Photo Courtesy Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary

I’ve set up a new ’sister site’ to ‘Rapture’ and ‘Sevengill Shark Sightings,’ called ‘Humboldt Squid Encounters, to document the increasing frequency of encounters between divers and these scary cephalopods.

http://humboldtsquidencounters.org

Feel free to contribute any dive reports, photos or videos of any experience with these animals which you may have had. I will make sure you are given watermarks and full credit.

Shark Fin Soup

It was the height of the feast and our waitress laid a grand platter on the table.

In it was a mound of roast duck, ringed by translucent fronds of the finest shark’s fin, glistening in a magnificent sauce.

It was a grand gesture on the part of my host, a wild extravagance, and a rich reference to Chinese culinary tradition.

I knew it would be astoundingly delicious.

The only problem for me was that I decided some time ago to stop eating shark’s fin for environmental reasons.

I knew that the Chinese appetite for fins was helping to drive many shark species to extinction, and had heard reports of the nasty practice called “finning”, where fishermen slash the valuable fins from live sharks, and throw their bodies away.

Environmental conscience

But I also knew that my host had served the dish to honour me and that a refusal to eat it might appear rude and ungrateful.

See below for more:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8470945.stm

Photographer Franco Banfi, who took these shots after his team carved through the ice with a handsaw, said: ‘When a whale comes up to us and swims by, it looks you right in the eyes. Sometimes, I’m sure they’re trying to figure out what we are and where we came from.

For copyright reasons, they cannot be reproduced here, but you can view them at the link below:
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1244149/What-doing-Amazing-underwater-photos-beluga-whales-meeting-divers-Arctic-rehabilitation-farm.html#ixzz0d5FKpI4N