Underwater News
On my Big Animals trips, it's the locals who make the difference in our journey. Observing Cubanos' colorful, robust and up beat tempo overshadows the limitations I've observed imposed on their lives. They live in a city and countryside that is basically "frozen in time". There is a fifty-year "time warp".
San Crist?bal de la Habana or Havana, Cuba's capital city is only a short ninety miles from Florida. Having visited the island country four times, I have fallen in love with its beauty, culture, and now its scuba diving. Yes, I would rate Havana as a city comparable to Paris, Rome, Oslo, London and even Shanghai.
Travel to Cuba is now permissible for US citizens through cultural exchange programs sanctioned by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, which in the first phase of my journey gave me the freedom to interact in the daily activities of the Cuban community, experiencing their architecture, history, art, culture, and the music of daily life in and around Havana.
In the second phase of the trip, I visited the Gardens of the Queen to witness first hand the efforts being taken to preserve and protect a marine ecosystem that is unique to the southern coast of Cuba. "Jardines de la Reina" was declared a Marine Park in 1996. By limiting t...
We can't say HONDURAS is unknown to scuba divers. Roatan is known and so is Utila, both of them dive locations that do attract scuba divers, mostly from the US, and do provide plenty of dive centers and all the dive logistics, keen divers do expect.
And then there are the CAYOS COCHINOS, a group of small islands just between the mainland of Honduras and Roatan. Cochinos Cays are a group of two small islands (15°58'18.99"N86°28'31.34"W) (Cayo Menor and Cayo Grande) and 13 more small coral cays situated 30 kilometres (19mi) northeast of La Ceiba on the northern shores of Honduras.
The Cayos are part of the Bay Islands (Islas de la Bahía ), some people still like to call them Hog Islands, referring to the famous pirate Henry Morgan who ( this it what the legends tells ) "planted" hogs on these cays so he and his pirate fellows would have meat on their return trips.
Around 100 people (Garifuna people) are living on those islands, and yes, scuba-diving is possible! "The Cayos Cochinos reefs are the least disturbed ecosystem in the Bay Islands. The waters around this collection of coral cays are a marine biologist's dream: protected by the government, off-limits to commercial divers and fishermen, and busy with creatures that ...
Campi Flegrei are a vast volcanic area situated north-west from Naples where history and nature merge between earth and sea, and the coastline represents the symbiosis between mankind history and sea life. The Campi Flegrei waters reveal to divers these wonders.
Here, the sea preserved topical the signs left by the passage of ancient Romans and Greeks.
Ruins of villas, thermal baths and roads lie just a few meters from the surface and, together with marine life and gaseous emissions, create a unique and unexpected underwater Mediterranean landscape.
This extraordinary characteristics lead to the creation of a Marine Protected Area between the municipalities of Bacoli and Pozzuoli. Octopuses, small crustaceans and fishes snoop undisturbed around submerged buildings and roads, colonized by sessile organisms such as algae, sponges, sea anemones, sea urchins and starfishes.
Dive sites of the submerged archeological park of Baia.
Emperor Claudio's submerged nymphaeum: a rectangular building with a semicircular apsis and four lateral recesses, housing the statues.
Prothyrum Villa and Pisoni's Villa: just outside the nymphaeum, there is Herculanea road, leading just in front of two ...
If you don't know by now, Anilao in the Philippines is one of the best places on the planet for underwater macro photography.
Just two and a half hours drive south of Manila, with over 400 dive resorts to choose from, it boils down to ease of access, dive guides and your budget.
This past April, we selected the Anilao Photo Hotel to host our Underwater Photo Workshop. Owned and operated by renowned Tim Ho, an advocate for point and shoot?no strobe underwater photography and boy if you haven't seen what he can do with an Olympus TG2, go have a look on Facebook Underwater Art! That little camera is enough to make most macro shooters turn in their SLR's.
Of course learning how to get the maximum out of your camera is what Tim professes. Anilao is about the underwater photography. Eat, sleep and dive, upload?download, and get up and go do it again. Most of the dive guides at Anilao Photo Hotel have all won awards for their photography in the Anilao Photo contests. The Anilao Photo Hotel is a simple hotel offering 6 rooms with air conditioning and 6 without, serving typical Philippine fare. It is not fancy, but they do have a great layout, comfortable rooms, dedicated camera rinse tanks, an excellent dive platf...
The overall purpose of the charity Friends of Lembeh-Pulisan-Bangka e.V. is to maintain and protect the Wallacea Region of North Sulawesi, Indonesia with ist unique marine and terrestrial fauna from harmful and environmental destructive practices.
Tasks of the charity comprise publicity, mediation between public, semi-public and private institutions, with an emphasis on education and environmental awareness with the aim of establishing a sustainable and environmentally friendly eco-tourism in the region.
The charity aims to co-operate with other regional bodies in order to achieve its goal. Furthering sustainable methods in the sectors agriculture, fisheries and tourism the charity condemns extractive mining practices which tend to spread in the region and bear massive damage for the environment and the indigenous people living there.
A focus is on co-operation with regional bodies to further education by providing school sponsorships and supporting local ngos in awareness programmes.
The charity is a non-profit, non-government, independent organization (NGO) that will raise funds to maintain its projects. Donations are tax-deductable.
The charity Friends of Lembeh-Pulisan-Bangka e.V. supports the local Bangka Conservation Fund (BCF) in its purpose to save t...
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