American Chronicle: Self Enlightenment While Diving in Fiji

American Chronicle: Self Enlightenment While Diving in Fiji

Vickie Milazzo

Inc. Top 10 Entrepreneur, Vickie L. Milazzo, RN, MSN, JD is the founder and president of Vickie Milazzo Institute, a legal nurse consultant training and certification company. She is the author of Inside Every Woman: Using the 10 Strengths You Didn?t Know You Had to Get the Career and Life You Want Now, 2006.

We all understand the significance of agility to grow a successful business. But how agile are we really and how can agility in our personal life help us grow in our business life?

A near-drowning experience when I was a child left me wary of swimming and totally unwilling to go deeper than snorkeling along the water's surface on a trip to Fiji.

Before Tom and I went to Fiji, he had already been scuba diving many times during the preceding five years. I'd heard his fun stories, but I knew he still occasionally experienced anxiety due to a long-ago diving incident. Tom, the daredevil, with all his diving experience, having anxiety? That made it even harder for me to decide to go for it. The only way I would venture"

Read the full scoop here how diving in Fiji really opened Vickie's eyes...

Scuba Diving Board - Dive Fiji Fiesta 2004

Scuba Diving Board - Dive Fiji Fiesta 2004: "Dive FIJI!

Fiji can be described with one word: WOW!

Believe me, you want to go to Fiji at least once in your lifetime. You owe it to yourself! But be forewarned: once won't be enough."

As a media representative from ScubBoard.com on a familiarization trip sponsored by the Fiji Visitor's Bureau I recently spent 11 days in Fiji and had the opportunity to visit ten different resorts. We barely scratched the surface of what Fiji has to offer but in that short time I came to realize what a treasure Fiji is� especially for a scuba diver!

Read full article here

Island Dreams celebrates 20th Anniversary

Fiesta Americana Hotel Cozumel and Dive House recognize Ken Knezick and Island Dreams for the company’s years of service

A big celebration took place recently at Saint Arnold Brewing where friends, associates, the adventure experts of Island Dreams Travel, dive shop members, representatives of the world’s finest resorts all came together to enjoy refreshments, music, belly dancer show and excellent prize drawings for lodging and diving. The occasion was the 20^th anniversary of Island Dreams travel.

Island Dreams has been serving the dive industry for two decades. During this event, two prominent operations in Cozumel provided special acknowledgement to Ken Knezick and his staff.

Fiesta Americana Cozumel & Dive House gave recognition to Island Dreams for its professionalism and compromise during 20 years to the Dive Travel Industry. Island Dreams has been working closely with both operators for more three-quarters of the time they have been in business.

Island Dreams carefully serving dive travelers since 1987, from the Caribbean to the Pacific, for more information visit: www.divetrip.com

Toll free: 800-346-6116
Phone: 713-973-9300
Fax: 713-973-8585
Email: info@divetrip.com

Effort to Catalog Species Tops One Million

April 10, 2007 — By Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- A worldwide scientific effort to catalog every living species has topped the 1 million milestone.

Six years into the program the total has reached 1,009,000, researchers report. They hope to complete the listing by 2011, reaching an expected total of about 1.75 million species.

Thomas M. Orrell, a biologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, said the finished catalog will include all known living organisms, from plants and animals to fungi and microorganisms such as bacteria, protozoa and viruses.

"Many are surprised that, despite over two centuries of work by biologists and the current worldwide interest in biodiversity, there is presently no comprehensive catalog of all known species of organisms on Earth," Orrell said.

The listing does not include fossil species from the past.

The Integrated Taxonomic Information System-Species 2000 Catalog of Life provides access to data maintained by a variety of scientific organizations, each specializing in a certain area.

For example, information on dipteran flies is maintained by the Agriculture Department's Systematic Entomology Laboratory at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Natural history museums in London, the Netherlands and New York maintain clothes moth, dragonfly and spider data. Experts in Canada and Paris keep the data on Ichneumon wasps and longhorn beetles.

These lists are peer-reviewed and checked technically, and then integrated into special software for the catalog.

The project, involving some 3,000 biologists, is led by Frank Bisby of the University of Reading in England and Orrell.

"We tidy it up and do a peer review to see which pieces are the best ones to use, like putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle," Bisby said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. "If you want to do international comparisons, you need a master list. It's a little like if you were running a supermarket, you would have to do an inventory."

Having internationally accepted standards for species' names will help researchers compare the diversity of life in various regions of the world and produce uniform catalogues of germs, packets of seeds or genetic resources, he said.

Only rarely is there competition among names, such as occurred with sea anemones, hard corals and spiders, and occasionally an element of subjective opinion plays a role among the peer reviewers with various taxonomic expertise, Bisby said.

