Jo and Polly can help you with all weekend activities on your ReefCI trip just email them at info@reefci.com

I found the whole experience amazing and far exceeded my expectations. I was quite apprehensive before I booked as I have never taken a trip by myself before. When I phoned PoD for information the staff were really helpful and reassuring. Booking was easy and the information I received was very detailed. I was particularly impressed with the recommendations given for the weekend accommodation and the fact that I was met at the airport when I arrived. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming. Polly, Chris and Laura who run ReefCI were great fun and made sure we all had the best holiday. They were totally flexible and made sure we did as much conservation work we wanted or just do fun dives. The island was simply idyllic with lovely shady palm trees and simpIe but pretty cabanas right next to the sea. You went to sleep and woke up to the sounds of the waves and could lie in bed looking out at the ocean. Awesome! I was really surprised at the standard of food, and we had a delicious cooked meal after every dive. If anyone was thinking of going, I would definitly say don’t hesitate – just do it!

I’d wake up at about 6 and lie in bed looking out at the sea, listening to the waves. I’d get up at 6.30 ish for a cup of coffee, fresh fruit and biccies before going for the first dive at 7.30. Delicious cooked breakfast after the dive then chill before the next dive at 11.30. After diving on one of the numerous beautiful reefs near the island, we’d return for a cooked lunch, then either look at photos from the dive, check identification books to name fish we’d seen, listen to Polly give presentation about the ReefCI project, or just lie in a hammock and read! Another amazing dive at 3.30, then shower once back on the island and dinner in the evening. It was tough!

Diving with experts and having fantastic reefs all to ourselves. Polly, Laura and Chris taught us so much about marine life and conservation, but also made it really fun. They have a 100% safety rate and made sure that was maintained at all times.

It was the perfect mix of adventure, fun and relaxation

Fifty miles off the shores of Cuba lies one of the world’s healthiest coral reefs, an underwater Eden full of rare and endangered species. Anderson Cooper and “60 Minutes” cameras take viewers on an underwater adventure to this colorful world that could disappear someday if mankind isn’t more careful. Cooper’s story about “The Gardens of the Queen” reef will be broadcast on “60 Minutes” on Sunday, Dec. 18 at 7:00 p.m. ET/PT.

One hundred feet deep in crystal clear Caribbean waters, with sharks angling by, neon-colored fish schooling and a 200-lb Goliath grouper hovering a few feet away, Cooper interviews marine biologist David Guggenheim of the Ocean Foundation in Washington, D.C., using special scuba masks that permit them to talk underwater. “Do you ever see groupers this big elsewhere,” says Cooper, bubbles rising from his regulator valve. “Never, never in my life. It’s a critically endangered species,” says Guggenheim, who is familiar with many of the world’s ocean reefs.

Reflecting after one of their dives, Guggenheim tells Anderson Cooper he is impressed with what he saw on the reef, which the Cuban government has protected from commercial fishing and development. “The corals are healthy. The fish are healthy and abundant. There are predators here, large sharks,” Guggenheim says, noting that sharks “are a very important part of the ecosystem and we’ve kind of forgotten that, because we’ve taken about 90 percent of sharks out of the world’s oceans over the last 50 years.”

Just like the large sharks and the groupers they sustain, coral reefs themselves are in danger. Guggenheim shows footage of a reef in Veracruz, Mexico, he visited, where he says he found 90 percent of the reef dead. Scientists say coral is succumbing to a complex combination of environmental factors including pollution, agricultural run-off, coastal development, over-fishing, and rising ocean temperatures, which researchers believe is causing a phenomenon called “bleaching,” that causes the coral to turn white and sometimes die.

There has been a little bleaching at “The Gardens of the Queen,” but the coral tends to recover after a few months, leading scientists to wonder whether there is something about this area that might provide clues to saving or regenerating the rest of the oceans’ reefs, says Guggenheim. “Maybe it’s because this ecosystem is being protected, it’s got a leg up on other ecosystems around the world that are being heavily fished and heavily impacted by pollution, so that makes it more resilient.”

For the original article please visit: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57343821/underwater-wonderland-at-risk/

A Hayward man is facing prison after pleading guilty to smuggling a rare fish worth up to $10,000 per animal by claiming they were a more common species.

The Hayward Daily Review reports (http://bit.ly/szy1SZ) that federal prosecutors accussed 58-year-old Steven Robinson of capturing 52 Clipperton angelfish off the coast of an uninhabited island southwest of Mexico.

The atoll is under French control and fishing requires the permission of the French government.

Federal fish and wildlife investigators found that Robinson was importing them into the U.S. and telling authorities they were a different fish.

Robinson is scheduled to begin serving a 45-day sentence at the end of January. He was sentenced Thursday.

Volunteers from a diving group who removed three lorry loads of rubbish from a Wiltshire river have since reported symptoms of nausea.

Members of Calne Divers spent six hours clearing a stretch of the River Avon near the town bridge in Chippenham.

