Scientists discover deepest coral reefs off Britain

The deepest coral reefs off the coast of Britain have been explored for the first time revealing ancient coral, colourful fish, deepwater sharks and even species that were previously unknown to science.

The five cold-water coral reefs were found by scientists monitoring an underwater mountain range 200 miles off the coast of North West Scotland last month.

The reefs are more than a mile under the ocean in dark, cold waters but boast a wealth of marine life. By sending hi-tech cameras thousands of feet under the water scientists were able to study coral similar to those that built Australia's Great Barrier Reef, star fish, sea urchins, sponges and strange deepwater fish...[Link]

‘Diver Ed’ and ‘Captain Evil’ show visitors new worlds underwater

Carving a wake in the early morning calm of Frenchman's Bay, the Starfish Enterprise steams out of Bar Harbor on its maiden voyage.

Onboard, 11 passengers-parents and kids, all sporting duct-tape name tags-are sitting on long yellow benches.

Ed Monet, 43, known to his passengers as Diver Ed, stands by the cabin. A few kids begin to laugh as Monet, bulging his eyes, squeezes into his one-piece dry suit. The heavy neoprene stretches tightly against his thick chest and legs. His long tangled hair and most of his face are covered in a hood made of the same elastic material.

Speaking in a loud, brassy voice, he explains his gear as he prepares to dive "These air tanks hold pressurized air like your car tires-air that I breathe. But instead of 32 psi [pounds per square inch] it has 3,200. This could blow through a 12-story concrete building."

Hoisting the large silver canisters, he grins. "Now I'm going to strap it to my back."...[Link]

Whimsical images of seldom-seen underwater wonders

Divers are adventurers who plumb the depths to explore this watery planet we ironically call Earth.

Seekers of living treasure, diver-photographers gift the world with whimsical images of seldom-seen underwater wonders.

The Pacific Northwest is a divers’ paradise with a world-famous marine ecosystem. Jacques Cousteau and National Geographic Magazine rated this diving area as the world’s second best, surpassed only by the Red Sea.

Waters off Vancouver Island boast 120-plus dive sites, and a variety of activity options including drift dives, wall dives, and shipwrecks.

The appeal is being able to experience a psychedelic underwater landscape filled with every type, colour and size of sponge, sea-plume, nudibranch, abalone and anemone, including Campbell River’s renowned strawberry anemone, which carpets the ocean bottom, turning it a deep red colour.

Becoming a diver and learning the sport of scuba requires proper training and equipment: this involves time for study, upgrading and practice, and gear such as regulators, tanks and diving suits. Don’t forget about dive knives, dive lights, signaling devices, a lift bag, drysuit undergarments, dry gloves and that all-important underwater camera.

Now, hot off the press, a new handbook: The Northwest Dive Guide is sure to appeal to all levels of divers and packs a hefty three-in-one punch with sections on training, equipment and destinations. Richly illustrated, the guide features 130-plus colourful photos...[Link]

Below the surface

Descending to the Lumberman, when visibility is good, is like dropping into the movie version of a shipwreck.

The stern — the back end of the three-masted schooner — is closest to the mooring buoy line’s anchor point. The rest of the ship points west, back toward shore.

The ship still has sides and a deck and one partial mast, said Bob Jaeck of Caledonia.

“It almost looks like a schooner going by,” the longtime Lake Michigan diver and shipwreck historian said.

The Lumberman is 126 feet long and 26 feet wide. It rests intact, upright on the lake bottom, sunk into the lake bed about where the water line would be if it were on the surface. The Lumberman, found in 1983, is a popular dive site four miles east of Oak Creek.

There are similar wrecks hidden throughout the area. The Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association lists 43 ships that wrecked off Racine County’s shore; dozens more sank off Milwaukee and Kenosha counties. Some wrecks — like the Lumberman, Kate Kelly and Wisconsin — are listed on state or national registers of historic places...[Link]

Divers give Cardiff Bay’s waterways a really deep clean

No, it's not a monster emerging from the deep but a police diver helping to clean up Cardiff Bay’s waterways.

The specialist search team of six South Wales Police officers and their sergeant are taking part in a two-week operation to improve the state of the canal in Atlantic Wharf.

As well as removing a thick layer of green surface scum, the divers found an old tyre, a wellington boot and pieces of board in the depths.

