Diving Italy Forum

Divers,

As the new dive season comes upon us stay up to date on all the trips and news at www.DivingItalyForum.com!

See you in and around the water,

Lewis

Winter Diving

Well, looks like Winter is upon us. Do you dive in the cold or hang your gear up to dry until Spring?

Possible radioactive dumping in the Mediterranean Sea

Well, our poor little corner of the Mediterranean keeps taking a beating. I wonder how much longer she can hold out. So far the trash dumping, the sewage plants with inadequate cleaning systems, and careless fisherman have taken a huge toll on these waters. Now the news has broken a story that tells the tale of “mobsters” (camorra) sinking large container ships full of nuclear waste in a money making scheme that earned them millions over the last two decades.

Here are several links to the story:

MSNBC

Associated Press

National Geographic (Video report)

I don’t know how much longer this can go on. There always seems to be some talk going on all the time about “doing something about it” but I can tell you that my Italian friends are barely aware there is a problem. When you ask them about the pollution or the dumping in the sea the response is always the same: “Yes, yes, this is a big problem. The government needs to do a better job.” but beyond that they remain largely uninformed.

As a local diver in the Mediterranean and specifically Naples, Italy I am always trying to think of ways to better my aquatic environment. I pick up trash when I’m diving, I educate people about the ocean when I see them, and I take pictures of the sea.

I think that underwater photography is vitally important to conservation efforts. Would you care about Panda bears if you have never seen one before? What if I describe them to you: black and white, very large, vegetarian. Hmmm, not thought inspiring is it?

Let’s keep our fingers crossed that all of the waste that was thrown over wasn’t as toxic as the informant claims the material to be. Let’s pray our Mediterranean can hold up to the pressures we keep putting on her every day.

SCUBA Diver Meeting – Friday October 2nd 6:00 PM

Naples beach cleanup for International Clean-up day

What a successful day of cleaning up our local waters here in Naples! The environment is why we were there and we accomplished removing over eight bags of trash!

I was also told that while the divers were cleaning up underwater there were several locals that became interested in what we were doing. When they were told we were cleaning up trash and cleaning up the Nisida Bay area they were shocked and began picking up trash themselves. How amazing that we had the opportunity to spread the idea of conservation through cleaning and diving.

A special thanks and shout out to Mike M, Evan B, Rayna B, “The Girls”, and Dominique for showing up and doing their best to clean up the ocean.

September 19 – International Cleanup Day

According to the PADI AWARE (Aquatic World Awareness, Responsibility and Education) initiative over “6 million tonnes [sic] of debris enters the world’s oceans each year”.

About International Cleanup Day 19th September 2009

Project AWARE’s longstanding International Cleanup Day event is the biggest underwater cleanup of its kind. Held annually on the 3rd Saturday in September each year, more than 370,000 volunteers clean over 33,000 miles of shoreline to remove seven million pounds of rubbish.

Project AWARE partners with dedicated scuba divers to clean the world’s oceans, lakes, rivers and shorelines. These volunteers take part in practical cleanup solutions and collect data for the global Marine Debris Index which is vital to addressing global debris issues. Cleanup and data collection activities are supported by Project AWARE Foundation, partners and volunteers on an ongoing basis to reform, inform, educate and legislate.

A cleanup event has been registered for the 19th of September at Nisida Beach. This site is the one most frequented by our local divers and is also the most in need of our clean up efforts. This is also a wonderful time to bring any non-diving friends or family members and get them involved with SCUBA! Cleanup efforts will be done both above and below the water and along the shore line.

Some of the historical data for Italy:

	Total (bags of trash)
Shoreline and Recreational Activities (Bags, bottles, cups, and toys…)	5,632
Oceanway/Waterway Activities (buoys, floats, fishing line…)	1,177
Smoking related Activities (Cigarettes, Cigarette lighters, and butts)	8,419
Dumping Activities (Appliances, batteries, cars…)	596
Medical Personal Hygiene (Condoms, Diapers, syringes)	150
Marine Debris Total	15,974

Information taken from other volunteers and compiled by PADI AWARE

Please join us on Saturday 19, September for this attempt to give back to the one resource that gives us so much – our world’s Oceans. We will submit our findings to the Global Marine Debris Index once completed.

Come on over to the DivingItlay Forum and volunteer with us today!

I hope to see you all there to help us be more "AWARE"!

The DIVER buoyancy challenge

One of the hardest things to master is buoyancy.  If you had a good Open Water instructor then this skill was drilled into you from Day 1 and for very good reasons. 
If you are constantly losing your buoyancy underwater you put yourself and your dive buddy in some serious danger.  A couple of immediate things come to mind:

• Damage to reefs by your fins, body, gadgets on your BCD
• Silting out the water and making what may already be low visibility even lower
• risking an uncontrolled rapid ascent
• Constantly grabbing the ocean floor for stability…remember a LOT of little fishes like to lay just below the sand on the ocean floor!

These are just some of the things that make buoyancy control so important.  For many months I dove so over-weighted that I had to fully inflate my BCD on the surface to stay at eye level and then when I shot down to the bottom I had to inflate my BCD to insane levels to stay of the bottom.  Neutral?  HA!  I ended up doing a buoyancy check in shallower water and found out that I was diving with over 4 kg (8 lbs) of excessive weight! 

Over at DIVER magazine they devise a little game or obstacle course where divers were challenged and then judged on their ability to maintain good buoyancy under stress.  One of the obstacles was simply a kids toy where you put a triangle in the triangle shaped hole.  This exercise was meant to simulate a diver messing with their camera or other dive gear and forgetting to breathe properly.  Other activities included swimming through plastic squares at varying depths to simulate swim-throughs and wrecks.

A Sherriff's department in Laclede, Idaho wanted to train their divers on good buoyancy while under stress so they came up with a unique form of training:

Now you may not be doing swim-throughs on an obstacle course or carving up a pumpkin on Halloween but that doesn’t mean you can’t work on your buoyancy every time you go diving.  Of all the things I am thinking of during a dive – breathing, navigation, looking at the scenery – buoyancy is top on the list.

How good is your buoyancy?  Do you find safety stops at 3 m (10 ft) about as fun as going to the doctor for a shot?  Stop in and tell us your story!