Ocean Blog

All you need is a school of fish, a helicopter and the willingness to jump from it.

I'm here at the International Coral Reef Symposium, which brings together coral reef researchers and managers from around the world to present and discuss strategies for saving one of the oceans' most vibrant and valuable ecosystems.

On Monday I watched as Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (pictured in the above blurry picture I took via Blackberry) addressed attendees and contributed to improving coral reefs in South Florida by signing a bill into law that will end the dumping of untreated sewage onto South Florida reefs through underwater outfall pipes.

Dolphins, sea otters, polar bears…bring up a marine mammal in conversation, and most people will think of a cute, charismatic and intelligent creature, fur optional.

What do you get when you mix members of Congress with exotic wildlife? Photo opps, and one of the most popular events on Capitol Hill.

Chances are, you’ve never heard of Hugh Bradner, and you didn’t know that he passed away this week. Or that he had a distinguished career as physicist, professor emeritus at Scripps and diving pioneer.

If you surf or dive, chances are you're in debt to Dr. Bradner for making your oceanic fun more comfortable; he also invented the wetsuit. Although many make this claim, it was Hugh Bradner who first reasoned that trapping water beneath a material containing air bubbles could provide insulation, and designed a suit based on this very principle.

These days, millions of divers, surfers, and even a penguin rely on wetsuits for warmth while enjoying aquatic adventures. Next time you don your wetsuit, take a moment to thank Hugh Bradner for his revolutionary idea.

Where do divers in the Midwest go to get their dive fix? To Chicago for the Our World Underwater dive show, a weekend of the latest gear, exotic travel and dive training.

It’s also the perfect place to talk with people about ocean conservation, so Oceana staff and WaveMaker volunteers passed out information on our campaigns and encouraged divers to become ocean advocates, starting with signing our shark petition.

In response to the alarming decline in shark populations, the petition asks Congress to support measures for better shark management, like landing sharks with their fins. Nearly 400 people signed on!

Since then, Congress has introduced the Shark Conservation Act of 2008, a bill which would strengthen protections for sharks.

A very special “Thank you” to our fabulous volunteers: Joyce Stempinski, Liz Sundquist, Parker Whiteway, Jeanine Bremer, Rebecca Hauser, Daniel Tamburich and the Feder family, Rachel, David and Ellie. And my dad (pictured), who enjoyed his first dive show.

Wetsuits may not be known for their comfort, but they do serve a purpose: to keep you warm in cool water.

That's the idea behind a wetsuit specially designed for Pierre, an African penguin who was losing feathers on his back. The resulting bald spot exposed him to cold temperatures and kept him out of the water.

Now with his custom wetsuit, Pierre is comfortably back in the water and growing new feathers.

You know how much your house is worth, your savings and investments ... but how much is a healthy ocean worth?  

Oceana wants to know how divers value ocean resources, so we're asking you to fill out a short online survey.  It only takes about 10 minutes, and it's completely voluntary and confidential.  At the end of the survey, participants will have the opportunity to enter a raffle for a free "Save Sea Turtles" t-shirt.  The survey will not only support our work protecting the oceans, it's also for the master's thesis of one of our interns and a much-needed contribution to academic research in environmental economics.  

Take the survey and tell us what the ocean is worth to you.  Thanks!

The chance to see a living coral reef, playful seals and penguins, giant octopi and ghostly beluga whales under the same roof and without getting wet is just the beginning of a trip to the Georgia Aquarium.  The star attraction?  The "Ocean Voyager" exhibit, a 6.33 million-gallon tank that is home to an array of fish species, including sawfish, rays, hammerhead sharks, groupers, and tunas.  Oh yes, and whale sharks soar majestically overhead as visitors gaze up from a 100-foot tunnel.

I'm not normally claustrophobic, but peering into the small space beyond the even smaller opening gives me the creeps.  I'm looking into a hyperbaric chamber, a metal canister with pressure locks, an institutional cot, and many tubes and wires connecting it to oxygen tanks and a console.  Portholes for visual inspections and an intercom system maintain communication between the patient in the chamber and the hyperbaric technician in charge of pressurizing and decompressing the air.  In my imagination, it's a terrifying ordeal; according to a friend who has had the misfortune of actually being in one, it's frightening...and boring.  

A hyperbaric chamber goes hand-in-hand with a diver's greatest fear: decompression illness (DCI), more commonly known as the bends.  Generally, a diver becomes "bent" when nitrogen bubbles form in the body and have difficulty squeezing through small passageways such as those in the joints, but more severe forms of DCI can result in death.  Hence, the fear.  A recompression chamber is a diver's best bet for redissolving the nitrogen bubbles and relieving the pain.  It's also very expensive (two words: DAN insurance), and time-consuming, since each treatment can last for several hours, and several treatments may be required.  Plus, you can't bring anything to read or otherwise occupy yourself, since pure oxygen is highly flammable.  So you sit, bored, unless there's a TV conveniently nearby.

As for most divers, it's an experience I wish to avoid, so for the time being I'm quite content to simply peer in, take a picture and walk away.