The clean-up, which also involves Cardiff council, cutting back hedges and weeding, follows concerns from residents about rubbish levels. The probation service community payback team took away all the rubbish from the canal, and will do so twice a year to keep the area tidy.

Police Community Support Officer recruit Jeff Hughes organised the clean-up, which will also include railing painting and footpath clearing within the next six weeks.

Jeff, who first started work in Cardiff Bay back in March, said: “When I first became a PCSO in the area I was walking around the canal on patrol getting to know my patch and I thought it was such a beautiful area that was in some desperate need of some tender loving care.”...[WalesOnline]

Swimming with basking sharks in Cornwall

Sharks are one of the great joys of British coastal life. Not, of course, the nasty ones, the great whites of Jaws or those other two oceanic ultra-aggressors, the bull and tiger shark, but the outsize yet benign basking shark.

Basking sharks usually appear off British waters from early summer onwards. They should arrive at my local beach, Porthcurno, in west Cornwall, any time now, drawn by the plankton that is borne landwards as the sea warms up.

They are remarkable, beautiful creatures, capable of breaching entirely, but more likely to glide slowly on the surface, cavernous jaw open, passively filtering plankton and small fish from up to 2,000 tonnes of water an hour Their sheer size — the basking shark is the second-largest shark, eclipsed only by the whale shark — has always made me nervous of getting up close and personal with them...[TimesOnline]

Our neighbor to the north: Welcome to Canada

...Scuba-dive

Where: Swim with elusive six-gill sharks off Vancouver Island.

How to get there: Access to dive sites is available along the east coast of Vancouver Island from Victoria all the way to Port Hardy and throughout the northern and southern Gulf Islands.

When to go: Winter is the peak season for diving, as the temperate waters provide optimum visibility.

For more info: Abyssal Dive Charters and Lodge offers diving in the waters surrounding the Campbell River.

www.abyssal.com...[BND.com]

Local scuba divers jump in to cleanup lake

Local divers helped clean out Anchorage lakes Sunday.

Eight scuba divers jumped in to remove junk out of DeLong Lake. Divers say they find all kinds of garbage from beer cans to lawn chairs to pans.

"We'll do a pattern weaving back and forth -- we can't possibly do the whole lake, it would take too long," said Jerry Vandergriff with Alaska Underwater Adventures. "We'll spend about two hours and get as much of this stuff as we can."...[KTUU.com]

Underwater treasures

Diver Ron Bakken has never discovered a steamboat, ferris wheel or other artifacts rumored to be at rest on the bottom of White Bear Lake. But he has unearthed a relic from long before pleasure-seekers made White Bear a resort destination.

The lifelong diver and White Bear Lake resident found a bison skull thousands of years old off the coast of Manitou Island. The skull was mostly buried in muck — only the teeth were protruding. “It looked like neat lines of pebbles at first,” he said. Dozens of crayfish dodged out of orifices when he pulled the skull out.

Bakken said an expert from the Science Museum of Minnesota dated the skull at roughly 16,000 years old. The bison reportedly was as big as a full-size van and had horns nearly six feet long. He’s also discovered another bison skull, albeit much smaller, as well as a number of bones...[VadnaisHeightsPress]

Diver recovers sunken sled from lake

In the immortal words of Bob Einstein, the comedian that made Super Dave Osborne a household name, "don't try this at home, kids."

An end of the season snowmobile ride on Bathurst Lake in Mount Carleton Provincial Park several weeks ago resulted in one submerged sled, a challenging dive for the diver tasked to fish the machine out of the icy water, and a hefty bill for the insurance company.

Danny Trites of Red Rapids, a professional diver, was asked to retrieve a Yamaha snowmobile sitting on the bottom of the lake after the machine broke through thin ice. The Fredericton area resident riding the snowmobile managed to extricate himself from the sinking sled, but couldn't save his machine, which quickly submerged.

"Evidently they (several snowmobilers) were playing on the ice and some open spots on the water and they were skipping between the ice and the water. The snowmobiler reported the incident and park officials asked me to come up and see if I could get the machine out," Trites told the Victoria Star. "Environment was worried about contamination."

The strong current and eroding surface ice made the recovery a dangerous dive, but the diver said with additional weight to keep him under the surface he was able to find the 2006 Yamaha. Trites had to turn the machine around because it was heading away from shore and hook some chains to a waiting tractor on shore.

