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To celebrate the Birmingham Dive Show (DIVE 2016) taking place at the NEC, diving holiday specialist, Regaldive, has released a range of exciting new Dive Show Offers. Regaldive will be exhibiting at DIVE 2016 on Stand 330 on 22 & 23 October and the team will be on standby to help divers to plan their scuba diving adventures in more than 25 exciting worldwide destinations.

In late September, Inuit artist Annie Pootoogook died tragically in Ottawa. Pootoogook was an award-winning illustrator from Cape Dorset, Nunavut. Her ink-and-crayon depictions of everyday life in the north — families sitting to eat a meal of seal meat or shopping at the Arctic co-op — received international acclaim. In contrast to the idealized vision many Canadians have of the north, of majestic rock and ice landscapes or charismatic wildlife like polar bears, Pootoogook’s drawings often reflected the crushing poverty northern families face and its devastating impacts on their health and well-being.

Regaldive, the diving holiday specialist, is pleased to announce that it has recently expanded its liveaboard programme with the addition of two new Truk Lagoon liveaboards, SS Thorfinn and Truk Odyssey. Best explored by liveaboard, Truk Lagoon (Chuuk Lagoon) offers a unique dive destination, with some of the finest wreck diving in the world!

The Underwater Archaeological Society of BC (UASBC) announces its latest exploration project. Starting fall 2016 the UASBC plans to survey and document the Historic Shipwrecks of the Southern Gulf Islands. The project is expected to take three years to complete and will involve archival research, underwater fieldwork, site documentation and mapping.

It’s the end of September and we are coming to the end of the diving season here in Ontario, except for hardcore divers who still go out in the cold water to take advantage of the better visibility. The operators on the St Lawrence are starting to pull boats out of the water and get them ready for winter storage. If you are still looking to dive some of the operators will be keeping a boat in until the end of October and running on the weekends.

Life evolved to live within limits. It’s a delicate balance. Humans need oxygen, but too much can kill us. Plants need nitrogen, but excess nitrogen harms them, and pollutes rivers, lakes and oceans. Ecosystems are complex. Our health and survival depend on intricate interactions that ensure we get the right amounts of clean air, water, food from productive soils and energy from the sun.

The Whitsundays is a collection of 74 islands off of Australia’s central east coast and part of the majestic world heritage site, the Great Barrier Reef. Second only to Cairns, it is one of the most popular places for tourists to visit the reef. It attracts nearly 600,000 visitors each year with over 300 tour boats in operation. Due to the popularity of this particularly beautiful and accessible part of the reef, much damage has been caused due to the dropping of anchors. This habitat loss has then become one of the most widespread causes of marine species decline on the Great Barrier Reef.

My number one priority for new divers is to own a good, big Surface Marker Buoy (SMB), and know how to use it. Practice deploying on every dive so you are familiar and comfortable with using it. Buy one that is at least five-feet tall so you are visible to boaters. The biggest mistake people make with SMB’s is not keeping tension on the line. If there is not tension on the line the SMB will not stand up. It will just lie on the surface and cannot be seen.