As this is the first newsletter I'm sending you this year, I
will take the advantage of this opportunity to wish you a happy and prosperous
2009.
If there's anything that you'd like to see in the newsletter
don't hesitate to let me know.
Regards,
Patrik Muehlematter
This month in the scuba bulletin:
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Novelties in the scuba resource
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New
improved functions in the Scuba Diving Community
New Dive Guide for California |
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Travel news
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Curaçao
announces the Annual Dive Festival |
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Equipment news
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Mares
launches the Abyss 22 Extreme regulator
Titan LX 2009 from Aqualung |
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Education news
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New Scuba Products from PADI |
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Marine Conservation
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One
Fifth of World’s Corals Gone |
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New offers from the last minute board
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Three
offers from the last minute board |
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From the Forum
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Three
interesting topics from the forum |
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Diving business
owner and webmaster corner
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Every month we present a few tips to help you increase your sales using the scuba diving portal. |
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Novelties in the Scuba Diving Portal:
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New
improved functions in the Forum
Scuba Diving Community
After being online for 8 years, GoodDive.com
launched the first scuba diving community
in the internet almost a year ago. Now
it has more than 800 members and is starting to be well
attended. Many new features and improvements have been added to the
existing functions in the scuba diving community forum. Now
members who have access to your photo album pictures can comment
on them in a similar way to visitors messages. You can adjust
your profile privacy and limit blocks to a subset of users
thereby deciding who can access certain parts of your profile
and post comments on it. Also the private message sorting and
filtering has been enhanced. There are now social group
discussions, social group categories, icons and transfers.
Private messages, private message history and reporting,
lightbox navigation, dismissible notices and much more...
The scuba diving community is the place to make friends, myspace like ...where
you can also ask the instructor directly and find new tips from
other divers, share experiences
with fellow divers and keep in touch.
For dive
professionals it's the place to keep in touch with former
students and customers and show your expertise by replying to
threads and get hundreds of new diver friends.
http://www.gooddive.com/forum-scuba-diving/
New Dive Guide, California
New, the California diving guide is now complete. The dive guide counts more than
90 information filled pages.
California has been sorted by region and each region has it's own diving guide which includes dive site descriptions per region with highlights about what to see underwater in each region.
For every region a map showing the situation and depths has been included making it easy to see the area with the best potential for diving.
The photo gallery shows the type of fauna and flora to be seen while diving in
California. All the photos are shot by professional or semi-professional photographers which gives a choice of superb photos. The gallery is constantly growing and being updated regularly with new photos.
Also incorporated is a list of the diving centers, liveaboards, shops,
schools and dive clubs of each region.
This is a great tool for the California diving society and for people coming from abroad to plan their vacation and for
travel agents, tour operators, instructors traveling with their
groups to find the best locations and diving centers on place. Dive professionals located in
California can also find useful contacts and information here.
Take a tour of the guide: http://www.gooddive.com/california-diving/
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| Travel
news |
The
Curaçao Dive Festival will open it's doors on May 23 to 30,
2009
The Curaçao Dive
Festival presents in-depth workshops at numerous resorts on the
idyllic island, night-time film presentations on the beach,
early-morning guided dives, a thrilling underwater treasure hunt
and even the Curaçao Dive Festival Poker Championship.
Free transportation
is provided to all event sites. Please visit the festival
website for the full program.
Curaçao has more than 60 identified dive spots surrounding its
coastline with 57 coral species and more than 500 species of
fish. Come and discover why Curaçao has been rated #1 for
Healthiest Marine Environment in the Caribbean.
Read more: http://www.curacaodive.com/eng/index.php
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| Equipment
news |
Abyss
22 Extreme Regulator from Mares
Impeccable reliability,
even in extremely cold water
CWD Kit standard
• Even lighter first stage
• Second stage with fluoropolymer resin finish
Ideal for diving in extremely cold water. Mares has designed an
exclusive product, conceived to guarantee top performance and
reliability under the toughest conditions, including dives under
ice. “Superflex” hose.
Read more: http://www.mares.com/product_detail.php?id=439®ion=ALL
Titan LX 2009 from
Aqualung
Aqua Lung
is excited to offer an all-new Titan LX for 2009. This
beautifully redesigned Titan LX, while picking up exciting new
features like Aqua Lung’s auto-closure device (ACD), is
actually lighter weight, making it travel friendly. The ease of
breathing is rated superior on the ANSTI breathing machine. All
this, along with an attractive mid-range price, makes the Titan
LX
a sure value.
The auto-closure device (ACD) keeps corrosive water out of the
first stage thereby ensuring top performance
The balanced diaphragm
first stage, by the nature of its design, is environmentally
sealed and provides superior, consistent performance from
beginning of dive to end of dive
A pneumatically-balanced second stage results in superior
ease-of-breathing
Available in yoke (3300 psi / 232 bar max) or din (4350 psi /
300 bar max)...
Read more: http://www.aqualung.com/us/content/view/293 |
| Education
news |
PADI Introduces Smokin’ New Scuba Products
Visit your local PADI Dive Shop or Resort to get your hands on this year’s
“must-haves” and crank
up your bottom-time fun!
Dare to Drift: PADI Drift Diver Course & New Course Materials
The PADI Drift Diver course teaches you what you need to know so you can enjoy drift diving to the
max. You’ll learn techniques for staying with your buddy and drifting in a group, the different
entries appropriate for different types of drift diving and special drifting techniques used
around the world....
PADI Underwater Naturalist Course & New Course Materials
Develop your observation skills and open your eyes to the aquatic realm’s intricate ecosystems.
Learn to move through the underwater world without significantly disturbing its inhabitants and
how aquatic environments, organisms and divers interact...
