Not all ship wreck found are in the ocean; some of the really interesting ones are in lakes. Take, for example, the 300-foot L.R. Doty, a massive, wooden steamship that sank in 1898 in Lake Michigan. The ship remained lost until a tug owner snagged his nets at an obstruction in 1991 and thought it might be the L.R. Doty. However, it wasn't until this May that our friend Jitka Hanakova, owner of Milwaukee's Shipwreck Explorers and captain of the dive boat Mollie V, found the L.R. Doty, and on June 16, Hanakova and team of tech divers descended to the wreck at 300 feet. [Read full report] -- Posted Wednesday, June 30, 2010 by chb
Joe Roualdes joins ScubaDiverInfo.com blog team 
Welcome Joe Roualdes, who is a PADI dive master and has joined ScubaDiverInfo.com as a contributing blogger. Joe will focus on relating his experiences learning about underwater photography and video, dive-related stories of all kinds, and dive profiles. [Check out Joe Roualdes' blog!] -- Posted Tuesday, June 29, 2010 by chb
Religious dive trips?
The National Catholic Register ran a feature entitled "Praying Underwater" that reports on the various underwater religious shrines around the world and includes a list and facts about some of them. [See Praying Underwater] -- Posted Tuesday, June 29, 2010 by chb
Scuba businesses starting lawsuits against BP
The BP oil spill catastrophe is starting to affect all aspects of life in and around the Gulf of Mexico. As a result, a growing number of businesses and individuals are launching lawsuits against BP and other companies linked to the spill. Among the first scuba businesses to sue is Adventure Sports II of Montgomery, Alabama. -- Posted Tuesday, June 29, 2010 by chb
Full review: 33-feet rated 14mp Panasonic TS2 
Panasonic is rapidly establishing itself as a major digital camera manufacturer, and also offers cameras for underwater use. The Lumix TS2 is Panasonic's follow-up on last year's somewhat limited TS1. With a maximum depth of 33 feet, the 14-megapixel TS2, which lists for US$399, can now be used for diving. It also has a much wider temperature range and is altogether tougher yet. We gave the Lumix TS2 a good workout in the cold waters off the California Channel Islands. [Read full review of the Panasonic Lumix TS2] -- Posted Sunday, June 27, 2010 by chb
Waterproof case for the Amazon Kindle 
For those who want to take their Kindle near or in water, M-Edge Accessories now offers the Kindle Guardian case. It's a nicely designed polycarbonate affair that comes in black, blue or red, runs US$79.99, and uses anti-reflective film to cut down on glare. Unfortunately, max depth is 1 meter, or just over three feet. So no Kindle reading during lengthy deco stops. [See Guardian Case for Amazon Kindle] -- Posted Thursday, June 17, 2010 by chb
Kelp-diving the California Channel Islands 
If a week on a live aboard sounds great, but the cost and time requirements doesn't, consider a 3-day boat dive trip to the California Channel Islands. It probably runs less than a quarter the cost, but it's a terrific experience to dive the cool, wild waters of the Pacific, swimming through magical kelp forest, seeing Garibaldis, sea lions, horn and swell sharks, urchins and sea stars galore, and perhaps dolphins and even a humpback whale or two. Read our trip report from three great days onboard the 80-foot ship Conception by Truth Aquatics out of Santa Barbara [read trip report] [see picture gallery] -- Posted Tuesday, June 15, 2010 by chb
Camera in Ikelite housing floats from Aruba to Key West!
A blog in the Miami News Times tells the remarkable story of a digital camera in an Ikelite housing getting lost in Aruba, and then being found 1100 miles away in Key West, having floated all the way there. But that's not all: on the way, it apparently encountered a sea turtle that managed to trigger the record function, and so you have a video of the camera bobbing along the turtle (see video on YouTube). The odd trip is reported here. -- Posted Monday, June 14, 2010 by chb
US$149 waterproof Kodak Playsport 1080p vidcam 
Earlier this year, Kodak joined the ranks of camera manufacturers offering waterproof models with the Kodak Playsport video camera that can also do 5mp stills. The Playsport shoots full 1080p high definition video (as well as 720p and WVGA), has 128MB internal memory, a SDHC card slot, comes in three colors (purple, black, blue). You can take it down to ten feet, and it costs just US149. 10 feet, of course, is not enough for most scuba dives, but the camera'd still be handy to have around on a dive boat! -- Posted Monday, June 14, 2010 by chb