"They took a few pictures of me sitting on the sled as it was being hauled out of the water," the diver commented...[Bugle-Observer]

Tahoe submarine dive starts 5-year global research

A small submarine slipped below the surface of Lake Tahoe on Thursday, beginning a month-long study of depths that will be followed by a global underwater adventure.

The dive Thursday off the shore of South Lake Tahoe was essentially a shakedown mission for others planned in May around Tahoe and in nearby Fallen Leaf Lake.

The first manned submarine to research Tahoe’s depths in many years will help researchers learn more about earthquake faults, ancient submerged forests and invading creatures threatening the lake’s future.

Other submerged mysteries could emerge as well.

“There are a lot of things that haven’t been seen in this lake,” said Scott Cassell, president and founder of the nonprofit Undersea Voyager Project. “There are large portions of this lake that have yet to be seen.”...[RGJ.com]

Diver braves frigid Red River to unplug drain

The next time you balk at taking a frigid May long weekend dip, be thankful you don't work for Dominion Divers.

On Tuesday night, a diver with the Winnipeg firm spent an hour below the surface of the fast-moving, frigid Red River to allow the city of Winnipeg to unplug a blocked drain that contributed to overland flooding in south Charleswood and the Fort Whyte Area.

After complaints of overland flooding that just wouldn't recede, the city asked Dominion Divers to deploy a team to the outflow of the Lot 16 Drain, which runs north of Bishop Grandin Boulevard through Fort Garry before spilling into the Red River.

Debris in the river had prevented a grate on the drain from opening, causing flooding that washed out a portion of both Loudon Road and McCreary Road, Charleswood Coun. Bill Clement said Wednesday.

A diver in a protective helmet and drysuit was lowered into the Red River twice: first to check out the situation underwater and then to attach a hook and chain to the grate, said Dominion Divers president Garth Hiebert...[WinnipegFreePress]

Mukilteo could become a dive-friendly destination

Mukilteo officials had no idea of the tsunami they stirred up when they banned scuba diving from Lighthouse Park last August, mainly because they had no idea how wildly popular the park is to local divers.

Diver John Rawlings would say that’s because we landlubbers have no idea of the beauty that lurks off the shores of our beloved park.

“If nothing else, I think this ‘fight’ of ours to restore diver access has done much to give the City Council, the Parks and Arts Commission and the residents of Mukilteo a glimpse into what awaits them underwater,” Rawlings said.

Not only is the ban likely to be lifted at an upcoming council meeting, the city is completely reversing direction, talking of packaging Mukilteo as a dive-friendly destination – encouraging the sport, potentially offering dive instruction, and exploring council president Randy Lord’s idea of tying diving in with the annual Lighthouse Festival with dive demonstrations and perhaps divers fitted with cameras to show in real time the world beneath the surface...[MulkiteoBeacon]

Members of Saginaw Underwater Explorers float in a silent world

Bruce A. Beckert remembers where he was when astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong took their first steps on the moon in 1969.

"We were diving at a shipwreck on Isle Royale, and we stopped to watch it on a television at the lodge up there," said Beckert, 79, of Saginaw. "Then we just continued our dive.

"It's like another world itself diving up there; after the clear water and shipwrecks around Isle Royale, you almost don't want to go anywhere else."

And though he admits he hasn't "gotten wet" in 20 years, he's one of many who will help the Saginaw Underwater Explorers celebrate its 50th anniversary this year. A charter member, Beckert started taking lessons in the pool at the old YMCA at Michigan and Ames when the club formed in 1959 and in the years since, he's held just about every office in the longest-running diving club in Michigan.

"That was the year I was born," chuckled its current president, Mike K. Fabish, 50, of Thomas Township. But between talking with older members such as Beckert and John R. Garner, and his own underwater experiences, he's championed the club for the past 11 years...[MLive.com]

Ship reef's fifth birthday

A diving attraction off the Devon and Cornwall coast is celebrating its fifth birthday. The decommissioned Royal Navy frigate HMS Scylla was sunk to make an artificial reef...[BBC]

Deep below the surface of Puget Sound, a world awaits

About a hundred feet out from the shores of Lighthouse Park there’s a natural gray wall some 35 feet down, and another, larger one about 60 to 80 feet down. They’re about 10 feet high, full of ancient clam holes, and have likely been there hundreds of years, according to longtime diver John Rawlings.

