DIVER NEWS
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MORE DIVERS are to get the
chance to explore off the island of
Sipadan, Malaysian Borneo’s most
renowned diving destination.
Diving visitors have been subject
to a quota since 2006, but now
Sabah Parks has increased the
number of individuals allowed to
dive there each day by 46% –
from 120 to 176.
The maximum number of daily
dives per person has been reduced
from four to three, which caps the
overall number of dives at 528 a
day compared to the previous 480.
The change is an interim
measure designed to test whether
it has any significant ecological
impact, with Universiti Malaysia
Sabah carrying out an assessment.
The Malaysian government
closed all the dive resorts on the
island in 2004 amid concerns that
its marine life was suffering from
serious stress resulting from over-
diving and boat traffic.
Access was reinstated two years
later, with the 120-diver quota
divided between 12 approved
Malaysian dive operators.
Some local operators have been
pushing for the quota to be
increased, although the Semporna
Professional Divers Association has
stated that even the existing level is
excessive if Sipadan’s special appeal
for divers is to be maintained. PAINTINGS BY ONE of Imperial
Russia’s best-known artists, Ivan
Aivazovsky, are reported to have been
found on a 19th-century shipwreck in
the Black Sea near Crimea.
The General Kotzebuewas a 68m
cargo paddle-steamer, built on
Tyneside in 1866. Sailing in ballast
from Sevastopol to Odessa on 29
April, 1895, for the Russian Steam
Navigation & Trading Company, she
sank after colliding with another
vessel near Cape Tarkhankut.
The wreck was discovered at a
depth of 40m in 2015, but now 10
fragments of paintings are said to
have been located by divers from
Russia’s Neptune Expedition.
Their underwater video appears to
show framed canvases protrudingfrom layers of thick silt.
Aivazovsky, who painted more than
6000 seascapes, battle scenes and
portraits during his 60-year career,
was known to have been aboard the
General Kotzebuein 1869 to capture
the moment the ship became one
of the first to sail through the newly
built Suez Canal.
He was known to have presented
preliminary and sometimes finished
works to ships on which he sailed.
The dive-team were set to attempt
to recover the paintings in June,
although it was not known to what
extent the silt would have succeeded
in preserving them.
Aivazovsky was based in Crimea
and for a time was the main painter of
the Russian Navy. He became andremains one of Russia’s most
celebrated artists, and also held many
exhibitions in Europe and the USA.
He died in 1900.
In 2012 one of his paintingsdepicting the Bosphorus in Turkey
was sold at auction-house Sotheby’s
for US $5.2 million, and many other of
his works have fetched sums of more
than $1 million. Divers investigate art
find on Black Sea wreck
Stormy Sea at Night by Ivan Aivazovsky.Sipadan quotas
to be eased
SCUBA-DIVERS ARE BEINGasked to
show that they care about resurgent
crawfish – by pledging not to catch
any of the spiny crustaceans.
Cornwall Wildlife Trust (CWT ) has
just launched a national campaign
called #HandsOffOurCrawfish, with
dive schools, boats and clubs being
encouraged to display its “No
Crawfish On This Boat” stickers.
After nearly 40 years, crawfish, or
spiny lobsters, have made a dramatic
comeback, says CWT. Large numbers
of young have been appearing on
wrecks and reefs all around the
Cornish coast and elsewhere in the
south-west of England.
Early signs of their recovery were
noted during a Seasearch surveyorganised by CWT and reported in
divErNewstwo years ago.
The slow-growing lobsters, which
have long antennae and powerful
finned tails, can live for up to 60 years.
They communicate over long
distances using a creaking sound
created by rubbing the bases of their
antennae against their shells.
Crawfish were overfished in the
1970s and ’80s by both fishermen and
divers, and this time CWT hopes that a
sustainable fishery can be created.
“We dropped down to the seabed
on a rocky reef off Newquay that I’ve
dived many times over the years,” saidCWT Marine Awareness Officer Matt
Slater, describing his first crawfish
encounter. “Within just a few minutes
we found 18 beautiful crawfish.
“Divers all around the South-west
are reporting crawfish at their
favourite dive-sites, and everyone is
really pleased to see them back.
“The majority of recreational divers
appreciate all the marine creatures
they encounter and very few collect
marine life to eat, preferring to
enjoy peaceful encounters and
underwater photography... if
even small numbers of divers start
collecting them, it would not take
long for them to disappear once
again.”
CWT says that Dive Newquay
was the first company to sign up
to its campaign. “Since we first set
up our dive company five years
ago we have always made our
customers return any collected
crawfish back into the sea,” said
director Paddy Maher.
“No one wants to see these
creatures wiped out again as they
were in the 1980s. It makes absolute
sense to educate divers and to ask
people to think more about their
impacts on the underwater world.”
The CWT asks divers to look out for
the #HandsOffOurCrawfish hashtag
on social media and to share crawfish
photos and news. Its campaign is also
being promoted through Seasearch
in Devon, Dorset and the Channel
Islands, cornwallwildlifetrust.org.uk Divers urged to back crawfish recovery
DAVID MORGANNA crawfish at home in UK waters.