More than 40 trolleys, 20 bicycles and a bus stop with “bin and timetable still attached” were hauled out.

But Jon Dodsworth, from the club, said five divers had since become ill “and we think it might be Weil’s disease”.

Ten divers from the scuba diving club were recruited to clear a half-mile (800m) stretch of the river between the town bridge and the footbridge by the golf course, in Monkton Park, last week.

Working “by feel”, the divers spent six hours in the silt-filled water pulling out traffic cones, pushchairs, car wheels, a cash register and a complete 8ft (2.4m) bus stop sign believed to date back to the 1980s.

“I don’t know the last time it was cleared and there was no evidence, where we were, that it had ever been done in the history of the town and definitely not for at least 25 to 30 years,” said Mr Dodsworth.

“We had to remove five shopping trolleys just to launch the boat – we were only expecting to find half the amount we found and in the end we only did a 25m stretch of the river on either side of the bridge.

“One woman has been really ill with stomach bugs and nausea and we think it’s Weil’s disease,” he said.

“So unless we can get sponsorship for full face masks, so you don’t come into contact with the water, I’m not sure I can convince anyone to do it again.”

For the original article please visit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-16160432

This is a blue marlin with a satellite tag used to monitor horizontal and vertical habitat use in a new study. Credit: B. Boyce

The science behind counting fish in the ocean to measure their abundance has never been simple. A new scientific paper in Nature Climate Change shows that expanding ‘ocean dead zones’ (areas of low oxygen) driven in part by climate change makes that science even more complex.

Blue marlin, other billfish and tropical tuna are high energy fish that need large amounts of dissolved oxygen. Scientists from the disciplines of oceanography and fisheries biology are sounding an alarm that the expansion of dead zones is shrinking the useable habitat for these highly valuable pelagic fish in the tropical northeast Atlantic Ocean. And as dead zones shrink habitat by depriving fish of areas with enough dissolved oxygen for them to thrive, they squeeze these species into surface waters where they are more vulnerable to fishing.

“The shrinking of habitat due to expanding hypoxic zones needs to be taken into account in scientific stock assessments and management decisions for tropical pelagic billfish and tuna,” said Dr. Eric Prince, fisheries scientist and principal investigator representing NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center on the project. “Without taking it into account, stock assessments could be providing false signals that stocks are healthy, when in fact they are not, thus allowing overfishing that further depletes these fish stocks and threatens the sustainability of these fisheries.”

The data on blue marlin, one of the most valuable and storied fish on the planet, were collected using pop up satellite tracking devices. These devices recorded the horizontal and vertical movement of these fish. The information on fish movement was then compared to detailed oceanographic maps of the same ocean areas showing the location of low-dissolved oxygen zones. By comparing the movement of the blue marlins and the location of low-oxygen areas, the study shows that blue marlin ventured deeper when dissolved oxygen levels are higher and remain in shallower surface waters when low dissolved oxygen areas encroach on their habitat from below, squeezing them into surface waters.

“We found that the blue marlin’s habitat is being compressed, while the threats from human activity are increasing. In human terms, you might describe it as if you were in a house on fire with all of the doors and windows were locked, leaving only one exit, then discovering you have a robber inside the house at the same time,” said Dr. Jiangang Luo, scientist at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science, who processed and analyzed the popup satellite tagging data for the research team.

“Working closely with oceanographers, we are getting a much clearer picture of how climate-driven dead zones are shrinking the habitat for some of the world’s most valuable fish. The alarming picture painted by this study will hopefully inform our management decisions, improving the long-term health of blue marlin and other billfish and tropical tuna fisheries in the central Atlantic,” said Luo.

The oceanographic data were collected and analyzed by co-author Lothar Stramma and colleagues at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Science in Kiel, Germany.

While the new paper focuses on the tropical northeast Atlantic Ocean in the waters off West Africa, the expansion of low-oxygen zones is occurring in all tropical ocean basins and throughout the subarctic Pacific, making the compression of habitat a global issue. The problem for pelagic fishes in the tropical Atlantic is particularly acute, the authors note, because many of these fish species and the unintended catch, called bycatch, are already fully exploited or overfished.

For the original article please visit; http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=74961038210

Abyssocladia carcharias: microscleres and sponge

Asbestopluma (Asbestopluma) anisoplacochela sp. spicule

NIWA’s Dr Michelle Kelly and a visiting scientist, Professor Jean Vacelet from Centre d’Oceanologie de Marseille, have recently discovered and described three “previously unknown species” of carnivorous sponges from the family Cladorhizidae.

The scientists say that one resembles a “tiny shrub“, another has tiny bones that resemble the “jaws of a great white shark”, and the third like “crochet-hooks”. They were discovered in the deep waters off New Zealand and Macquarie Island, an Australian sub-Antarctic territory.

Marine scientists are often discovering species that have never been seen before.

“We search the seabed looking for new and interesting things. The first two carnivorous sponges have been found only in one location,” says Dr Kelly.

