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Under pressure: German diver sets breathtaking record

Kate Connolly in Berlin
Friday August 10, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

A German man has broken his own world record for holding his breath under water after managed to remain submerged for 15 minutes and two seconds.

Tom Sietas, a 30-year-old engineering student from Hamburg exceeded his own Guinness record time by 37 seconds at the world free diving championships in New York.

Emerging from his single-breath dive, which was watched live on US national television, Mr Seitas said: "I'm hungry". He prepared for his record-breaking stunt with a five-hour fast which helps to slow his metabolism.

While his feat went virtually unnoticed in his native Germany, he was celebrated in New York by stars such as Jennifer Lopez and Michael Jordan.

Mr Sietas began free-diving over a decade ago after a scuba diving instructor he met on a holiday in Jamaica recognised his extraordinary ability to hold his breath.

He has since held a total of 12 world records.

Tim has informed us that he is getting really close to this record ;D

Underwater archaeologists may have found 'Water Witch'

Powered by CDNN - CYBER DIVER News Network
by OLIVER TEVES

SAVANNAH, Georgia (25 Oct 2007) -- Captured by Confederate sailors in a bloody midnight sneak attack in 1864, the gunboat Water Witch became one of the few Civil War ships to sail under the flags of both the Confederate and Union navies.

Archaeologists say they found strong evidence Thursday they've located the Water Witch's wreckage buried under more than 10 feet of mud in the Vernon River south of Savannah.

Divers pushed a 20-foot metal rod through the river mud Thursday and tapped solid wood and metal underneath. It was the same location where an 1865 survey map showed Confederate sailors burned the ship to prevent Union Gen. William T. Sherman's army from recapturing it.

"In all likelihood, it is the Water Witch," said Gordon Watts, an underwater archaeologist hired by the state of Georgia. "We'd have to absolutely dig something up to say for sure."

If Watts is correct, the Water Witch would be just the third Civil War shipwreck _ along with the ironclad CSS Georgia and the blockade runner CSS Nashville _ to be found out of dozens known to have been sunk in Georgia waters, said Dave Crass, Georgia's state archaeologist.

"There are lots more that are out there and we know where the are, but it's cost prohibitive" to go after them, Crass said.

Archaeologists got lucky with the Water Witch. The state Department of Transportation had to survey a part of the Vernon River it plans to bridge with a parkway extension. The agency agreed to go ahead and check a spot just two miles away where the Water Witch was believed to have burned.

Using a magnetometer, a giant metal detector, surveyors detected large iron objects scattered beneath the river's surface in an area 200 feet long. An 1865 map marked the same spot as the Water Witch's grave.

Crass said the state will consult with the federal government, which technically owns the wreckage, to see if they support funding an expedition to verify whether the diver found the Water Witch.

The 160-foot, wooden-hulled Water Witch was built by the U.S. Navy in 1851 as a sort of hybrid of old and new seafaring technologies. Though outfitted with a steam engine and side-mounted paddle wheels, the ship also had 90-foot masts for sailing.

During the Civil War, the Water Witch patrolled blockades off the coasts of Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, but mostly in the waters of Ossabaw Sound between Ossabaw Island and the Georgia mainland 15 miles south of Savannah.

That's where Confederate Navy Lt. Thomas Pelot got assigned to lead a raid to capture the ship in the early morning darkness on June 3, 1864.

Pelot led a group of about 120 men who used small boats to slip alongside the Water Witch undetected. Their numbers gave them a healthy advantage over the ship's crew of 65 sailors.

Snorkeler finds rare whelk pearl

East Bay Newspapers

October 16, 2007

A Warren man snorkeling for whelk at the Bristol Narrows recently came back with more than he bargained for — a pearl that could net him thousands of dollars.

Charles Flowers, 44, a flooring contractor by trade, was at the Narrows with a friend in late September when he decided to put on his snorkel, mask and fins and search for whelk near the channel. Whelk, often called conch, are common in area waters but are harvested not for pearls, but for their meat.

"I just wanted some dinner," he said. "I figured I would have a little conch salad."

So when he brought his catch home later that day, the last thing he expected to spot was "something that looked like it didn't belong" when he extricated the animal from its shell. When he investigated, gingerly prodding the small round ball from the meat, he was amazed.

"Sh-bing boom bang, there it was," he said, smiling at the memory. "I cut that bad boy open and there it was. I couldn't believe it."

In the two weeks since the discovery, Mr. Flowers has become quite the expert on pearls, which are layers of nacre, or mother of pearl, that form around grains of sand or other contaminants, most often in oyster shells. Though gemologists say whelk and conch pearls aren't technically pearls since they contain no nacre but a similar substance, they acknowledge that they're extremely rare — perhaps one in 10,000 whelk or conchs will produce one.

His find, which is salmon-colored and a few millimeters in diameter, may be destined for a piece of custom jewelery. After spreading word of his find, he said he's received a $2,500 offer for the pearl. Should it sell, it'll help him weather the winter; the flooring business has been down recently with the decline of the housing market, he said.

This isn't the first oddity Mr. Flowers has found. A self-confessed "water nut," he spends a lot of his time snorkeling and swimming the East Bay's waterways. He once found a tiny oyster pearl, about half the size of a grain of rice, and has also found a quahog pearl, though by his own admission it is quite ugly.

The whelk pearl is different, he said. A rich, warm orange, it has a "fire" to it, he said. And what of the animal that created it?

"It was delicious."

