X-Ray Mag #92
Covershot by Kate Jonker
Main features in this issue include:
Diving South Africa’s Sodwana Bay
The name “Sodwana” comes from the Zulu words Siso dwana, which mean “us alone.” History has it that a group of Zulu women were harvesting mussels on a deserted stretch of beach along the northern coast of KwaZulu-Natal when a landing party for the British Royal Navy came ashore and asked them who they were and what they were doing there.
Being just over 400km north of Durban on the eastern coast of South Africa, and off the beaten track, the area was left somewhat unexplored until the late 1940s.
Exposure Suit Myths: Magic Seaweed, Nano Colors & Other Titanium Wetsuit Fabrications
Do manufacturers hype junk science to sell exposure protection? The short answer is yes!
You see the program from time to time at DEMA and other trade events, and you can read about it in the pages of nearly every dive magazine anytime.
Gerry Miles Portfolio
British artist Gerry Miles paints marine life and reef scenes in brilliant color and dynamic compositions, often with abstract backgrounds that capture the thrilling vitality and sublime ambience of the underwater world. X-Ray Mag interviewed the artist to find out more about his artwork and perspectives.
"I hope that, in some small way, by bringing my interpretation of the beauty and majesty of the underwater world to the attention of people, that they may feel the same desperate need that I have to preserve it for future generations."
—Gerry Miles
Lake Zurich: Deep Cold-Water Wreck Diving in Switzerland
Why travel far when good things lie right at your doorstep? In our case, the “good thing” was Lake Zurich, a midsized lake in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. The city of Zurich is located on the northern end of the 40km-long lake, which still holds some secrets in its depths. In this article, we present two wrecks recently found in the lake and the journey of their exploration.
May 2017, a dull day. We were on a mission to search for “something big” in Lake Zurich. A strange track on the lake bottom near a well-known dive spot piqued our curiosity. It was our lucky day!
Models and Simulations
A model may mean different things. It can signify a miniaturisation, like the kit airplanes some of us assembled when we were kids or an electrical model railway. It can mean mimicking or resembling something, the appearance or behaviour of which we want to emulate or replicate—what is also known as a simulation. Furthermore, it may also stand for simplification.
We resort to models when we need to simplify complex mechanisms or relationships in order to make decisions, predict the outcome of some processes, or analyse consequences of some decisions—sometimes with the aid of computers running complex simulations of various scenarios.
Ponza Rebreather Meeting 2019: Dive, Learn, Eat
Michael Menduno details the highlights of the various presentations given during the sixth biannual international Rebreather Meeting, which took place 1-5 May 2019 on Ponza Island in Italy.
1 May 2019 — Nearly three dozen rebreather aficionados made the biannual trek to Ponza, Italy—a picturesque island in the Tyrrhenian Sea about a three-hour journey from Rome—for the sixth International Rebreather Meeting organized by Andrea Donato, owner of Ponza Diving Center, and his partner, D
Rembrandt Lighting
What is the difference between a snapshot and a masterpiece in photography? This is a question that is often asked but is often already answered. Even though some opinions may differ, there is one very correct statement: It is all about the light.
Master the light and you will master photography. Indeed, “drawing with light” is the meaning of the Greek origin of the word “photography.”
Shark Dives of Japan's Southern Honshu
For a relatively small nation, Japan has an exceptional degree of marine biodiversity—especially among sharks and rays. Exotic elasmobranchs can be encountered virtually anywhere along the meandering coastline of southern Honshu (Japan’s large central island), but there are a handful of hotspots that shark fans should try not to miss.
Ito
Ito is a quaint little fishing village near Tateyama in Chiba Prefecture. From Ito’s tiny harbor, the ocean appears calm and tranquil, but a few hundred meters from shore, there are so many banded houndsharks that they block out the sun.
Southwestern Halmahera
The appearance on the radar of a new world-class area for scuba diving is a rare and extremely welcome event. It is even better news when it is a place as steeped in history and culture as this one.
This new dive destination is a collection of rocks and islets in the northeastern region of the vast Indonesian archipelago, on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.
The Lone Wolf
The scene for this story is a liveaboard in Southeast Asia, which, on most of its itineraries, would offer guests four dives a day and imposed a 60-minute maximum dive time for each dive. Divers were also asked to stay together on a dive, and follow their guide. There were 12 divers and three guides, so each guide would usually be leading four divers.
On this particular trip, one of the divers, Brian, made it very clear that he did not like these policies. He would often swim some distance away from the group, complaining afterwards that their bubbles kept getting in his photographs.
Viroit Cave: Cave Diving in Albania
Diving at a location where only few have gone before is every diver’s dream. Viroit Cave in southern Albania is such a place.
Located near the old town of Gjirokaster, Viroit Cave has been on my list of special dive locations I have wanted to visit for a long time. Unfortunately, there was not a lot of information available on the Internet about diving in this country.