France

Penny Glover's Body Recovered

The BS-AC rebreather chief instructor Penny Glover and her buddy, Jacques Filippi, went missing following a rebreather Trimix dive close to the island of Porquerolles in the south of France on Monday November 21, 2005 The island of Porquerolles is renowned for wrecks such as the Vieux Vapeur and the Farrando.

According to reports, the divers had deployed a surface marker buoy but failed to return to the surface. Coastguards in the Mediterranean resort were called immediately but an extensive search for the divers was hampered by bad weather and was called off on the Wednesday afternoon.

When the French government's search failed to locate the missing divers, the Filippi family asked marine contractors Comex to continue the search using remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). The bodies were found at 60m (197ft) around 500m (1640ft) off Caramel Reef and recovered by the police.

After learning to dive in 1986, Penny became a highly experienced and respected technical diver and BS-AC volunteer. An instructor trainer for semi-closed and closed-circuit rebreathers, she was instrumental in developing the first-ever rebreather courses for the BS-AC.

US

Rick Frehsee Takes Last Dive

One of the best known American underwater photographers/cinematographers has died of a heart attack, he was 63. Starting out in the 1970s as an expedition photographer/cinematographer, marine biologist and saturation diver, Rick changed to editorial and advertising photography in the 1980s covering the diving world in many prestigious outlets. He was a tutor in underwater photography for Nikon Inc. for 10 years and his is pictures appeared in Skin Diver magazine for more than 25 years.

Peter Benchley, 65

Peter Benchley, The man who wrote the book 'Jaws' has died of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive scarring of the lungs. He was 65. The book inspired Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie of the same name and this frightened millions of non-divers away from the sea.

In later life Peter Benchley became a champion for the preservation of Sharks and only last year he and his wife Wendy cage-dived with great white sharks off Guadeloupe, Mexico for their 40th wedding anniversary. Benchley is survived by his wife, three children and five grandchildren.

Israel

Woman Marries Dolphin

Sharon Tendler, a 41-years-old eccentric Jewish millionairess from East London has married 35-year old Cindy, one of the male dolphins at Dolphin Reef theme park, Eilat, Israel after 15-years of courtship. The British producer of rock concerts had been travelling to Eilat two or three times a year to spend time underwater with the friendly dolphin whose presence would calm her down.

Wearing a white dress the bride walked down the jetty to her groom in front of Dolphin Reef visitors. Cindy swam to the side of his enclosure and after the ceremony Tendler dived into the water in her dress to swim with her new husband.

Egypt

New Deep Dive Record

Using Trimix, British technical divers Leigh Cunningham and Mark Andrews are claiming the world's deepest wreck dive at 205m (673ft) on the wreck of the Jolanda/Yolanda, which slipped off Shark Reef/Jolanda Reef, Râs Muhammad, Egypt in a storm in 1985.

The divers had found the bow at around 155m (509ft) months earlier but in mid-December 2005, assisted by 10 support divers, they reached the stern at 205m (673ft).

South Africa

Diver 0, Shark 1

A local policeman who catches sharks for the shark aquarium in Jeffreys Bay, South Africa was bitten by a spotted raggedtooth shark when he tried to catch one.

Sergeant Ivan Gerger was admitted to the Humansdorp hospital after being bitten on both his hands and his right leg, the shark bit his palm and fingers but didn't bite anything off.

Indonesia

Ancient Treasure Discovery

A team of Australian, British, French, Belgian and Germans divers have excavated a 1,000 year old wreck laden with rare ceramics and jewellery about 270km (168miles) from Jakarta. Despite run-ins with another group of 'treasure hunters' and the Indonesian Navy, after 18 months and 24,000 dives to 54m (177ft) the divers have brought around 250,000 artefacts to the surface.

The finds include artefacts from China around 907 to 960 AD and ancient Egypt, gold, polished bronze, pearls, rubies, sapphires, and garnets.

50% of proceeds from the sale of the artefacts will go to the Indonesian government.

Hijacked Tin Found

Indonesian navy divers have found a shipload of refined tin worth US$4.7 million that was hijacked by pirates in September.

