Mermaids invade Las Vegas; Plenty of tales AND colorful tails from annual Convention

(DiverWire) This past weekend, people from all over the world packed up their monofins and gathered in the middle of the blazing desert in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Equipped with silicone, latex, neoprene, glitter, and sequins, these were not your typical divers.  Some weren’t even swimmers.  Mermaids and mermaid lovers alike were coming together for the first ever World Mermaid Convention and Awards.

The two-day event commenced Friday in the Silverton Casino where convention goers walked among mermaids modeling in tails and various mermaid-related vendors.  Booths showcased a wide array of things: authors, artists, tail and accessory makers, underwater photographers, and a demo of an underwater mermaid video game.  There was even a mermaid pageant.

The location was a great setting for an aquatic-themed event.  Known for its fish-filled 117,000 gallon salt water tank, the Silverton hosts interactive fish feedings and mermaid performances next to a mermaid-themed lounge.  Like the famous live mermaid performers at Weeki Wachee springs in Florida, the hotel’s mermaids breathe from long hoses and have to be scuba certified to perform in the 14-foot deep tank.  There were both current and former Weeki Wachee mermaids present at the event, such as pageant queen Kylee Troche and veteran mermaid Arlene Brooks.

A “mermaid” can be anyone from the casual enthusiast to the professional performer, artist, or model.  Some do mermaiding simply for fun, but many use mermaiding as a way of educating people about the environment and other issues.

Long time mermaid, ocean activist, and guest of honor Hannah Fraser, known as Hannah Mermaid, kicked off the first evening’s pool party and award ceremony.  She performed a riveting fire dance before diving into the pool and swimming in one of her hand-made tails.  There’s a great deal of pride amongst mermaids over their tails; many design and make their own with everything from fabric and neoprene to mold-poured silicone.  As people gathered by the poolside and suited up in their outfits, a commonly heard question was “what type of monofin do you have?”  For mermaids who do a lot of underwater work, a good monofin can improve the quality of a tail.  Fraser fits professional Finis Competitor monofins into her tails.

Many people who consider themselves mermaids have been water lovers, snorkelers, and avid swimmers from a young age.  Some, like Marla Lawrenz, got into mermaiding through scuba diving.  Others hope to get scuba certified to help with their mermaid endeavors.  Lawrenz started scuba diving five years ago, and through it became enthralled with free diving and monofins.  She started researching monofins online and was thrilled when she discovered that people were using them to make mermaid tails.  For Lawrenz, “scuba diving is always going to be my first love, mermaiding is just like icing on the cake.  It’s a very different feeling.”

Similar to Lawrenz, the consensus among event goers was that swimming in a mermaid tail is completely different from scuba diving and classic free diving.  While diving with scuba gear is nice because you have more time and can relax for longer underwater, many agreed that they like free diving and mermaiding in part because of the freedom they feel without the extra gear.  To them donning a mermaid tail is a magical, liberating experience that makes them feel more connected to the ocean and the creatures they’re swimming with.

There’s also a fun, playful aspect to having a tail on that draws people to mermaiding.  Susan Knight, a biologist, scuba instructor, and mermaid photographer located in Hawaii, shot underwater portraits for convention goers.  Knight does all of her underwater photography while free diving because she says it’s easier to connect to the animals she often shoots with.  She also feels that dolphins respond well to the playfulness that her models display while wearing a tail.

Swimming around holding your breath with bound legs is hard work and has its dangers.  For convention goer Malena Sharkey, safety is one of the most important reasons mermaids should learn about diving.  Sharkey is a professional mermaid, model, and scuba instructor who now owns the Chesapeake Bay Diving Center in Portsmouth, Virginia where she first got certified.  As well as being a fun and rewarding experience, having both scuba and free diving training has made Sharkey more comfortable, safe, and confident in the water. Malena was profiled in a DiverWire exclusive story earlier this year.

This year’s World Mermaid Convention focused mainly on the experiential, entertainment, and performance aspects of mermaiding, but looking elegant and glamorous in a tail is only one side of being a mermaid.  As the convention grows, mermaids might benefit from booths and presentations that encourage a greater awareness of safety issues and participation in the dive community.

For more information on mermaiding and to see some mermaids in action, check out these sites:

http://worldmermaidawards.com/ – official site of the World Mermaid Awards

http://mernetwork.com/ – a community-oriented forum with a broad range of information about mermaiding

http://weekiwachee.com/ – home of the Weeki Wachee mermaids, a Florida attraction that has been around since the 1940’s

http://www.mermaidtails.net/ – a directory of places to buy tails

http://www.iamamermaid.com – convention goer and author Carolyn Turgeon’s mermaid blog

Where's the Octopus?

