Community

Share your thoughts, experiences or questions and participate in discussions over our favorite topic : SCUBA diving!

Happy Thanksgiving - full with turkey ? try the Turkeyfish !

by Ksso on November 21, 2012

Following a random twitt from community member @michandwalker, @chezfroggy pointed out that there is such thing as the Turkeyfish !

And indeed, the Pterois sphex, a relative to the common Pterois Volitans (Lionfish) is also referred to as the (Hawaiian) Turkeyfish. Although he doesn't really look like a turkey he still gets to be fish of the day :).

Pterois sphex is found in seaward reefs and lagoons at a depth range of 3 – 122 m... and as per its common name mostly in Hawaii.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

One third of marine species remain to be discovered!

by Ksso on November 21, 2012

Biology is tough. When you start diving, you start by being amazed by the beautiful marine life around... and as your skills increase so is your understanding of what you actually see. And god is there a variety of species down there, once you're done with the understanding of the big categories and start digging at a species level, you realize how tough it is to properly identify a species - even with a proper picture at hand.

But NOAA has some news : apparently although there are still more species to be discovered! Diveboard is in some sense involved in that quest to understanding the marine life, whenever divers mark down species in their logbook, occurrence data gets shared with...

Input on a month-long dive trip in Sept.

by Sean on November 19, 2012

Leaving out of Los Angeles some time in September:

Week 1: YapWeek 2: Palau

Week 3: Australia (GBR / Great Barreer Reef)

Week 4: Christmas Island (CI)

Week 1+2 will be with a dive club (SCDCIE.ORG...unless I find a cheaper rate) but I'd like to extend my trip in the region to include a stop in Australia and hopefully hit Christmas Island (or some other islands in this area...suggestions?) before making my way back home most likely via Hawaii.

I was curious if anyone had any suggestions as to a liveaboard to use in Australia as I've been told by some fellow divers that this is the best route to go versus doing a trip out to the reef every day. ...

Species round-up: the dumbo octopus

by Ksso on November 16, 2012

Everybody (if you don't raise hands) loves octopi ! But that's a species you're not likely to encounter easily : the Dumbo octopus Grimpoteuthis bathynectes . That's an abyssal species, as in really deep ocean where there's no light, hence the pale skin. It's know as dumbo due to their ear-like fins on the top of their head-like bodies.

As usually with abyssal species, they can be found near underwater volcanoes sustaining a strange and active ecosystem. Very little is known about them, but the video below will definitely move you, and make you wish you'll encounter one.

Ice diving is actually comfortable - ask Stig !

by Ksso on November 13, 2012

Ice diving is feared by many divers - but let's face it : with a proper dry suit, a mouthpiece and a little training it's really no big deal. The tough side is when u need to cut the ice with a manual soar and prep the site for the dive (did that under heavy storm - beautiful memories - still remember how the arms and feet hurt after spending 2hrs getting the site prepped).

Anyways, you know what's more extreme than ice diving ?

Freediving naked in an iced like.

Stig Åvall Severinsen did it and set the world guiness record for "Longest swim under ice - breath held".

Although it was in 2010 I stumbled onto the video today and though it was totally worth a share!

Missing species in the database ? There's a button for that !

by Ksso on November 12, 2012

A couple users have been complaining about some species missing in our database. We heard you and added a button for that! At the bottom of the species picker page, you will find an "Add missing species" yellow button that will guide you into adding a species to the database.

The server will add the species, check out the whole hierarchy and reindex the whole species table, so the process may take about one or two minute but when it's done the new species can be immediately added to your logbook !

Diveboard Updates: Articles, RSS, Profiles, Mobile

by Ksso on November 06, 2012

This week's major update is bringing a bunch of heavy features for the party.

Starting by three of the most requested features:

Support for pressure in dive profiles

If your dive computer logs pressures, and if that data was in your past uploads, than you may want to check back your profiles as they now have one more graph for the pressure !

RSS feeds

On each user's homepage you'll find a link to the user's rss feed which includes public dives and published notes

Dive creation on the mobile

If you have the diveboard mobile app on iOS or Android, you must have received by now an update with a bunch of new long-awaited features: dive creation, offline dive logging, offline access to...