The M.V. Prima Indah, which was carrying 660 tonnes of tin produced by PT Koba Tin when it was hijacked en route to Singapore, was found in 35m (115ft) of water off the Indonesian island of Bangka - the owner is to salvage it. This was the second hijacking of a vessel carrying tin in Indonesian waters within a year. On the same route pirates hijacked a cargo of at least 575 tonnes in April, which has since been retrieved by its owner. "We don't understand why the pirates sank the ship. There are a lot of questions but we cannot speculate," said Noel Choong, who manages the International Maritime Bureau's Southeast Asian piracy reporting centre in Malaysia.

Nearly a third of 325 reported cases of marine piracy that took place in 2004 occurred in Indonesian waters. Between Indonesia and Malaysia the Strait of Malacca carries a quarter of global trade - there are fears that this pirate-infested shipping lane could become a target for a terrorist attack.

It is not clear why pirates are targeting vessels containing tin because the price is poor at the moment.

Singapore

Longest Scuba Dive World Record

In Singapore, adventurer Khoo Swee Chiow has set a new Guinness World Record for the longest scuba dive by staying underwater for 220 hours. Khoo took fruit and isotonic drinks every two hours and used a special cubicle within the tank as a toilet during his record stay underwater.

Although he failed in an attempt to swim the English Channel, Khoo has reached the North and South Poles and completed mountaineering's Seven Summits.

Caribbean

Survivor Wants Croissant

A 27-year-old French fisherman from Dominica survived on rainwater and a few flying fish that landed on the deck while drifting with a failed boat engine in the Caribbean for 20 days. "Do you have a pain au chocolat'(chocolate croissant) and milk?" were his first words when rescued by the crew of a Dutch frigate who spotted him while searching for drug smugglers near the Dutch Antilles.

Having drifted nearly 1,300 km (800 miles), he had lost weight and was dehydrated but otherwise okay.

A New Shark Thrill

A dive operator is offering dives in a small submarine in the Caribbean to see bluntnose sixgill sharks (Hexanchus griseus) off the Cayman Trench at depths up to 610m (2,000ft). These sharks normally live at around 1,875m (6,152ft) but at night they tend to rise to above 610m (2,000ft). They can grow to 5.5m (18ft)-long.

Staying at Anthony's Key Resort in Sandy Bay, Roatan, Bay Islands, Honduras, two divers each night dive in the submarine while others do normal wet night dives. The submarine is designed to carry three people to 9,843ft (3,000m). Taking two clients a time, the dives last up to six hours. Clients' leave at 11:00 pm and return to the hotel in the early morning. For 2006 the all-inclusive price for an eight-day trip including normal diving is US$2,750 per person

China

Diver Suing Park

A diver is suing Changfeng Park for compensation including mental anguish after a shark bit his ear and head while he was scuba diving in its aquarium. He was diving with two friends and two staff dive masters in the aquarium on the afternoon of July 17.

When their 15-minute dive was over, the dive masters' signalled to the three men to ascend to the surface of the aquarium where a shark bit the right side of his head and his ear, the wounds required three stitches.

He claims that the park should have had one dive master for each diver and should have provided protection equipment such as a helmet, but park managers say that he did not follow instructions and ascended too quickly, bumping into the shark. The park has agreed to pay his medical costs but not compensation for mental anguish.

Philippines

Three German Divers Adrift Overnight

In late November three German divers spent the night adrift at sea before they were rescued off the island of Limasawa, Southern Leyte in the Philippines.

The divers were staying at the Flower Beach, Beach and Diving Resort in Barangay Virgin, Anda, Bohol. Their banca boatman was worried when they failed to surface in a sensible time so he reported this to the owners of Flower Beach Resort, who in turn sought help from the Anda Police Station.

A Sikorsky helicopter from the Philippine Air Force searched for them for nearly two hours without success but near to noon the next day the crew of fishing boat from Limasawa spotted them and brought the exhausted divers ashore.

Australia

New Aircraft Wreck Mystery

Underwater film-maker Ben Cropp has discovered the wreck of a World War II aircraft at the northeastern corner of Australia off the tip of Cape York, Queensland.

He had heard about the wreck before but conditions were so good while he was filming in the area that he decided to search for it. Lying in coral at around 6m (19ft) with three of its four engines intact, it appears to have a 30m (98ft) wingspan and could be one of the largest aircraft ever to have crashed in Australia but its identity or country of origin is so far unknown.

