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It was another beautiful day in Tioman, as a group of Deep Blue divers took to the waters of Pulau Jahat during the weekend of 4th July 2010.

The initial entry by the nine divers from Singapore, Phillipines and Australia into the flat crystal blue waters brewed much anticipation in all of the divers. The promise of stunning cliff faces and the Elephant rock was the dive plan. However after diving past the island, a current put those plans to rest.

The next plan was to let the current do the work and turn the dive into a drift dive to the other end of Pulau Jahat, hence drift away from the Elephant rock. Sandy bottoms dotted with massive giant mushroom corals provided the divers with many areas to explore.  One section of coral held a fish trap and a very successful fish trap it was. Upon further investigation by the divers, there was a pair of yellow box fish, numerous coral trout and wrasses and low and behold two baby nurse sharks. Alex who was leading the dive, checked the rope and noticed that this was not attached to a buoy and showed signs of algae growth, which  clearly indicated that this was a death trap to all creatures caught inside now and for the future.

The group proceeded to search for a way to release these trapped creatures. However there was no door to be found. The divers then noticed that the door was located on the bottom of the trap and proceeded to all help turn the trap over. The wire door was then released and FREEDOM! The first to lethargically swim out to freedom was the nurse shark, this was slowly followed by the other weakly fishes caught in this death trap. Upon surfacing, all the divers realized that this was a small contribution to the saving of the sharks, but nonetheless, it was two sharks. Lets hope that other lost fish traps are able to be similarly made safe or not used by fisherman at all.

A couple of box fish trapped in the cage

A variety of fish including 2 nurse sharks trapped in an abandoned fishing cage.

Deep Blue Divers to the rescue. Using dive knives, they cut open the cage's mesh frame to free the helpless sea creatures!

A freed nurse shark swims out of the cage to freedom!

Article Contributed by:
Alex Chin
PADI OWSI
Deep Blue Scuba

As divers we owe it to the earth (in particular the sea) to show some degree of concern over what a large proportion of the world is doing to harm our planet.

Every whaling season, fleets of Japanese and Canadian ships rake the Arctic and the Pacific  to harvest anything and everything from seals, to whales, sharks, turtles, sea cucumbers and many other living creatures that cannot defend themselves from the selfish might of man.

Ok, that’s happening far far away in icy oceans where none of us go to dive anyway, so how does it affect us divers, a small community passionate about soaking our skin in salt water and breathing compressed air?

Simple! If such acts continue, we’ll have no reason to dive anymore! The ecosystem was created so that one species was dependent on another… kill one, and another disappears. The marine ecosystem is structured in a way that one species is dependent on the other. Over hundreds of years, the number of predators and prey form a food pyramid that controlled each population. Killing seals causes explosions in fish populations and shrinkage in Killer Whales. In turn, the increase in the number of fish deplete micro organisms that bigger mammals like whales depend on… so you see.. its a vicious cycle. If this imbalance occurs in the Arctic, it will eventually spread to neighbouring ecosystems in the Pacific, then the South and eventually it’ll come home.

So how to passionate people put the foot to the pedal? They become activists!

Well, if you think that you’re an activist just because you point and yell when people eat Shark’s fins or throw plastic bags into the sea… you should see the work the Sea Shepard Conservation Society does on a yearly basis.

Lead by Captian Paul Watson, the Sea Shepard Conservation Society is all for the sea. Every year, they launch into multi-million-dollar anti-whaling operations against Japanese whailing vessels, hunting them from Tokyo all the way to the Artic, using offessive means to prevent such ships from spearing whales and carting them onboard their vessels.

They’ve been called terrorists, activitists, whale huggers amongst others… watch what they do… and ask yourself… are we really doing enough?

Go to www.seashepherd.org or watch their new series Whale Wars on YouTube

For a larger view of the articles, click on the images. =D

A very amateur attempt by me at dive videography with the Canon G9. Horrible white balance and ‘blair-witch’ moments which I can’t seem to cut out… it also gets abruptly cut at the end for some reason… Enjoy away! (let the music distract you from the bad videography k!)

Deep Blue Scuba has finally embraced mass media in its newest form…. Where snail mail, telegrams and the morse code has failed us, blogging makes up for it. Along with a brand-spanking new website in the pipeline and one diver, its going to be a great diving season next year =D. Three cheers for technology!

PS: I miss diving, it’s too damn cold here…