The Scuba News New Zealand

Being only five hours away on a direct flight from Auckland, I am surprised more people don’t or haven’t visited Cairns and the surrounding Tropical north Queensland across the ditch. Having lived in Queensland for four years in my early 20’s, I fell in love with the place and realised how lucky we were as Kiwis to have such easy access to the warmth, sunshine and more importantly – the Great Barrier reef. It’s been over a few years since I lived and worked there, and I felt it was time to go back and visit my old haunts (particularly the Reef of course) after hearing how El Nino, flooding and the dreaded Crown of thorns seastar (COTS) had started to decimate the coral.

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 iconic Andrea Doria wreck featured in the press in June 2016 when OceanGate explored the wreck with their manned submersible and assessed her current condition. The footage that was captured showed considerable deterioration of the wreck in the last two years alone. As divers continue to explore this luxury liner, we look back at Bob Wilson’s account of his Andrea Doria 50th anniversary dive in 2006.

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.