Roger Hanlon, senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, studies camouflage in cephalopods--squid, cuttlefish and octopus. They are masters of optical illusion. These are some of Hanlon's top video picks of sea creatures going in and out of hiding

Vladimir Putin's Greek urns claim earns ridicule

 

Vladimir Putin carries his archaelogical trophies which - despite their cleanliness - were purported to have languished at the bottom of the Black Sea for centuries. Photograph: Alexei Druzhinin/AP

When a scuba-diving Vladimir Putin found two ancient Greek urns on the floor of the Black Sea this week, it seemed a startling discovery. In his latest spurt of televised heroics, the Russian prime minister raised a triumphant thumb as he circled the pair of amphorae in shallow waters off the Taman peninsula near Ukraine.

The find came to "everyone's utter surprise", claimed the slavishly devotional Russia Today and other state-controlled TV channels. Once on dry land, Putin posed in his wetsuit with a jug in each hand.

But independent media and Russia's lively blogosphere are now ridiculing the incident, in a sign of increasing weariness of Putin's macho photo ops – such as bare-chested fishing, piloting a "water bomber" over forest fires and diving to the bottom of lake Baikal in a mini-submarine.

Critics said Putin's pots were suspiciously unmossy and were probably planted specially for him to discover.

"Diving in the Taman gulf, the Russian prime minister immediately found two amphorae that had been waiting for him since the 6th century AD at a depth of two metres," wrote the Novaya Gazeta newspaper in an editorial dripping with sarcasm. "He was lucky: in the same place, over the last two years archaeologists and divers of the Russian Academy of Sciences managed to find only a few pottery shards."

Putin's visit was meant to highlight the work of Russian scientists exploring the remains of an ancient Greek city, Phanagoria, sometimes called "Russia's Atlantis". The site is not far from Sochi, the Black Sea resort that will host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, and authorities hope to develop its tourism potential.

Yet critics saw the dive as another farcical stunt designed to boost Putin's image before elections in December and March.

"We have become witnesses of a remake of The Diamond Hand and the famous fishing scene at the white cliff," said radio host Anton Orekh, referring to a scene from a Soviet film in which a diver attaches fish to an angler's hook in order to simulate a plentiful catch.

Under Pressure: Worldwide Map Identifies Important Coral Reefs Exposed To Stress

NEW YORK, New York -- Marine researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups have created a map of the world's corals and their exposure to stress factors, including high temperatures, ultra-violet radiation, weather systems, sedimentation, as well as stress-reducing factors such as temperature variability and tidal dynamics.

The study, say the authors, will help to conserve some of the world's most important coral reefs by identifying reef systems where biodiversity is high and stress is low, ecosystems where management has the best chance of success.



The paper appears online in journal PLoS One. The authors include: Joseph M. Maina of WCS and a doctoral student at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia; Timothy R. McClanahan of WCS; Valentijn Venus of Netherlands Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation; Mebrahtu Ateweberhan of the University of Warwick; and Joshua Madin of Macquarie University.

"Coral reefs around the globe are under pressure from a variety of factors such as higher temperatures, sedimentation, and human-related activities such as fishing and coastal development," said Joseph M. Maina, WCS conservationist and lead author on the study. "The key to effectively identifying where conservation efforts are most likely to succeed is finding reefs where high biodiversity and low stress intersect."



Using a wide array of publicly available data sets from satellites and a branch of mathematics known as fuzzy logic, which can handle incomplete data on coral physiology and coral-environment interactions, the researchers grouped the world's tropical coral reef systems into clusters based on the sum of their stress exposure grades and the factors that reinforce and reduce these stresses.

The first cluster of coral regions—Southeast Asia, Micronesia, the Eastern Pacific, and the central Indian Ocean—is characterized by high radiation stress (sea surface temperature, ultra-violet radiation, and doldrums weather patterns with little wind) and few stress-reducing factors (temperature variability and tidal amplitude). The group also includes corals in coastal waters of the Middle East and Western Australia (both regions have high scores for reinforcing stress factors such as sedimentation and phytoplankton).

The second cluster— including the Caribbean, Great Barrier Reef, Central Pacific, Polynesia, and the Western Indian Ocean—contained regions with moderate to high rates of exposure as well as high rates of reducing factors, such as large tides and temperature variability.

Overall, stress factors such as surface temperature, ultra-violet radiation, and doldrums were the most significant factors, ones that ecosystem management has no control over. What is controllable is the mitigation of human impacts that reinforce radiation stress and where managers decide to locate their protected areas.

"When radiation stress and high fishing are combined, the reefs have little chance of surviving climate change disturbances because they both work against the survival of corals that are the foundation of the coral reef ecosystem," said Dr. Tim McClanahan, WCS Senior Conservationist and head of the society's coral reef research and conservation program.