“Each hole has a critter living in it – a baby shrimp, a squid, an octopus, an eel,” he said. “It’s a really nice place to go for macro photos.”

Gray and made of semi-hard clay, the walls are home to thousands of tiny creatures, he said.

“In the fall, there’s a species called gunnels – a lot of people think they’re eels, but they’re fish.”

The gunnels gather there to breed, Rawlings said, and attract their potential mates by growing giant, bright orange heads.

“It’s like flying over a pumpkin patch in an airplane,” he said. “My favorite time of year to dive there is October and November, just because of that.”

Right along the shore is a bed of eelgrass, which Rawlings said carries its own unique habitat.

“You can literally go from environment to environment right there at Lighthouse Park and see all different kinds of species,” he said.

Rawlings and his friends regularly encounter tiny octopi, juvenile wolf eels, stubby squid and all varieties of crabs in their underwater adventures...[TheMulkiteoBeacon]

World's first 'under ice' free-diving competition

Twenty competitors braved sub-zero temperatures for the world's first free-diving competition under ice in Norway. The free-divers were participating in the Oslo Ice Challenge at Lake Lutvann on March 7 and 8. Braving temperatures of -2 degrees, each competitor dove into a 10x10ft hole in the ice in a bid to reach the lowest depth.

With visibility of only 65ft, divers attempted to reach the bottom of this 173ft freshwater lake holding their breath for between three and five minutes.

"This was the first under the ice free dive competition of its kind and it was not an easy challenge," said photographer Dan Burton.

"We had to walk nearly two miles in a blizzard and wearing only a wetsuit before we reached the hole in the ice so it was pretty tough going."...[Telegraph]

A little frozen water won't keep these Minnesotans from scuba diving

This is scuba diving in winter. Workers from the Scuba Center use an extra long chainsaw to cut out massive slabs of ice -- weighing a couple hundred pounds -- to make the dive holes. After the warming tent is set up, divers take the plunge into the icy water of Square Lake near Stillwater. Camera operator Margo Cavis said the event has become so popular that they needed to cut two dive holes. See the divers' perspective...[MinnClips]

Scuba diver notches 2000th dive in frigid Prince William Sound

There is a small but close-knit community of Scuba divers in Alaska. A very small percentage of them actually dive in the cold waters here though. Most dive only on warm-water vacations. Lisa Vandergriff of Anchorage is one of the exceptions.

On Jan. 31, she completed her 2,000th dive. Of those 2,000 dives 1,654 have been in the frigid waters of Alaska. 1,559 have been in Smitty’s Cove in Whittier, where she also made her first dive in March 1995. She has averaged over 140 dives per year since certifying. Smitty’s Cove was where she chose to make that momentous 2,000th dive. Her husband and eight of their close friends joined her in the water, while several others observed from shore. Water temperature was a crisp 36 degrees. The air temperature was 16 degrees. Fortunately, there was no wind. At 35 feet, visibility was great. We gathered on the boat ramp and made our dive plan. Then we dropped under water and toured the northeastern portion of the cove.

On the tour we saw two large wolf eels guarding an egg ball, white dorids and opalescent nudibranchs, lingcod, copper rockfish, kelp greenling and a sea cucumber. The highlight of the dive was a frolicsome sea otter that swam down and wove it’s way between the divers. It is very rare that a sea otter will get close enough for a diver to see it...[TurnagainTimes]

Water work

People might say that Ryan Bell picked a really strange time to take a dip in the Des Moines River.

With mounds of snow lining the riverbanks and the water temperature right at the freezing mark, Thursday seemed like a bad day to go swimming. The cold, clear water was perfect, however, for getting a look at what's below the surface.

So Bell, a licensed structural engineer and commercial diver, donned about 100 pounds of gear and dropped into the ice-clogged river to check out the Fort Dodge Hydroelectric Dam.

He spent several hours Wednesday and Thursday underwater near the dam. On Thursday morning, he slid down the dam's spillway in a rope harness to reach part of the structure's downstream side.

Bell's job was to collect information on the condition of the dam that city officials will use when they eventually decide what to do with it. About two hours worth of video was recorded with a camera mounted on his diving helmet. He also took some photos with an underwater camera...[TheMessenger]

Escaping Winter....Underwater

A stiff winter wind is blowing at the Ogden Point Breakwater.

