Surface Interval #5 - Freediving Harassment Reports, a Missing Diver in Komodo and Bleached Coral That Recovers

Surface Interval is our weekly round-up: five stories from the diving world, in ninety seconds. Scuba, freediving, dive travel and ocean advocacy, every Sunday.This week:Former staff at One Ocean Diving, a Hawaii shark-tour company, say trainees worked unpaid for months and signed noncompetes on day one; the company disputes the accounts, says trainees will now be paid, and no charges have been filed.The United States will hold its first deep-sea mining auction off American Samoa on 19 November, offering 12.5 million hectares (31 million acres); the territory's governor does not support commercial mining.Archaeologists off Kekova Island in Türkiye may have found the oldest shipwreck on record, with more than 30 storage jars and three stone anchors; the date of about 2700 BCE has not been peer reviewed.The IUCN rates 96 percent of assessed shallow coral reef ecosystems critically endangered, meaning at risk of collapse within 50 years, with heat the main driver.The family of Jaws author Peter Benchley is auctioning his collection on Thursday 29 October, with bidding open online now and net proceeds going to five ocean groups.Get these and all the latest news from our weekly newsletter. Head to deeperblue.com/newsletter to subscribe today.Full stories at deeperblue.com. Covering the underwater world since 1996.

Surface Interval is our weekly round-up: five stories from the diving world, in ninety seconds. Scuba, freediving, dive travel and ocean advocacy, every Sunday.This week:Women across freediving are speaking out about harassment and assault, with many accounts involving men in authority; Molchanovs has cut ties with a brand collaborator, who denies the allegations, and Freediving Instructors International is reviewing reports about one instructor. No charges have been filed.A dive boat sank in Komodo National Park on 13 October; 29 of the 30 people on board were rescued and a 23-year-old Indonesian woman remains missing as divers and a remotely operated vehicle search.Fertiliser from Mississippi River farms supplied about 80 percent of the nitrogen reaching Flower Garden Banks, a coral reef 448km (278 miles) off Texas and Louisiana, in 2023, up from 30 to 50 percent late last century.A Stanford study found five bleached coral fragments regained their colour within seven weeks after touching healthy clones, while five kept apart died; the method works only in the lab so far.National Geographic's Expedition: Saving Our Seas premieres on Friday 13 November, with the first live footage of a giant Antarctic squid.Get these and all the latest news from our weekly newsletter. Head to deeperblue.com/newsletter to subscribe today.Full stories at deeperblue.com. Covering the underwater world since 1996.

Surface Interval is our weekly round-up: five stories from the diving world, in ninety seconds. Scuba, freediving, dive travel and ocean advocacy, every Sunday.This week:Eight scuba divers, an instructor and seven customers, were swept 14km (9 miles) from their dive site off Japan's Hachijo Island on 3 October and lifted out by Japan Coast Guard aircraft after more than five hours; all were conscious and went to hospital as a precaution.Alexey Molchanov set a new men's constant-weight world record of 137m (449ft) at the AIDA Depth World Championships in Limassol and took the overall title, while Hungary's Zsofia Torocsik set a women's free-immersion record at 108m (354ft).A SkyTruth satellite study estimates oil slicks cover 1.58 million square kilometres (610,000 square miles) of ocean a year, with about 81 percent of the slicks whose source could be identified traced to ships.A Japanese research team's multibeam survey puts the Challenger Deep at 10,927m (35,850ft), with five sound-velocity models spreading the eastern-basin result by up to 18m (59ft).And SCUBAPRO says its free repair for the Monorail weight pocket's release handle, which can detach in use, is available through dealers, after a recall announced in April.Get these and all the latest news from our weekly newsletter. Head to deeperblue.com/newsletter to subscribe today.Full stories at deeperblue.com. Covering the underwater world since 1996.

Surface Interval is our weekly round-up: five stories from the diving world, in ninety seconds. Scuba, freediving, dive travel and ocean advocacy, every Sunday.This week:A second tourist has died on a Discover Scuba dive at Tioman Island in Malaysia, eighteen days after the first, and the Malaysia Scuba Diving Association is calling for a National Recreational Diving Safety Committee to set minimum operator standards.A University of Warsaw team has completed twenty-two dives on a seventeenth-century wreck in Germany's Bay of Greifswald, recovering an anchor, rope and shoe soles from 7.6m (25ft) before LNG pipeline construction covers the site.A Pan American spearfishing champion has been missing off Chile's Atacama coast since 26 September; searchers recovered his fins, speargun and torn wetsuit top, and two Chilean scientists say the puncture pattern does not match a great white, while the Navy declines to endorse any theory.The AIDA Depth World Championships opened in Limassol, Cyprus, with a record 178 athletes from 55 countries, Zsofia Torocsik of Hungary taking women's Constant Weight No Fins gold at 78m (256ft) and Petar Klovar of Croatia the men's at 96m (315ft).And DEEP's Vanguard habitat, 17m (56ft) down on Tennessee Reef in the Florida Keys, has an interim classification certificate from DNV — the first subsea habitat built this century and the first in forty years — clearing its crews to begin saturation diving.Get these and all the latest news from our weekly newsletter. Head to deeperblue.com/newsletter to subscribe today.Full stories at deeperblue.com. Covering the underwater world since 1996.

