Brac Reef on Cayman Brac

Cayman Brac is a small island that lies about 143 km northeast of Grand Cayman in the Caribbean Sea. It is about 19 km long, with an average width of 2 km. Its terrain is the most spectacular of the three Cayman Islands. The Bluff', a massive central limestone outcrop, rises steadily along the length of the island up to 43 m above the sea at the eastern end. The island is named after this prominent feature, as Brac is a Gaelic name for a bluff.

Brac Reef Beach Resort is a charming, family-owned all-inclusive getaway located on four and a half acres of milky white-sand beachfront.

Cayman Brac is considered one of the world’s premier scuba diving destinations where the pristine beauty of the warm Caribbean Sea provides a spectacular marine environment for reef, wall, and wreck diving.

Check out our trips at www.oceansedge.com

Sanibel Island, Florida

In 1994, I drove to Sanibel Island for a four day stay, as I was living in New Smyrna Beach for a year.

Sanibel Island is located on the Gulf coast of Florida, just offshore of Fort Myers. Located within Lee County, Sanibel is a barrier island – a collection of sand on the leeward side of the Gulf Stream from the more solid coral-rock of Pine Island.

The island's curved shape forms Tarpon Bay on the north side of the island. It is linked to the mainland by the Sanibel Causeway, which runs across two small man-made islets and the Intracoastal Waterway. A short bridge links Sanibel Island to Captiva Island.

The main reason I went, for those who know me, were the beaches and the sea shells. The Gulf side beaches are world renowned for their variety of seashells, which include coquinas, scallops, whelks, sand dollars, and other deeper-water mollusks, both univalve and bivalve. The Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum is the only museum in the world dedicated to the study of shells. Don't miss this Island if you love sea shells.

This is a wonderful place to spend a week simply relaxing in the summer.

Whale sharks in Belize

Belize is one of the few places in the world where scuba divers have a real chance of spotting and swimming with the whale shark. I've had the chance to visit several dozen times during my three years of leading dive tours in Belize and it is an adventure worth the price of admission.

The whale shark can grow up to 60 feet in length, weigh in excess of 15 tons, and dive to depths of 700 metres (2,300 ft). During the months of March, April, May, and June, whale sharks migrate off the southern coast of Belize. These giants of the sea are harmless filter feeders and are a favorite among scuba divers who come from all over the world to Belize for a once in a lifetime opportunity to swim among these friendly and inquisitive giants.

For the most part, 3 days before and 7 days after a full moon, during the spring months, the whale shark can be most easily spotted. During these lunar cycles millions of snappers (dog and cubera snapper in particular) mate and spawn. The opportunistic whale sharks travel great distances to snack upon these large and tasty eggs before diving back down into the hidden depths of the sea.

A reef cut called Gladden Spit, which has a steep sandy bank pushing out into very deep sea, is the most notable place for divers to spot the whale shark during this feeding period. In fact much of this area has been designated as a marine reserve by the government of Belize for this reason.

Gladden Spit lies towards the southern end of the Belizean barrier reef.

What happens when someone panics underwater?

A few years ago, I was teaching off the coast of Belize and was on an open water dive with a woman in her fifties. We were about to perform the controlled emergency swimming ascent from forty feet portion of her certification.

We talked about it before we left the boat and we settled in to a nice sandy area on our knees so she felt secure and I let her get her breathing under control. I stood next to her and motioned for her to stand up so we were face to face and I got a good grip on her BC, then asked her for the OK signal. She gave me one.

I started with signalling the three breaths prior to ascent and on the third breath, as we were set to go and started up, rather than blowing small bubbles, she literally 'blew out' all the air in her lungs before we had gone five feet and I could see her eyes bulge out as we began our ascent. She was grabbing at me and trying to swim as hard as she could to the surface, but I had a good grip on her.

I took my alternate air source and placed it in her mouth and she grabbed it and purged it and forced water down into her lungs and started to scream underwater. She was grabbing at my regulator and trying to swim as hard as she could to the surface but I kept her tightly under control and a few secnds later we broke the surface of the wat.

She grabbed me around the neck and tried to climb on tp of me and I did what we were taught. I slid down, inflated her BC and oushed her away from me. It was exactly by the book and once she realized that the entire incident had taken maybe 30 seconds, and all that had really happened is she had swallowed some water, she bagan to calm down, as I spoke to her.

This was the first time someone panicked on me and it sure taught me a lot about what we had studied to become PADI instructors. She was fine, I was fine and after a brief break on the boat, she decided it was time to try it again and was successful.

So, what happens when someone panics underwater. A little discomfort and a little learning if you truly stick to what you were taught as an Instructor.

Shark Finning...

Every year tens of millions of sharks die a slow death because of finning. Finning is the inhumane practice of hacking off the shark's fins and throwing its still living body back into the sea. The sharks either starve to death, are eaten alive by other fish, or drown (if they are not in constant movement their gills cannot extract oxygen from the water). Shark fins are being "harvested" in ever greater numbers to feed the growing demand for shark fin soup, an Asian "delicacy".

Not only is the finning of sharks barbaric, but their indiscriminate slaughter at an unsustainable rate is pushing many species to the brink of extinction. Since the 1970s the populations of several species have been decimated by over 95%. Due to the clandestine nature of finning, records are rarely kept of the numbers of sharks and species caught. Estimates are based on declared imports to shark fin markets such as Hong Kong and China.

StopSharkFinning.net is campaigning to achieve a worldwide ban on shark finning. That means that all sharks caught must be landed intact - their fins must not be removed while the shipping vessel is at sea.

Visitng their web site may change some of your thoughts on this and if that's all it does, then that's a good start. It's an inhuman thing to do, period.

Manta Rays

The manta ray is one of the largest and least known of the fishes. The manta ray, like the sharks, skates and other rays, does not possess a hard bony skeleton or elasmobranches. Although they do not possess a stinger, they are closely related to the stingray family (Dasyatidae). The manta ray, together with nine species of devil rays, (family Mobulidae) make up a subfamily known as Myliobatidae. All devil rays have common cephalic fins (extensions of the pectoral fins) to help funnel food into their mouths.

When these fins are furled, they resemble a devil’s horns. Manta rays can be further classified into the genus Manta and species birostris. Manta rays worldwide were once thought to comprise nine different species based on size, coloration, and location. However, recent genetic studies by Tim Clark, from the University of Hawaii, show that all mantas belong to a single species.

Most rays are bottom feeders. These bottom feeders have their mouth located on their ventral side. They also have a pair of spiracles on the top of their head, from which they take in water and pump it pass their gills to breathe. Manta rays are unique in that they evolved to take advantage of large abundances of zooplankton that inhabit the open water. Their large, rectangular mouth projects forward instead of downward. The spiracles, although still present, are no longer used. Instead, water enters the manta ray’s mouth while they swim, passes over their gills, and provides oxygen to the blood.

A manta ray’s internal gill arches can be seen, when the mouth is wide open. Small vestigial teeth exist in the lower jaw. These teeth barely penetrate the skin covering and they are another ancestral feature the manta rays no longer use. There aren’t any teeth in the upper jaw. Mantas have an average wingspan of about 22 feet (6.7 meters), making them one of the largest animals in the ocean. They are 2.2 times wider than they are long.

The word ‘Manta’ is Spanish for cloak, referring to their large, blanket shaped bodies. In Hawaiian, they are called hahalua.

Find out more by going to our web site at www.oceansedge.com