• PORT KEMBLA – VICTIM OF WAR:
  • SUNK BY A WWI GERMAN RAIDER: UNDERWATER EXPLORATION OF THE SOUTH ISLAND SHIPWRECK.  Dr. Simon Mitchell

• L’ALCMENE – FRENCH WARSHIP:
  • FRANCE’S ENDEAVOUR: THE 1851 SHIPWRECK STORY & THE NORTHLAND DISCOVERY OF HER REMAINS. -Noel Hilliam

• RMS NIAGARA – NZ GOLD SHIP:
  • SUNK IN 1940 BY A GERMAN RAIDER OFF WHANGAREI SHE TOOK EIGHT TONNES OF GOLD TO HER GRAVE. – Keith Gordon

• ABEL TASMAN – AN INVESTIGATION:
  • ABLE TASMAN, ANDREW SHARP, RUDIGER MACK & MAORI SAILS – WHEN IS A SAIL NOT A SAIL. – Rosanne Hawarden

• TEK SING – CHINESE TREASURE WRECK:
  • RECOVERY OF CHING DYNASTY PORCELAIN OFF THE INDONESIAN COAST. – Dave Moran

Details of additional presentations and a full program will be noted on the Underwater Heritage Group Website – www.underwaterheritage.co.nz.

Venue :  The Ponsonby Cruising Club, Westhaven Marina, Auckland

Date : Saturday 31 October 2009 – 10:30am to 4:30pm

Admission : $20 per person

Related Pages

• Global Dive Trip : Mikhail Lermontov

@GlobalDive is now live on Twitter – which means your super friendly neighbourhood Dive Shop can be contacted anywhere, anytime, anyhow you want.

We’ll be using Twitter to send out short broadcasts of what we are up to – new trips and courses and products and of course, specials and competitions.

Of course, you can use Twitter to get in touch with us too – all your replies and direct messages will be answered as soon as we can.

Related Pages

• Fiji 2010 : We’re Running Away!
• Featured Photographer – Marcia Davie
• Why I Became a PADI Diver
• Featured Photographers

We are pleased to inform you that we have become an official dealer for Halcyon Dive Systems dive gear.
Halcyon Dive Systems specialises in high performance equipment for exploration level dives.

The range has already started appearing in store – and we will have more as it arrives in New Zealand.
For those of you who cannot wait, check out www.halcyon.net

Halcyon was created in response to the demands of extreme technical diving.

Wakulla Springs

In the early 1990s, Halcyon founders were exploring deep wrecks and long-distance caves, including the world-renowned Wakulla Springs.

No other site can draw the comparison of being the Mt. Everest of cave diving: massive conduit (often over a hundred feet in diameter), deep, multi-branching passages, and passages explored to nearly 30,000ft/10km. Dives in Wakulla are the longest ever done: bottom times for the lead team can exceed ten hours at a depth of 300ft/90m. By the time the team exits the water, they will have spent nearly 30 hours underwater.

Deep wrecks and long-distance cave diving are both physically and mentally demanding.
Halcyon CEO Jarrod Jablonski has invested nearly 20 years leading just this sort of extreme expedition in projects around the world.  As Global Underwater Explorers (www.gue.com) President and the lead Woodville Karst Plain explorer, Jarrod Jablonski has more exploration dives in Wakulla than anyone alive.

This dedication to quality is at the heart of Halcyon’s quest to produce the best possible equipment and then to back it up with technical support starting the moment it leaves the factory. Regardless of your personal diving interest, you can be assured every piece of Halcyon equipment is designed with this same emphasis on quality and reliability.

Related Pages

• Global Dive Training Events
• Trip Report : Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures
• Club Night : Why do we need No-Take zones?
• Why I Became a PADI Diver

PADI Asia Pacific have just awarded Global Dive their Outstanding Dive Centre/Resort Business Award.

It came as a bit of a surprise as we had no idea we were even nominated for the award.

Woohoo!!!

We’re very flattered and honoured, but you won’t notice any differences – we’re still doing the same stuff we were before we were award winners!

As published in Dive New Zealand’s June/July magazine;

“Global Dive received the prestigous Outstanding Business Aware (Dive Center/Resort) at the 2009 Asia Pacific region member awards.  This highly contested award recognises outstanding business performance, iniatives and acheivements across all areas of business operation.  ‘Acheiveing this award in our 6th year of operation is a significant milestone and recognition of our teams committment to safety, quality and professionalism’ said Global Dive’s manager Andrew Simpson”.

PADI's Regional Manager Ian Cummins presenting Andrew with the Outstanding Business award

Related Pages

• Global Dive Training Events
• PADI Rescue Diver
• PADI Divemaster
• PADI Enriched Air (Nitrox)

We’ve been really fortunate to have been involved with Project Jonah in the past, and if you are keen to get involved then now is a good time.

For those that don’t know of Project Jonah their training courses provide you with the essential skills you’ll need if you ever need to help out with a whale or dolphin stranding.

Each year hundreds of whales strand on our shores. Without human help, these animals will suffer a slow and painful death. New Zealand has one of the highest stranding rates in the world. But we also have one of the highest rescue success rates. If a whale or dolphin stranded on a beach near you – would you know what to do?

Successful rescue depends on properly trained volunteers.  And you can become one with Project Jonah’s help.

Project Jonah has been actively saving stranded whales for more than 30 years.
They can give you the skills and confidence to take the right steps and provide First Aid to these animals in their most desperate hour of need.

Their course takes just one day, costs $80 ($50 if you’re a student) and they’ll teach you everything you need to know about successful dolphin and whale rescue.

We can’t predict when a stranding will happen, but with Project Jonah training you know you’ll be ready to help when one does.
Join their network of volunteers and become a Marine Mammal Medic today.

Once trained, you’ll be added to Project Jonah’s national stranding database, so that when a stranding occurs, your lifesaving skills can be called upon.

To book online or find out further information visit www.projectjonah.org.nz

Related Pages

• Club Night : Why do we need No-Take zones?
• Club Event : Sea Week Kickoff
• Save our Sharks
• Project AWARE International Cleanup 2010

A few weeks back I saw the movie Sharkwater.
Auckland Zoo had put on a special screening with proceeds going to conservation.

Did you know that an estimated 100 million sharks are killed for their fins each year?
Shark finning is an appalling and simply absurd practice:

* The fin itself is mostly cartilage and has no flavour (the flavour comes from the chicken soup usually added to it).
* The soup made from the fin is considered a status symbol, probably because it is absurdly expensive by the time it gets to the table. It is also falsely believed that the soup has medicinal qualities, which it simply doesn’t.
* The shark is most often still alive when it is tossed back into the water. Unable to swim, the shark slowly sinks toward the bottom where it is eaten alive by other fish

If you haven’t seen it, get it out on DVD.
I’ll see if we can’t do a screening sometime here at Global Dive, collect a few dollars off everyone, and contribute it to the cause (will need to check copyright rules first).

Anyway, there ARE things we can all do to help stop this cruel and unsustainable practice, including boycotting restaurants that sell shark fin soup.

Remember, more people are killed each year by Christmas tree lights and vending machines than are by sharks.
They are a critical part of the food chain – they control smaller fish numbers, which in turn eat the plankton that turn CO2 into the oxygen we breathe. Kill all the sharks and we’re likely to be next!

Related Pages

• Global Dive Newsletter – March 2009
• Global Dive Newsletter – June 2009
• Club Night : Sharks and our ecosystem
• Save our Sharks