The authors recommend that the study results be used to formulate management strategies that would include activities such as fishing restrictions, the management of watersheds through improved agricultural practices, and reforestation of coastal watersheds that play a role in healthy coral systems.

"The study provides marine park and ecosystem managers with a plan for spatially managing the effectiveness of conservation and sustainability," said Dr. Caleb McClennen, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Marine Program. "The information will help formulate more effective strategies to protect corals from climate change and lead to improved management of reef systems globally."

Dive into Arctic wreck reveals historical 'treasure'

 

Historic painting of HMS Investigator, one of the most famous of the ships sent to look for the Franklin expedition after its disappearance in 1845.

Photograph by: Handout, Handout

A series of dives last month to the rediscovered Arctic Ocean wreck of HMS Investigator has revealed glimpses of what Parks Canada archeologists believe to be an unprecedented "treasure" of historical artifacts preserved in silt below the deck of the sunken 19th-century British ship, Postmedia News has learned.

The July expedition to the vessel's resting place in Mercy Bay, a frigid patch of water off the shore of Banks Island in the Northwest Territories, saw divers collect a handful of evocative relics — including a sailor's shoe and a largely intact rifle — that lay "in plain sight" and were at risk of disappearing in the seabed sludge.

But their key finding was confirming the likelihood that "thousands" of other objects — scientific specimens, crewmen's personal belongings, architectural fixtures, a stash of vintage booze in the ship's "spirits room" — have remained entombed and protected in the Royal Navy vessel since it became trapped in ice, was abandoned and then sank during a failed search for the lost Franklin Expedition in the early 1850s.

"We were blessed with really exceptional weather and very, very co-operative ice conditions," Ryan Harris, a Parks Canada underwater archeologist, told Postmedia News.

"There's a very high level of siltation inside the hold and that actually bodes quite well for preservation of what will probably amount to thousands upon thousands — or hundreds of thousands — of artifacts that are likely inside the vessel."

He said the ship itself is in remarkably good condition and described the "surreal" experience of seeing a ship so rich in history coming into view with each dive.

The Investigator, captained by Irish-born Robert McClure, had left a British port in 1850 to join what had become a desperate search for the lost ships and missing 129 men from Sir John Franklin's ill-fated Arctic expedition, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.

McClure entered the Arctic from the Pacific but was forced to leave the ship when it became locked in ice at Mercy Bay in 1853. He ordered the creation of a cache of supplies on the nearby shore of Banks Island, then led his men on a sledge journey across the sea ice to their rescue by another British ship at Melville Island.

The crew's eastward route back to Britain marked the first recorded transit of the Northwest Passage — a combined voyage by ship and sledge that won McClure everlasting fame despite his failure to find Franklin and the loss of the Investigator, which sank in 1854.

Last summer, Harris and his Parks Canada colleagues became the first people to set eyes on the Investigator in 156 years and earned international acclaim for the feat.

But this year's dives offered the first close look at the 36-metre-long ship, which Harris said appears to have held up well despite being submerged for more than a century-and-a-half and suffering regular grindings from the seasonal ebb and flow of sea ice in Mercy Bay.

Key to that preservation, said Harris, was the copper cladding on the hull of the Investigator that was applied to protect all Royal Navy vessels — including the Erebus and Terror — bound for ice-choked Arctic waters in Canada.

A metre-wide section of the copper shield at risk of being shorn off the ship by an iceberg was also detached and recovered by the team. It will be added to a growing collection of metal artifacts found throughout the Arctic that came from stranded British ships and were often salvaged by 19th-century Inuit and fashioned into tools and important trade goods.

That dynamic was also evident in fresh discoveries made last month on the shore near the wreck, where "McClure's Cache" and surrounding areas of Banks Island were re-examined by a Parks Canada research team headed by land archeologist Henry Carey.

They found further evidence that the tin cans, tools, barrels and other objects stored on land by the Investigator's crew were eventually salvaged by Inuit for use in hunting, cooking and trade.

Carey expressed awe at the "tremendous distances that the material from the HMS Investigator travelled through the Inuit trade routes and the ingenious ways that material was incorporated into Inuit life."

For example, he said, metal from McClure's Cache was eventually fashioned by a crafty Inuk into the blades of a pair of scissors with bone handles — a poignant blending of European and aboriginal material culture.

But the researchers believe local Inuit did not gain access to the ice-locked Investigator before it sank, a further reason to believe much of the ship's original contents will be recoverable in the coming years.

The latest finds at and around the site of the Investigator wreck are fuelling optimism that a Parks Canada-led search later this month — far to the east in the central Arctic archipelago — will finally result in the discovery of the Franklin ships that McClure and other would-be rescuers never found.