“New Zealand is a centre of biodiversity for marine sponges,” she adds. “New Zealand is probably the most diverse region in the world for these carnivorous sponges and they are on isolated seamounts that could be at risk of dredging.”

Professors Jean Vacelet and Nicole Boury-Esnault made the first discovery of a carnivorous sponge only 16 years ago – in 1995 – in submarine caves in the Mediterranean Sea.

Since scientists started looking at biodiversity in this region, Dr Kelly has discovered about 37 species that she and Professor Vacelet think might also be carnivorous, “and there are probably plenty more out there!”.

These three new and “astoundingly unique” species were found in the depths and darkness between 1000 and 2700 metres underwater.

The scientists named the first of these Cladorhizidae finds Abyssocladia carcharias sp. nov. The species name carcharias means “sharply pointed”, and the spicules resemble the jaws of the great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias. Abyssocladia carcharias was found 1071 metres underwater on Monowai Seamount in the Kermadec Volcanic Arc. The “jaws”-like spicules have “never been seen before, neither in living nor fossil sponges.”

The second astounding find, Asbestopluma (Asbestopluma) anisoplacochela sp. nov., from the southern-most end of the Three Kings Ridge, is a tiny stalk with filaments arising from it.

“In addition to the normal forms of tiny spicules, the species has spicules that resemble a crochet hook,” says Dr Kelly. Like the jaws spicules, these sponge crochet hooks (termed anisoplacochelae) are unprecedented – having never been seen before.

The third find, Asbestopluma (Asbestopluma) desmophora sp. nov., was discovered at Cavalli Seamounts off the North Island’s northeast coast, Hikurangi Plateau to the east of the North Island, the Chatham Rise extending east from the South Island (all part of the New Zealand EEZ), and on Macquarie Ridge (in Australia’s EEZ). It is an erect branching sponge that looks like a shrub with a twisted stem with feathers on the ends of its branches. The interesting thing with this species is that it has silica blobs (desmas) that look like amoeba packed like a jigsaw into the base of the sponge.

These specimens were collected as part of the NIWA research programme, funded by the Ministry for Innovation and Science, Land Information New Zealand Oceans 20/20 programme, Ministry of Fisheries and GNS Science.

For the original article please visit: http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=59121078306

Two male guppies harrass a female. Image: Dr Darren Croft, University of Exeter.

Scientists have observed a strategy for females to avoid unwanted male attention: choosing more attractive friends.

Published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the study is the first to show females spending time with those more sexually attractive than themselves to reduce harassment from males.

Carried out by the Universities of Exeter and Copenhagen, the study focuses on the Trinidadian guppy, a species of small freshwater fish. It shows that the females choose companions that are relatively more attractive than themselves and in this way reduce harassment from males. The research shows that the tactic is successful and by ensuring they are less attractive than other group members, the fish experience less harassment and fewer mating attempts from males.

Male guppies are well known for frequent and sometimes constant harassment of females. This puts a significant burden on females, sometimes preventing them finding food and escaping from predators.

Females are ‘receptive’ for a few days in each month. During this time they emit a sexual pheromone that attracts males and allow males to glide into a position that facilitates mating.

The researchers used guppies descended from those living in the Aripo River in Trinidad. They identified which females were currently receptive to male sexual attention and which were not. They then monitored the amount of time both receptive and non-receptive females chose to spend with either receptive or non-receptive females.

They found that non-receptive females spent significantly more time with receptive, and therefore more sexually attractive, females and that, by doing so, they received far less attention from males. In fact, they even chose water in which receptive females had recently swum over water that had housed other non-receptive fish. This shows they picked up on chemical cues emitted by receptive females and found this to create a more appealing social environment.

Lead researcher Dr Safi Darden, a psychologist from the Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour at the University of Exeter said: “It is now becoming apparent that males of some species choose to associate with relatively less attractive males to increase their chances of mating. We wanted to see if females also chose their same-sex companions based on attractiveness, but in this case, to reduce unwanted attention.

“Our results support the idea that social structure can develop around relative attractiveness and mating strategies. Although we focused our study on one species of fish, I would expect that this strategy would be seen in other species where females face similar levels of unwanted sexual attention from males.”

This research was funded by a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship and the Oticon Foundation.

For the original article please visit: http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=89613010475

I have to say that the reefci experience is not one to miss. The crew that runs the diving there are not only experts but also just amazing people. I was certified there as a rescue diver in three weeks and the opportunity to learn from diving veterans Polly Wood and Laura King was a pleasure. The experience on Tom Owens caye is that of extreme relaxtion and complete immersion in diving skills and coral reef knowledge. Once certified, a visiting diver can become an integral part of the important reef check survey. The food is great, the living arrangements are beautiful, and the whole area around the sapodillas is a divers dream. The actual dive sites are amazing, full of fish coral, spunge, dolphin and even whale sharks. The wall dives are spectacular. As far as Punta Gorda is concerned, that is a very interesting real belizian town with plenty to do day and night. Reefci makes it all happen and with a great, friendly style. Don’t miss out.

Michael – 2011