"It can sometimes be very difficult to decide," he said.

Taxonomy, the formal system of naming living things, was launched by the Swedish scientist Karl von Linne -- known as Linnaeus -- in the 1700s and his name still appears in the database.

Look up gray wolf in the ITIS catalog and it produces the scientific name Canis lupus. Go to that listing and find that the wolf was given its scientific name by Linnaeus in 1758 and has two synonyms. Included are the wolf's common names in English, Spanish and French. So, too, its scientific classification and reports where it is distributed.

Confusion occurs when the same plant or animal has many common names in different places. Taxonomists seek to solve that problem with the catalog's use of scientific names along with the various common uses.

The biggest section of the database currently is LepIndex, listing 253,680 species of lepidoptera, which are butterflies and moths.

At the small end of the scale is a database that covers 86 species of krill, the tiny shrimplike creatures that whales eat.

The U.S. Geological Survey's National Biological Information Infrastructure is providing support for the effort.

Associated Press writer John Heilprin contributed to this report.

Catalog of Life: http://www.catalogueoflife.org

Catalog source data: http://tinyurl.com/258ej4

National Biological Information Infrastructure: http://www.nbii.gov

Source: Associated Press

Trawling, Industry Threaten India Turtle Nesting

DEVI, India -- The scattered carcasses of dead turtles bake on the hot sand. Scraps of the white shells of turtle eggs surround a hole where stray dogs have dug up a nest.

Until a decade ago, this beach on India's east coast used to witness one of nature's most spectacular sights -- the mass nesting of tens of thousands of Olive Ridley turtles on a single night.

Not since 1995 has that happened. These days just a handful of turtles come to the beach at Devi to nest, and its status as one of three main nesting sites for the Olive Ridleys in India's coastal state of Orissa is under threat.

Read the full article on ENN...

Tagging of Pacific Pelagic (TOPP) research project

The Tagging of Pacific Pelagic (TOPP) research project explores the Pacific, using a carefully selected group of animals from its ecosystems to gather data about their world. As a pilot program of the Census of Marine Life (COML), an international endeavor to determine what lives, has lived and will live in the world’s ocean, TOPP scientists will tag individuals from 21 species of marine predators in the Eastern Pacific to obtain an “organism’s eye” view of their world. Jointly run by Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Lab, the University of California, Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Laboratory, NOAA’s Pacific Fisheries Ecosystems Lab, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, TOPP also includes team members from several countries.

TOPP tests the effectiveness of using animals to gather biological and environmental data, tracking the individuals’ movements while recording valuable oceanographic and ecosystem data from their immediate surroundings. TOPP tags have collected and returned massive quantities of this data, helping scientists build a rich picture of key travel corridors and “ocean hot spots,” or gathering zones where animals feed and breed. While several projects have tagged limited numbers of individual species, TOPP scientists and engineers lead the animal-tagging research community in building a broad, multi-taxa (group of species), interdisciplinary approach to data collection and sharing.

Read more about this great project here...

Full protection for great white sharks

Sunday, 1 April 2007, 2:38 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Government 1 April 2007 Media Statement

Full protection for great white sharks starts today

White pointer sharks will now be fully protected within the 200 nautical miles of water around New Zealand, and from fishing by New Zealand-flagged boats further afield, the Ministers of Conservation and Fisheries announced today.

Conservation Minister Chris Carter said despite the white pointer's reputation as a predator, it was vulnerable to fishing and becoming rarer throughout the world.
"These majestic animals occur naturally in low numbers and, without protection, could be pushed to the brink of extinction. The Wildlife Act provides a strong deterrent against targeting great whites with a $250,000 fine and up to six months imprisonment as a maximum penalty."

Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton said the white pointer shark was not known to be targeted by commercial fishers but was occasionally taken as by-catch. "However, recreational fishers do occasionally target them because there is some demand for jaws and teeth as fishing trophies.

"No one wants to see an animal hunted to extinction for the sake of a jaw or a few teeth, or to be placed under pressure by accidental catch. Under these new regulations no fisher will be able to profit from taking a white pointer, and any fisher inadvertently catching one will have to return it to the sea, intact, and alive, if possible," Jim Anderton said.

New Zealand Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton

However, it is still legal to use shark nets to protect swimmers around beaches in Dunedin, and fishers accidentally catching and killing white pointers will not be prosecuted, provided they register the death with authorities.

The Wildlife Act makes it illegal to hunt, kill or harm a white pointer shark within New Zealand's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ - 200 nautical mile limit around New Zealand). It will also be illegal in New Zealand to possess or trade in any part of a white pointer shark. As well, New Zealand is a signatory to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals and has an obligation to prohibit the taking of white pointer sharks.