Another Navy Vessel Sunk

HMAS Brisbane, a decommissioned Australian naval destroyer nicknamed the 'Steel Cat', was environmentally cleaned, conveniently holed, filled with concrete for ballast, the ship's bridge, missile launcher and propeller removed and then was scuttled with explosives on July 31, 2005 to become the newest artificial reef diving attraction in Australia's Queensland State. The vessel was scuttled off Mooloolaba, 2.8 nautical miles east of Mudjimba Island.

Hundreds of people gathered on beaches and high vantage points along the eastern state's Sunshine Coast and in spectator vessels, light aircraft and helicopters to watch as Peter Beattie, the Queensland State Premier detonated 38 explosives to sink the vessel. At Mudjimba Beach, people sat on sand dunes, while hundreds more climbed nearby Mount Coolum, the second-largest monolith in Australia after Ayers Rock, to view the scuttling.

The 3,370 tonne, 133m (436ft)-long, 14m (46ft)-beam HMAS Brisbane was a Charles F. Adams class guided missile destroyer (DDG) built by Defoe Shipbuilding Co., in Bay City, Michigan, USA. It was the third ship of this class to be purchased by the Royal Australian Navy, the others being the HMAS Hobart and HMAS Perth. These three destroyers formed the First Australian Destroyer squadron based at Sydney's Garden Island naval dockyard. The vessel was launched on May 5, 1966, commissioned on December 16, 1967 and decommissioned in 2001. The Brisbane was the second vessel of that name to serve in the Royal Australian Navy, the first was commissioned in 1916 and sold off to a Sheffield scrap yard, England in 1935.

Philippines

Another Megamouth Shark

In late January 2006 a rare 5m (16ft) megamouth shark (Megachasma pelagios) was found struggling to free itself from a net by fishermen just off the Bayawan coast, some 100km (62 miles) south of Dumaguete City.

A passing boat belonging to the Bayawan City government towed the animal to the city but it died before it could be released. This is the second reported sighting of a megamouth shark in Bayawan and probably the seventh in the Philippines. The first megamouth shark in the Bayawan City area was recorded on December 30, 2004.

The Philippines is a hotspot for megamouth sharks. On  January 30, 2005, a megamouth shark  measuring 4.17m (14ft) was found enmeshed in a fishing net in Barangay Agusan, Mindanao, only the 25th megamouth shark captured and killed worldwide. Of the 35 recorded megamouth findings throughout the world, the largest number have been found in Filipino waters. Two were found in Cagayan de Oro, Mindanao: Megamouth 11 on February 20, 1998 and Megamouth 18 on January 6, 2003. Megamouth 24 was found on November 4, 2004 at Iloilo, Panay Island. From recorded findings of this endangered species, it would seem that Macajalar Bay, Mindanao is important to megamouth sharks as three of the finds worldwide were in this bay.

Malaysia

Absolute Scuba

Absolute Scuba dive centre in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah has a brand new boat in its fleet. Absolute One is a fibreglass catamaran powered by two 250hp inboard engines which makes cruising in rough seas more comfortable. Also equipped with toilets, freshwater and a kitchen, long journeys for offshore diving will be pleasurable. Currently the boat is used for daily trips to the Rice bowl and Usukan wrecks. Future plans include daily trips to Pulau Tiga and Mangalum Island.

www.abscuba.com

Sarawak's Reef Ball Project

The Artificial reef ball project was initiated in 1998 along the islands of Talang-Talang Besar, Talang-Talang Kecil and Satang Besar. The project covered a radius of 4.8km (3 miles) and saw the deployment of a 1,000 reef balls.

Local fishermen are happy as catches are increasing as shrimps and crustaceans inhabit the reef balls attracting larger prey. Shrimp trawlers are rarely seen here now as they want to avoid destroying their nets on the reef balls, which is why they were laid in the first place.

As a result of this, marine park wardens are noticing more turtles arriving on the beaches here to lay their eggs. Turtles were once victims of these trawling nets. It seems the reef ball project is having a wholesome effect on Sarawak's marine life.

Protecting the Strait of Malacca

Scientists have called for a ban on fishing, scuba diving and shipping in the Strait of Malacca. A group of 32 researchers from  University Malaya spent time exploring five islands in the strait. Despite many who claim the strait is polluted, these five islands showed tropical biodiversity that amazed the scientists. Surveys revealed corals growing to twice normal size and new marine fungi that could be used in developing pharmaceuticals. These jewels are in peril of increasing traffic in the strait, although how it is possible to reduce shipping in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes remains problematic.