Tag Archives: Scuba

Business & Industry, Destinations & Sites

India creates new opportunities for scuba diving

India has announced plans to open 7 islands for developing tourism at Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep Islands. This includes creating infrastructure that makes previously hard-to-reach scuba sites easier to reach.

English: One of the uninhabited islands of Lak...
One of the uninhabited islands of Lakshadweep (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The new infrastructure catering scuba diving and water sports options should be ready by 2016.

According to the Lieutenant Governor of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, AK Singh, night landing facilities would be developed at Port Blair Airport already this year to allow international flights to stop over.

Beach resorts and water sports facilities will be build on three currently uninhabited Lakshadweep islands: Thinnakkara, Suheli Par and Cherium. The costs are estimated to be just under USD 100 million.

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Destinations & Sites, Equipment, General

Virtual Diving – Courtesy of Google

How would you like taking a peek underwater at your next diving holiday destination right now? Google Maps lets you do just that.

Most of us have used Google Maps and its Street View to explore the interesting locations: famous monuments, the city that we plan to visit, our childhood neighborhood.  Yes, Street View is the little “peg man” that you drop on the map and it opens up a panoramic view of the location.

Already back in 2012 Google announced that they have added the very first underwater panoramic images to Google Maps. The number of available underwater images have grown steadily ever since but, surprisingly few divers seem to be aware of that.

If you’d like to get started right a way, here is a link that takes you to Molokini Crater at Maui, Hawaii and another that takes you to see a turtle at Heron Island Resort at the Great Barrier Reef.

1885 Map of Maui
1885 Map of Maui (Photo credit: sjrankin)

To visit an underwater location of your choice, just open Google Maps and find the location on the map as you would any location ashore. You can then drag and drop the “peg man” onto the location if there are any images available.

There are regions where Google Maps seems to have managed to captured almost all major sites in their underwater imagery but in other areas, such as the Red Sea, there are hardly any.

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Marine Life, People and Stories, Skills and Training

Curious seal helps in mask clearing

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Here is a heartwarming video about a seal that is curious to learn more about how to clear the mask…

Apparently the video takes place in North Sea.

This video was uploaded to YouTube by Ben Burville. It would be interesting to know if  Ben himself appears on the video.  If you have the answer, please leave a comment.

This is not the only close encounter with a seal reported in Underwater Herald. Few months ago we wrote about the boy and the seal.

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Marine Life, People and Stories

Give me my camera, you octopus!

To make a great underwater film you need to get up close and personal with the creatures of the sea. Sometimes it just may happen that the creatures get, well, way too close and personal.

David Malvestuto and Warren Murray were diving in the waters near Carmel, California. Suddenly a giant Pacific octopus, which had been camouflaged and gone unnoticed by the men, started to move. Murray spotted the movement and turned towards the octopus and assumed it might swim away.

The octopus, however, had different plans. It wrapped its tentacles around Murray’s camera, hands and arms and would not let go. A golden opportunity for some film making:

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