By Ted Hayes

thayes@eastbaynewspapers.com

Scientists go underwater for space study

Published: Aug. 13, 2007 at 1:41 PM
KEY LARGO, Fla., Aug. 13 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have gone underwater to develop psychological tools that can be used in space to assess stress, fatigue and cognitive fitness.

"On exploration missions, quick self tests could allow astronauts to assess how they are functioning …" said David Dinges of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute’s Neurobehavioral and Psychosocial Factors Team. "In this mission, we’ll gather data to help refine the self tests and develop an interface component that provides immediate feedback to the user."

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Extreme Environment Mission Operations Project 13, or NEEMO 13, is based in Aquarius -- the world’s only underwater research habitat -- in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, 63 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

"The NEEMO 13 environment is similar to lunar and other exploration missions in many respects," said Dinges. "There is isolation, confinement to a small habitat and work area, the need to work together as a team, extravehicular activities, and no immediate rescue in the event of an emergency."

NASA astronaut and aquanaut Nicholas Patrick is leading the Aug. 6-15 NEEMO 13 project, with astronaut Richard Arnold, Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Christopher Gerty, a NASA engineer.

-United Press International 2007

Armed and dangerous - Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina

by Mark Townsend Houston
Sunday September 25, 2005
The Observer

It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

Dolphins have been trained in attack-and-kill missions since the Cold War. The US Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels. Their coastal compound was breached during the storm, sweeping them out to sea. But those who have studied the controversial use of dolphins in the US defence programme claim it is vital they are caught quickly.

Leo Sheridan, 72, a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry, said he had received intelligence from sources close to the US government's marine fisheries service confirming dolphins had escaped.

'My concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire,' he said. 'The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?'

Usually dolphins were controlled via signals transmitted through a neck harness. 'The question is, were these dolphins made secure before Katrina struck?' said Sheridan.

The mystery surfaced when a separate group of dolphins was washed from a commercial oceanarium on the Mississippi coast during Katrina. Eight were found with the navy's help, but the dolphins were not returned until US navy scientists had examined them.

Sheridan is convinced the scientists were keen to ensure the dolphins were not the navy's, understood to be kept in training ponds in a sound in Louisiana, close to Lake Pontchartrain, whose waters devastated New Orleans.

The navy launched the classified Cetacean Intelligence Mission in San Diego in 1989, where dolphins, fitted with harnesses and small electrodes planted under their skin, were taught to patrol and protect Trident submarines in harbour and stationary warships at sea.

Criticism from animal rights groups ensured the use of dolphins became more secretive. But the project gained impetus after the Yemen terror attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Dolphins have also been used to detect mines near an Iraqi port.

I guess we'll stay out of the gulf for a few months!

Shark shocker

16:27 20 September 2005

NewScientist.com news service

Barry Fox

The two divers left for 6 hours in shark-invested waters near Australia's Great Barrier Reef this week would surely have welcomed the wetsuit being patented by Vladimir Vlad in the US.

The new suit takes advantage of the fact that sharks have sensitive receptors in their snouts which detect electrical fields in the water. This helps them track prey, but if the field is too powerful the shark backs off.

Made of metal and neoprene in the usual way, the wetsuit has thin piezoelectric ceramic fibres woven into its fabric. The fibres extend along the body and limbs, connecting to metal electrodes which harvest any charge generated when the piezo material is deformed by the wearer’s movement.

The voltage delivered by the fibres depends on their length and how many there are. During normal swimming, the suit continually generates several volts which flow through the water between the electrodes to create a deterrent field. If the diver sees an undeterred shark and swims fast to get away – a natural reaction, one suspects – the suit generates much higher voltages and stronger fields.

If the shark still fails to get the message and bites the suit, it gets a shock in the mouth and – hopefully – gives up for the day.

Read the shark shock patent here

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8027

Hurricane fixes artificial reef by righting ship

USS Spiegel Grove was on its side, but Dennis flipped it to perfect position

	The outline of the USS Spiegel Grove is seen on Tuesday, a day after the ship was righted by Hurricane Dennis.
Fraser Nivens / Florida Keys News Bureau

MSNBC News Services

Updated: 1:25 p.m. ET July 13, 2005

KEY LARGO, Fla. - What humans were unable to do, Hurricane Dennis handled nicely.

The former USS Spiegel Grove, serving as artificial reef on the bottom in 130 feet of water off Key Largo, flipped upright as the core of the storm passed some 200 miles to the west, kicking up 20-foot waves.

“Waves that high in close proximity to the reef can produce unusually strong currents with tremendous force,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Strahan.

The upright position is what project organizers had wanted since the retired 510-foot ship prematurely sank and rolled over May 17, 2002, leaving its upside-down bow protruding from the water and creating a navigation hazard.

Salvage crews later used giant airbags and steel cables to nudge it over onto its starboard side, where it was safe from passing vessels but slightly disorienting for divers to swim through.

The Spiegel Grove is the most popular artificial wreck in the Florida Keys, home at least 166 different fish species, said Lad Akins of the Reef Environmental Education Foundation.

But its realignment will make it a better platform for sports divers.

“I’m flabbergasted,” Rob Bleser, volunteer project director, said after a dive on the newly oriented Spiegel Grove. “Nature took its course and put it where it belongs.”

The Spiegel Grove reef is about six miles off Key Largo. The ship, designed to carry cargo and craft for amphibious landings, was retired by the Navy in 1989. It served in the Mediterranean and Caribbean.

The Cold War relic was the largest vessel ever deliberately sunk to form the backbone of a coral ridge to nurture sea life and amuse scuba divers.