Noreen at Aquaviews offers 10 tips to stretch you tank of air. Between that, The Diving Blog’s article on how to improve your underwater air consumption, and more tips for improving air consumption, you should be spending hours under the surface.

A scuba diver in New York’s Niagara River found a 80 year old bottle of whiskey, presumably from the days of U.S. prohibition.

The U.N. says the world should protect coral reefs with networks of no-fishing zones. The study says that more, smaller pockets of protected waters is better than a smaller number of large protected areas.

Vegas is on a scuba kick. Scuba-certified guests of Mandalay Bay can plunge into their 1.3 million gallon aquarium, diving with six species of sharks, including sand tiger, white tip reef, and sandbar sharks. While still expensive, at $650 USD ($1000 for a pair of divers booking together), it is priced much more reasonably than the underwater show we talked about a few weeks ago. But since when has Vegas been about being reasonable?

Happy Wednesday everyone!

A Bulgarian scuba diver claims to have broken the world record for longest scuba dive, logging a continuous 50 hours underwater. Favorite article comment: “Bet his wetsuit stank.”

Duane at Precision Diving has a thoughtful writeup on being an instructor who goes above and beyond yet still respects the standards. After all, they are there for a reason.

A dive boat spotted a humpback whale off the coast of Atlantic City, of all places. I suppose the whale knew he had no chance of getting to Vegas.

I’ve slowed down the pace of articles here at The Diving Blog. Besides giving myself some breathing room to grow the site, it allows me to take the time to write more in-depth articles, like Monday’s post on bell diving.

Look for 3 articles a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Of course, there’s nothing stopping me from the occasional surprise post when inspiration strikes! For now, here are a few articles to enjoy elsewhere on the web.

Don’t know a knoll from a gully? Aquaviews gives a run down of dive site terrain terms.

DiverWire reports that DAN is expanding their data offerings to include complementary subscriptions to their magazine, Alert Diver, to academic libraries. Additionally, they are expanding access to an online interactive database. DAN has tons of great data that I hope to explore in the future, and these offerings only cement their standing as the go-to source for data on diving accidents and the like.

Blue Ocean Institute is now offering FishPhone, a free iPhone app for sustainable seafood options. I have not tried this app, but a pocket source for this type of information is never a bad thing.

Hope everyone’s end-of-summer (winter for you southern hemisphere folks) is going well!

People magazine has an article about James Cameron celebrating his birthday by diving to the bottom of the world’s deepest lake. He’ll go in a submersible, of course, like the one used to investigate the Titanic. The lake is Lake Baikal, in Russia.

The New York Times blog reports that you can use scuba to watch a Vegas show. The show is “La Reve” at Wynn Las Vegas. The show involves intricate waterworks and synchronized swimmers, so the package includes watching a “normal” show, then watching another show from underwater, to see how the magic happens. Prices are $2,000 USD for one and $3,000 USD for two. While it could be interesting, for that much money I’d rather spend two weeks in the Caribbean.

Natalie at About.com gives a list of things to do with old scuba cylinders.

Matt Weiss at DivePhotoGuide discusses the pros and cons of fiber optics vs. wired sync cords for connecting strobes to underwater cameras.

Last week I mentioned PADI was making their Rescue Diver course available for eLearning. PADI Instructor News has the details. One interesting note, instructors have to give students an in-person quiz to ensure they adequately learned the material from online.

Aquaviews profiles the Dutch Springs dive site. It’s a retired rock quarry used for check-out dives. I thought I should add a more somber note to the tone of the article. Bottom line, Dutch Springs is really only worth going to for certification dives, and then only if there’s no where else you can go. Visibility is low, the water is freezing, and there’s nothing really to see. I don’t think many people go there just for the sake of diving.

Those familiar with Bonaire are probably familiar with the Bonaire webcams. Diverwire reports that there are several new webcams up, including some underwater.

DivePhotoGuide posted a crazy little story about running into an alligator while diving. Included are pictures and videos. Read the story for the surprise ending. For those that know their reptiles, I already told you the surprise.

Wishing everyone out there a pleasant Hump Day!

Nevin at Aquaviews gives a brief introduction to the Cocos Islands off Costa Rica. Perhaps most famous for being the backdrop to Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, these island also sport some impressive diving full of large fish.

Later this week, PADI will make their rescue diver available online. As with the rest of their eLearning courses, this will allow you to do the knowledge portion of the course at your own pace in your own home. You’ll still have to get with an instructor for the open water portions, of course.

Conservationists have developed a new strategy to combat the growing lionfish population: eat them! There are claims that the meat is delicious, and a number of preparations are offered, including fried, plain, or with a variety of sauces.

Peter Hughes Diving, Inc., the well-known live-aboard operator in the Caribbean, is changing its operating name to Dancer Fleet, Inc. I can’t help but wonder if there is any correlation between this and repercussions from the infamous Wave Dance tragedy, which was a Peter Hughes ship.

On Monday I posted seven links, a fun diversion to help you learn more about this blog and the man behind it. Mike at Diving Discoveries decided to play along, so here’s his seven links.

Want to swim in a swirling tornado of barracuda? Check out barracuda point, a dive site off of Sipadan Island, near Malaysia.

This beriscope / fishing rod could be a fun toy for those who prefer to stay on the boat.

The article is currently down, but I’ll post it anyway hoping that it comes alive again. This scuba instructor teaches students how to blow artistic bubbles underwater. Now that’s a specialty to get excited about!

Have a great Wednesday!

Last week I ran across a little something on the internet called the 7 link challenge, for bloggers. You must post 7 links to posts on your blog given different prompts. I decided to participate. Here goes:

1. Your first post. To get the blog off to a start, I wrote a post called 10 reasons to start diving now, for those on the fence about getting certified, or those who are certified and have just been sitting on their bums.
2. A post you enjoyed writing the most. This is a tough one, since it’s obviously subjective. I really enjoyed writing about BCD overpressure relief valves. The article is the physics behind something you never think about, and I like physics.
3. A post which had a great discussion. This one is also hard to say, because so far there hasn’t been a lot of discussion on The Diving Blog (something I hope to change in the future!). One article that got some links and generated a mild ripple of discussion is good underwater photography: a key ingredient. This article talks about how you have to be a good diver before you can be a good underwater photographer.
4. A post on someone else’s blog that you wish you had written. Nothing immediately pops to mind, but this huge four part post on diving the Florida keys provides a lot of value, so I wish I had written it. Basically anything definitive that thoroughly covers a topic makes me jealous.
5. A post with a title that you are proud of. I wrote a post about dive etiquette called don’t make me wait. Not particularly clever or anything, but a little more forceful than most post titles here.
6. A post that you wish more people had read. I find the information in why do we feel the urge to breath? fascinating. That post probably gets a moderate amount of traffic, but it’s not in the top 10 or anything.
7. Your most visited post ever. This one’s easy, just look to the right at the Popular Posts widget. The most popular post was what makes something sink or float?, about what determines buoyancy. This has recently been overtaken by my post on emergency assistance plans. I am not surprised, because when this blog was just a tiny spark in my brain, I was doing my rescue diver course and looked on the internet for information about assistance plans, to no avail. Apparently there a lot of people out there doing the same.

I hope you enjoyed this little rundown of posts from The Diving Blog. I’d like your input, can you answer any of these questions about posts from The Diving Blog?