Surface Interval is our weekly round-up: five stories from the diving world, in ninety seconds. Scuba, freediving, dive travel and ocean advocacy, every Sunday.This week:One of the volunteer divers who helped bring twelve boys and their football coach out of Thailand's Tham Luang cave in 2018, Canadian technical diver Erik Brown, has died at 44.Six more countries ratified the High Seas Treaty at the UN this week, taking the total to 100 and setting up January's first Conference of the Parties to pick the first high-seas marine protected areas.A British cave diver has died in the Gouffre de Saint-Sauveur in south-west France, found at 88m (289ft) after a two-day search, on what was his 1,000th dive.DEEP and DDRC Healthcare have launched a ten-day Diver Medic Technician course in the Wye Valley from 30 November, open to recreational divers with no prerequisites at £1,800.And the AREX ONE augmented reality dive mask has gone to crowdfunding, putting depth and no-stop limits in the diver's field of view.Get these and all the latest news from our weekly newsletter. Head to deeperblue.com/newsletter to subscribe today.Full stories at deeperblue.com. Covering the underwater world since 1996.

Surface Interval is our new weekly round-up: five stories from the diving world, in ninety seconds. Scuba, freediving, dive travel and ocean advocacy, every Sunday.This week:A freediving instructor trainer is held in Sorong after a video showed a diver spearing a critically endangered hawksbill inside a Raja Ampat no-take zone. Indonesian instructors traced his movements and immigration stopped him at the boarding gate. AIDA has suspended him and SSI has opened a case. He denies being the diver in the footage and no charges have been filed.New research from the University of Tasmania surveyed 552 marine protected zones and found under 2% of the ocean is effectively protected, against the 9.8% officially reported.Officials in Palau have called off the five-day search for two divers lost on the Peleliu Wall.A US federal court has blocked the sale of 361 Titanic artifacts, ruling the collection stays whole.And DAN has integrated its emergency hotline into Garmin's inReach satellite network.Get these and all the latest news from our weekly newsletter. Head to deeperblue.com/newsletter to subscribe today.Full stories at deeperblue.com. Covering the underwater world since 1996.

Every week something happens underwater that you should know about. And every week, most of it passes you by.Surface Interval is our answer to that. Five stories from the diving world, in ninety seconds. Scuba, freediving, dive travel, and the ocean itself.DeeperBlue has covered this beat since 1996. Thirty years of reading every competition result, every recall notice, every court filing, so you don't have to.Records broken. Gear worth knowing about. Trips worth booking. And the stories parts of this industry would rather you scrolled past.New episode every Sunday. Ninety seconds. No filler.Get these and all the latest news from our weekly newsletter. Head to www.deeperblue.com/newsletter to subscribe today.Full stories at deeperblue.com. Covering the underwater world since 1996.

Welcome to Season 4 of the DeeperBlue Podcast!  In episode 10 you can look forward to: The latest scuba diving, freediving, ocean, and diving travel news that has happened in the last week from around the world underwater with host Stephan Whelan and producer Jason Elias.Then Stephan speaks with Isaac "Shrek" Daly - founder of the Noob Spearo podcast.  They discuss his journey into Scuba Diving, Freediving, and then Spearfishing which took him onto the journey to help people via his podcast and his Kickstarter books.  We then hear a top tip from our Founder and Host Stephan on why there is no such thing as an ocean media mogul.And then finally we hear a listener-submitted Best Dive Ever from Sara Revell about diving off a liveaboard in the Pacific.If you’d like to be notified when new shows air, please subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app or head to deeperblue.com/podcast to signup for the newsletter.Season 4 of the DeeperBlue Podcast is brought to you by Suunto.  Finnish engineering pioneering adventure from mountain top to ocean floor since 1936.Don't forget to give us ★★★★★, leave a review, and tell your friends about us - every share and like really makes a difference.

Welcome to Season 4 of the DeeperBlue Podcast!  In episode 9 you can look forward to: The latest scuba diving, freediving, ocean, and diving travel news that has happened in the last week from around the world underwater with host Stephan Whelan and producer Jason Elias.Then co-host Linden Wolbert speaks with the marine filmmaker, film director, and cinematographer Bob Talbot.  They discuss his profound connection to the natural world that led him to work on some of the biggest Hollywood films out there.  He also tells us about a moment when a pod of dolphins fully accepted him in Bimini.We then hear a top tip from the Founder and Host of Noob Spearo podcast Isaac Daly on the infamous aqua-bog.And then finally we hear a listener-submitted Best Dive Ever from Arlette Diederiks who tells her about a magical dive in the Belize Blue Hole.If you’d like to be notified when new shows air, please subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app or head to deeperblue.com/podcast to signup for the newsletter.Season 4 of the DeeperBlue Podcast is brought to you by Suunto.  Finnish engineering pioneering adventure from mountain top to ocean floor since 1936.Don't forget to give us ★★★★★, leave a review, and tell your friends about us - every share and like really makes a difference.

Welcome to Season 4 of the DeeperBlue Podcast!  In episode 8 you can look forward to: The latest scuba diving, freediving, ocean, and diving travel news that has happened in the last week from around the world underwater with host Stephan Whelan and producer Jason Elias.Then producer Jason speaks with Marine Biologist, Shark Conservationist, and founder of non-profit Sharks4Kids Jillian Morris.  They discuss how she became fascinated with sharks from 5-years-old.  They also discuss an amazing dive witnessing the magic of a birthing shark in Bimini.We then hear a top tip from the Founder of Stream2Sea Autumn Blum on how to handle "dive-hair".And then finally we hear a listener-submitted Best Dive Ever from Mark Killian who talks about conquering his fear of jellyfish on his first dive.If you’d like to be notified when new shows air, please subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app or head to deeperblue.com/podcast to signup for the newsletter.Season 4 of the DeeperBlue Podcast is brought to you by Suunto.  Finnish engineering pioneering adventure from mountain top to ocean floor since 1936.Don't forget to give us ★★★★★, leave a review, and tell your friends about us - every share and like really makes a difference.