A churning, grey, moody-looking ocean is lapping up against huge stacked granite and concrete blocks that anchor the 800-metre breakwater marking the entrance to Victoria’s Inner Harbour.

These are perfect conditions for a winter dive, an activity that seems to defy common sense but draws tourists to explore the rich undersea world on Canada’s West Coast.

Topside — the word divers use to describe everything above water — it may be rough and stormy, but down below it’s all splendour, light and full of life.

The clouds of plankton and algae that float through the water at other times of the year disappear as the water cools down slightly in winter, leaving divers with a better view of the undersea topography and wildlife, says Victoria dive shop manager Erin Bradley.

“The winter and summer water temperatures only vary about two to four degrees,” he said. “It might be snowing or raining or blowing, but underwater we’re still comfortable.”

Dry suits worn underneath the traditional diving wet suits keep out the cold, Bradley said...[MetroNews.ca]

Octopus, wolf eel among underwater attractions for winter divers off Victoria

A stiff winter wind is blowing at the Ogden Point Breakwater. The temperature is threatening to drop below zero and the clouds are getting darker by the minute.

A churning, grey, moody-looking ocean is lapping up against huge stacked granite and concrete blocks that anchor the 800-metre breakwater marking the entrance to Victoria's Inner Harbour.

These are perfect conditions for a winter dive, an activity that seems to defy common sense but draws tourists to explore the rich undersea world on Canada's West Coast.

Topside - the word divers use to describe everything above water - it may be rough and stormy, but down below it's all splendour, light and full of life.

The clouds of plankton and algae that float through the water at other times of the year disappear as the water cools down slightly in winter, leaving divers with a better view of the undersea topography and wildlife, says Victoria dive shop manager Erin Bradley.

Bradley stands on the breakwater in a T-shirt and ponders how best to respond to questions about the water, its temperature and the reasons why warm-blooded people dive in the winter...[TheCanadianPress]

Unfazed by frigid temperatures, ice divers take plunge

For most people, the thought of jumping in freezing winter waters, even for a two-minute polar bear plunge for charity, is just too much to handle.
Advertisement

But divers from the Sea the World Scuba Center of Farmington Hills are a little different. A little bit out there, some might say.

“I’m not going to lie, my family thought I was insane when I told them what I was doing,” said John Mills, a 23-year-old first-time ice diver from Ypsilanti who began training in September 2008.

Fifteen members of the close-knit group of friends hit the ice at 8 a.m. today, cutting out a 10x10x10 feet triangle in the ice and diving in one-by-one at around 10 a.m.

Five jumped in, and most stayed in the water for 15-20 minutes, coming out and warming up before jumping back in.

But Sea the World manager James Mott, the one the so-called “insane” people call crazy, stayed in the lake a full two hours, surfacing for short breaks before diving back down.

“It’s really not that bad,” Mott said as he soaked his hands in warm water, “your core stays warm but your hands and toes do get cold.”...[Freep.com]

Conservation officers conduct ice dive training

After reaching the bottom, about 10 feet down, Indiana Conservation Officer Matt Landis began making sweeps in a circle search pattern as part of his training for his first ice dive Thursday in Fowler Park in southern Vigo County.

The water temperature was 39 degrees, according to a small monitor attached to his special orange-colored dry suit, designed to keep cold water from touching his body.

After about 10 minutes, his training dive was over, but he still faced a unique challenge from the depths — finding a hole cut out of the 41⁄2-inch-thick ice above him.

“You could actually see a couple of feet, which makes it a little easier to orientate yourself once you get down to the bottom. Coming up, you can see the sunlight and it just looks like a roof of glass,” Landis said of the frozen lake above him.

“You think you are coming up in the hole, but once you start coming up, you bump against the ice and you know you are still under,” he said.

That’s where the safety line comes in, which directs the diver back to the opening in the ice. Such conditions require the use of a harness on each diver, said Conservation Officer Max Winchell, a dive master, who said the training helps officers experience the cold and learn to take extra precautions with equipment...[TribStar.com]

Explore lost villages and ships beneath the ice

Diehard scuba divers will appreciate this first-ever organized trip. Arctic Kingdom Marine expeditions is offering an ice diving excursion in the St. Lawrence Seaway, near the 1000 islands, where throughout history the waters of the seaway have capsized schooners, barges, paddle-wheelers and freight carriers. even entire lost villages lay below the surface.