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

Donegal wreck may have Spanish Armada link

TWO SHIPWRECKS discovered off the Donegal coastline may be linked to the late 16th-century Spanish Armada and a separate late 18th-century French armada, despatched to assist Irish rebellion efforts.

However, identification of the two wrecks outside Burtonport harbour may take some time, Connie Kelleher of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht’s underwater archaeology unit, said yesterday.

The two shipwrecks, one of which is definitely a warship, are lying 200m apart in just four metres of water off Rutland Island close to Burtonport.

Lead shot balls were retrieved during dives in which Ms Kelleher participated yesterday morning. Pottery has also been recovered from within the hull of the possible Spanish Armada ship, which is filled with sediment.

A full excavation of material is under way, as part of a long-term management plan for the location.

Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Jimmy Deenihan has awarded €50,000 for the work, and the Geological Survey of Ireland’s vessel Keary, named after late geologist Raymond Keary, is providing a support platform for the dive team.

Many of the wrecks already located lie off the north and west coasts, off Inishowen in Co Donegal; Co Sligo; Clare Island, Co Mayo; Co Galway; and Co Clare; and the Blasket Sound in Kerry.

Five of the hulls, or remains of same, have been located off Donegal, and the three wrecks off Streedagh strand in Sligo were the subject of a protracted court action.

The two wrecks now under investigation were originally pinpointed by Donegal divers, including Liam Miller, Oscar Duffy and Michael Early in 2008-2009. At this stage, identification is uncertain, but Ms Kelleher believes they may be “enormously significant”.

The later wreck, possibly French, could be linked to Napper Tandy’s revolutionary efforts. Tandy (1740-1803), who worked with Wolfe Tone in founding the United Irishmen, accepted a French government offer of a corvette, the Anacreon, and sailed from Dunkirk with United Irishmen and arms, arriving on Arranmore island, close to Burtonport, in September 1798.

However, locals were said to be less than supportive of his aims.

Tandy also learned that Gen Humbert’s expedition had been defeated in Mayo. Nevertheless, he took possession of Rutland, hoisted an Irish flag, and issued a proclamation before leaving and sailing north.

The Geological Survey of Ireland, which is mapping Irish inshore areas as part of the national seabed survey Infomar, will use sidescan sonar and magnetometer equipment in the area to check if there are any other ships.

Mr Deenihan said yesterday that he was “delighted” to be able to support investigations into “a major find of significance not only to Ireland, but also to the international archaeological, historical and maritime communities”.

Mr Deenihan said that if one of the wrecks proves to be from the Spanish Armada, it could constitute one of the most intact on this coast to date and could provide “huge insight into life on board and the reality of the military and naval resources available to the armada campaign”.

He paid tribute to the co-operation of the National Monuments Service and the National Museum of Ireland, which will take responsibility for any artefacts recovered.

SPANISH ARMADA

SOME 24 to 26 Spanish Armada ships are believed to have foundered off the Irish coast in 1588 while en route to invade England under the command of King Philip II.

At least 14 of the sunken ships have been extensively mapped to date.

The total armada fleet of 130 ships, with 29,453 sailors and soldiers on board, comprised 65 warships, 25 transport vessels, four galleys and a number of smaller vessels.

When the fleet was defeated in the English Channel, a scattered fleet opted for the Scottish and Irish west coast route home, but ran into storms. “God breathed and England was saved” was Sir Francis Drake’s later remark about the maritime disaster, which resulted in less than 75 per cent of the fleet making it home.

Use seawater or vinegar to treat jellyfish stings, not urine

But according to the British Red Cross, the widespread belief that urine can lessen the pain of venom injected by the marine creatures is misplaced.

It says the substance has the wrong chemical make-up for the job, and that seawater or vinegar is more effective.

The advice comes after conservationists claimed that the number of jellyfish off the coast of Britain is on the rise.

Last month swarms of moon jellyfish led to the closure of a nuclear power plant in Scotland by blocking its cooling water filters.

As families head to the seaside this weekend at the start of the school summer holidays, Joe Mulligan, head of first aid at the British Red Cross, said: “A sting from a jellyfish can be extremely painful, but trying to treat it with urine isn’t going to make your day any better.

“Urine just doesn’t have the right chemical make-up to solve the problem.”

He went on: “If people have been stung, they need to get out of the water to avoid getting stung again. Once out, slowly pouring seawater over the sting will help ease the pain.

“Doing the same thing with vinegar can be even more effective as the acid helps neutralise the jellyfish sting. But, unless you’re near a chip shop, seawater will probably be easier to find.”

Although described by some as an “old wives’ tale”, the belief that urinating on a jellyfish sting will lessen its pain became far more widespread after it featured in an episode of the American sitcom Friends.