More than a Training Record, it’s a Brag Book
Record your dives in the PADI Diver's Log and Training Record. With dedicated pages for dives from
the Open Water Diver course through Master Scuba Diver, the logbook serves as a journal of fond
memories and a road map for continuing education...
Plan for Maximum AdventureeRDPML™ Electronic Dive Planner Makes Dive Planning Easier than Ever
eRDPML™ has the dependability of a dive table and the simplicity of a calculator.
Plan for maximum adventure with the new eRDPML™ (Electronic Recreational Dive Planner, Mulitlevel
version.)...
Read more: http://www.padi.com/scuba/news-events/default.aspx?id=3426
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| Marine
Conservation |
One
Fifth of World's Corals Gone: Climate Change Battle to Rescue
Remaining
The
Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2008, released in
Washington, DC, December 2008, declares a 19 percent loss of
coral reefs worldwide.
Launched
by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), the report
identifies which coral reefs are recovering and which are
declining worldwide. The report states if current trends in
carbon dioxide emissions continue, many remaining reefs may be
lost over the next 20 to 40 years with alarming consequences.
Project
AWARE Foundation, partner behind the project and supporter of
the launch event, is encouraged by the report that 45 percent of
the world's reefs are currently healthy. But the
Foundation also recognizes a focus on climate
change, now considered the leading threat to coral reefs
today. Threats including increasing ocean temperatures and ocean
acidification are intensified by other threats including overfishing, pollution and invasive species.
“IIf
nothing changes, we are looking at a doubling of atmospheric
carbon dioxide in less than 50 years,” says Carl
Gustaf Lundin, Head of the IUCN Global Marine Programme, one of
the organizations behind the Global Coral Reef Monitoring
Network. “IAs this carbon is absorbed,
the oceans will become more acidic, which is seriously damaging
a wide range of marine life from corals to plankton communities
and from lobsters to seagrasses.”
Hope
is also found in the ability of some corals to recover after
major bleaching events, caused by warming waters, adapting to
climate change threats. However, the report also shows the
recent downward trends have not been reversed in the last four
years. And corals have a higher chance of survival against
climate change if other human threats are minimized...
“ITen
years after the world's biggest coral bleaching event, we
know that reefs can recover given the chance. Unfortunately,
impacts on the scale of 1998 will reoccur in the near future,
and there's no time to lose if we want to give reefs and
people a chance to suffer as little as possible,”
says Dr David Obura...
Read full article:
http://www.projectaware.org/english/templates/news.aspx?id=3011
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| New offers from the last minute board |
Here are a few of the ads featuring in the last minute board:
Italy
Price: 340 Euros
Scuba diving Course with Spiro Sub Elba. PADI dive center since.
Season from May - October for a duration of 5 days. From 10 years
old. Every Monday afternoon we start a PADI Open Water course at 14:00 hours. During the course have time to study your Open Water Diver Manual, and the Dive Table. You do the dives together with an instructor and maximum 5 students.....
http://www.gooddive.com/board/classifieds.php?a=2&b=355
Malaysia
Price: 2990 US$
Precise date of beginning 2 March 2009
Precise date of ending 20 March 2009
Nbr of places 6
PADI DIVE MASTER COURSE / 18 Days / 40 Dives / Sipadan, Malaysia. Operating around the World's Top 5 location of
Sipadan, the DM Course is intensive, guarantee min of 40 dives in 28'C all year round. The DM Training Program includes assisting with OWC Students, Assisting DMs in leading Dives, Review Rescue & EFR Skills, Draft Dive Site Map, Emmergency Action Plan, Dive Theory Review & Exams and preparation for IDC or Design a Project for Project Aware...
http://www.gooddive.com/board/classifieds.php?a=2&b=386
Thailand
Price 1100 US$
Month of trip July
Destination (country) Thailand
Nbr. of available places 4
Description
Oceans Below underwater videography is offering paid training internships to become a professional underwater videographer. You'll learn to shoot HD underwater video on tropical Koh Tao Thailand's amazing dive sites. After an intial training period, you'll be working on our existing contracts with Koh Tao based dive schools, filming real customers with the potential to re-coup your course fee [and more]. This is a once of a lifetime experience
http://www.gooddive.com/board/classifieds.php?a=2&b=388
Check the board http://www.gooddive.com/board/classifieds.php regularly for new great deals.
If you have a great offer don't hesitate to post it. This service is free!!
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| Diving business owner and webmaster corner
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The
Scuba Diving Community
The best way to come out of the crowd is:
Go to the scuba diving community and write a few posts and explain more about yourself and your services
in your profile.
Register to the forums that fit to your activities and reply to
users questions, this way you will show your expertise and
members will be interested in reading more about you by clicking
on your user name which will lead them to your profile page.
Make sure you make your profile pages attractive, it's you
business card. Add some information about your activities and
some pictures of your operation. Of course make sure you have a
link pointing to your website for everyone who'd like to learn more about you and get contact for reservations.
Making friends in the community will also connect you with
others and open doors towards you website. Making friends is
easy, just find same minded users of the community in the
different posts and in the members list. In the post click on
the name of the user, choose add him to your contact, then tick
the option: Also send a friend request to ... confirm with yes.
The member will get a private message with your friend request.
Once he has accepted you will see his avatar in your friend list
and your avatar will be on his profile pages in his friend list
too. Repeat it as many times as you wish with different users.
Your start to get me how the community can bring you new friends
and divers visiting you?
A nice avatar will attract more visitors than the default one,
as a diving center using your company logo would be a good idea.
You can ask for advice in the forum Diving
Business Support
You are authorized to forward
this newsletter to as many friends you wish but it must be in it's
original and complete state.
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