These freshwater wrecks have never been dived in wintertime, when visibility is at its best, says graham dickson, master instructor and founder of Arctic Kingdom expeditions.

"We've been planning this ice dive adventure in the St. Lawrence for many years and are very excited to see it become a reality," he said. Divers will arrive at the sites via airboat, which can cut through water or hover above the ice, allowing them to submerge through the ice for a historic exploration of the wrecks...[CalgaryHerald]

Dunkin' Under To Save Lives

It could happen while ice skating, playing hockey or even sledding...People falling into frozen water bodies. Today, an area team of divers took on the challenge of making a cold water rescue. News 25's Michelle Mantel shows us the life saving skills it takes. It may look like a fun splash into water, but for 8 Underwater Rescue Divers it's a chance to work on life saving skills.

"It's pretty good training for our divers to actually go through the scenarios that way if something were to happen it'd be a faster response", said Peoria County EMA Training Officer Jeremy Galloway.

Peoria County's Underwater Rescue team dives under the ice at least once a year. "Just to keep us acclimated with doing it and you know it's fun for the team", said Ed Feldshau Rescue Scene Team Safety Coordinator. While officials say taking a mock dive into the water is a fun part of their job, they're warning viewers not to take after them: it's only for professionals.

"Some people see us ice diving and they'll have scuba divers try to do what we do and they don't know the precautions that we take and we actually have had people lose their lives trying to do what we do", said Feldshau...[Week.com]

Chattanooga: Plunging into 2009

Some people will do just about anything for bragging rights.

While most of the city was still sleeping off their late-night partying, a group of die-hard scuba divers donned hooded wet suits and welcomed the new year with an icy dive in the Tennessee River.

“They’re crazy, but you know, my husband wouldn’t stop grinning all morning,” said Mendy Rosen, whose husband, Richard, joined members of the Chattanooga Underwater Divers Association for the first time Thursday morning.

For the past eight years the divers have braved the frigid waters for the short swim between the Walnut and Market street bridges. The first year the group showed up on the river bank at midnight, but quickly decided it was far too cold, so they came back nine hours later, and the tradition stuck.

“It’s just something to get the new year off to a good start,” said Bob Weaver, manager of Leisure Time Dive and Ski Center on Brainerd Road.

But even Mr. Weaver, a veteran New Year’s Day diver, began having second-thoughts Thursday as he stepped off the kayak launch on the outskirts of Coolidge Park and into the river...[TimesFreePress.com]

Cold comfort - Snow and ice won't keep these divers away

For some scuba-diving enthusiasts, a little snow and ice and some freezing temperatures aren’t enough to keep them out of the water.


At noon on New Year’s Day, a group of about 10 of them gathered on the roadside near Holland State Park to decide if there was too much snow and ice to go for a dive.


“What have we got?” one asked. “Chunks,” another said, as the group looked down at ice floes and slush floating in the channel. That’ll make it more exciting to get into,” a third person said.


The scuba divers were the only group to continue with the daring New Year’s Day activities on Thursday, Jan. 1. A group of water-skiers that usually ski on Ottawa County’s Pigeon Lake on New Year’s day called it quits after the lake froze over, and a group of die-hard surfers also decided not to try Lake Michigan due to ice.


And with the water temperature at 32 degrees, and visibility at about 4 inches, what’s the point in diving? “Because we can,” said Matt Cummins, a Holland resident...[HollandSentintel.com]

Winter brings best diving

November may bring storms, rain and short days limiting sunshine, but underwater it's never been more clear.

It is so clear in the waters off Nanaimo at this time of year that most divers prefer this time of year to summer. But dive operators and others associated with the business say that while the past few years have not been good, this season seems to be looking better.

Some say that American divers are returning with the lower Canadian dollar and increased stability there following the U.S. election.

"I think it's helping a smidge, but not much," said veteran Nanaimo diver Steve Lloyd, adding the diving here is worth paying for, even in tough times. "Everybody is sucking in their horns; it's a shame too because lately it's been fabulous, so clear," said Lloyd.

Marlene Peaker, who with her husband runs the Buccaneer Inn on Stewart Avenue, thinks business may be picking up. On Thursday, she said, they had divers take four rooms. She agreed this is the best time to dive, despite the cold.

"The clarity is better in the winter, but you still have to be a bit tough," said Peaker. "We get more divers in the winter."...[Nanaimo Daily News]