the 2012 deadline back to 2020. Marine experts warned that it is scandalous that the original deadline will not be met, and said the 10 per cent target falls far short of what is needed. A third of ocean waters need protection to give species a fighting chance of survival, they said.

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French Police Recover Stolen Treasure Sold by Divers

Via Seek4media:

About 25 years ago a young Corsican and two friends discovered gold coins and medallions under the ocean while diving for sea urchins near the Mediterranean coast.

They enriched themselves by selling off the treasure in the black market. On Wednesday, French police seized a significant amount of the gold treasure.

When local authorities questioned them about their new found wealth, the 3 friends claimed that they inherited their wealth. Experts say that the gold treasure was probably part of an old shipwreck and is a very important historical discovery. The coins dated back to the 3rd century AD.

The French police said that the treasure is a maritime cultural asset and belongs to the state. The rare Roman coins flooding the market raised suspicion among collectors which eventually led to an investigation.

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