The species will be further protected on the high seas by the Fisheries Act, under which New Zealand-flagged boats will be prohibited from taking white pointer sharks while fishing outside the EEZ.

Read more at Scoop.co.nz...

Gates announces release of EM43 high resolution color monitor

Compatibility with global high definition standards amongst many new features.

San Diego, CA – April 9th, 2007 – Gates Underwater Products, the global leader in reliable underwater housings, is pleased to announce initial deliveries of the new EM43 external color monitor. The EM43 is a ground breaking product for Gates and packed with features:

• Bright widescreen LCD for accurate image perspective even in sunlight;

• Auto sensing of standard definition and all common high definition formats;

• SD version: NTSC / PAL
• HD version: 720p/60 ● 720p/50 ● 1080i/60 ● 1080i/50

• Sharp, detailed high resolution display suitable for both image framing and critical focus;

• Low battery indicator for ~30-60 minutes warning to change batteries;

• Self powered with 8 AA batteries that can be alkaline, lithium, or rechargeable;

• Long battery life – 10 hrs in SD and 14 hrs in HD modes with Alkaline cells;

• Auto-sensing power on/off means an end to unexpected battery depletion;

• Neutral buoyancy for easy add-on to any system without affecting trim and balance.

The EM43 is also classically Gates: ‘bulletproof’ construction backed by a 2-year warranty. Further, the EM43 was designed in two versions:

• SD version will support Gates current customers around the globe. Unplug a previous model Gates monitor and plug in the EM43. Sharpness, clarity and resolution are significantly enhanced with the EM43 LCD.

• HD version for new Gates housings. Accepts an HD input from the camera for the sharpest image display on the EM43 monitor. Some Gates housings may be retrofit with an HD version of the EM43 (contact Gates for more information).

The Gates EM43 is now available. Contact your Gates dealer for more information.

About Gates: For over 38 years Gates Underwater Products has produced the world’s most reliable underwater housings. Using ‘bulletproof” machined aluminum, 100% mechanical controls, time-proven design methods, and state of the art manufacturing, Gates housings are built to satisfy the most demanding recreational divers, imaging professionals, marine researchers, salvage operators and military personnel.

Dive Into Fiji - Fiji Scuba Diving - Fiji Diving Resorts - Fiji Dive Packages

Dive Into Fiji - Fiji Scuba Diving - Fiji Diving Resorts - Fiji Dive Packages

"Fiji, “the Soft Coral Capital of the World”, is rated as one of the top 10 dive destinations in the world. It is well deserved. Fiji’s vast, varied and colorful underwater playgrounds boast something spectacular for divers at every skill level… breathtaking hard and soft corals, wall dives, caves, grottos and shipwrecks. Fiji is truly a diver’s paradise where the daily menu is so diversified that it is sometimes difficult to believe you are in the same country."

Diving Donkey!

See more diving photos from Brian on Flickr...

Declaration of Reef Rights

Deron Verbeck Sets New US National Record

The United States Apnea Association (USAA) is pleased to announce that Deron Verbeck, a USAA member, set a new US national record in the freediving discipline of Static Apnea with a performance of 7 minutes and 28 seconds on April 2, 2007.

This performance surpasses the previous record of 7:22 held by Deron at the 2007 AIDA Team World Championships in Egypt. New Static Apnea mark of 7:28 set during recent event in Hawaii

This performance was realized during the April Fools No Fins Invitational in Kona, Hawaii on April 2, 2007. The static competition took place in the pool at Jack’s Diving Locker in Kona, Hawaii. Two AIDA judges judged Deron’s performance as valid. Deron stated, “My warm up was shorter than normal, so I did not know how it was going to go. I was feeling pretty bad at four minutes, so I thought it was not going to be my day, but at six minutes I felt much better. I decided to go for it. I felt strong at the finish. ”

Static apnea tests the athlete’s ability to hold their breath for time. The athlete lays face down in the shallow end of a pool with a coach providing for safety signaling and timing. Upon surfacing at the conclusion of their performance the athlete must perform a surface protocol by removing their facial equipment, signaling okay and saying, I am okay, to demonstrate he or she is in control of his or her performance. Other disciplines include tests in depth and distance.

The USAA is a nonprofit association founded on the democratic representation of freediving within the United States and internationally. Founded in 2003, the USAA consists of an active membership dedicated to furthering freediving in the United States and abroad. For more information about the USAA, the U.S. National Freediving Team, and membership please visit www.usfreediving.org.

The International Association for the Development of Freediving, AIDA, is the international sanctioning body for freediving, individual and team competition, and freediving world record attempts. For more information about AIDA please visit http://www.aida-international.org.