Sea Shepherd confirms the non-existence of Pingvin Island

Pingvin Island on chart AUS452 Australian Antarctic Territory
Cape Rundingen to Cape Filchner overlayed on satellite imagery

From Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

While the Japanese whaling fleet pretends to be doing research, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society indulged in a little research of our own today.

We noticed that we would be sailing past the position of an island marked on nautical charts with the notation that there was a lack of confirmation on the existence of the island. Coincidently the path the fleeing Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru took the Sea Shepherd ships, Steve Irwin and Bob Barker, was a course directly to that position where the island is supposed to exist.
The island would be within Australian Antarctic Territorial waters if confirmed.

Pingvin Island appears on the Australian nautical chart #452 (Cape Rundingen to Cape Filhner). According to the chart, Pingvin Island is three miles long (as measured on the chart) and is situated at 65 Degrees 47 Minutes South and 81 Degrees 55 Minutes East.
The chart depicts the island with an “unconfirmed” status.
We can now say with 100% accuracy that the island depicted on the chart does not exist at the location indicated on the chart.
The Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin passed right over top of the location without any noticeable readings on the depth sounder indicating a sunken island or a seamount.

The British Antarctic pilot book has the island situated in a slightly different location a few miles away at 65 Degrees 45 Minutes South and 81 Degrees and 48 Minutes East.
We can now say with 100% accuracy that Pingvin Island does not exist at the location stated in the Australian Antarctic Pilot book.
The island does not appear on U.S. Nautical charts (NGA).

Pingvin Island is depicted on :

• Australian Chart #452 (Cape Rundinggen to Cape Filhner)
• Australian Chart #4074 (Cape Darnley to Tasmania)
• International Chart #72 (Cape Darnley to Tasmania) --> correction INT#74
  

There are numerous icebergs in the area, and none of which can be mistaken for an island.
The Steve Irwin and the Bob Barker did a radar, depth sounder, and visual survey at 1200 Hours on Sunday, February 21st, 2010.
Photographs were taken with a GPS in the picture of the location indicated on the chart.

Dr. Bonny Schumaker, on the Bob Barker, confirmed the observations of Captain Paul Watson and 1st Officer Lockhart MacLean on the Steve Irwin.

Notes from the Bob Barker from observations by Dr. Bonny Schumaker:

According to our chart on the Bob Barker (AUS452, INT903), Pingvin Island is centered on about 65deg 48'S, 081deg51'E.

--> Position on the Marine GeoGarage (65°47.5'S/81°55'E)

At 1215 (UTC+0800) today, 2010 Feb 21, we passed an iceberg at 65deg 46'S, & 081deg 51.9'E, a position approximately 1.2 nm NW of where the chart indicates Pingvin Island, and at that time we saw nothing else in the vicinity except for this iceberg.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has informed the Australian Hydrographic Service of the observation.

One explanation could be the Antarctic sea ice has expanded over the past 30 years.
(see Links below)

Links :

• MySailing : All you've ever wanted to ask the Australian Hydrographic Service
• National Geographic : Why Antarctic sea ice is growing in a warmer world
• Wired : Global warming protects Antarctic sea ice — But not for long
  

Australia, a new chart layer in the Marine GeoGarage

AHS (Australian Hydrographic Service) gives us its agreement (license no 2829SL) to display their nautical raster charts (a set of 437 charts -725 including sub-charts-) in the Marine GeoGarage.

Some charts (21 charts originally in Clarke 1858 datum) have not been included in the Marine GeoGarage because no rigourous transformation between Clarke 1858 to WGS84 datum is possible.

Note : other charts (for example 38 charts in Australian Geodetic 1966 datum) have been transformed to match Google Maps viewer datum.

So Marine GeoGarage is able right now to display 3411 charts coming from 7 international Hydrographic Services.

--- END-USER RESPONSIBILITY ----------------------Certain material in this product is reproduced under license by permission of The Australian Hydrographic Service.
©Commonwealth of Australia 2010. All rights reserved.
This information may not be copied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any medium or machine readable form, in whole or part, without the prior written consent of the Australian Hydrographic Service.

Mariners should keep Australian nautical charts up-to-date by consulting the Notices to Mariners.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So with the Premium Chart subscription (9.9 € / month), you have access today to :
UKHO, SHN, CHS & AHS nautical charts private layers.

 James Cook's Map of the East Coast of "New South Wales", 1770

Freycinet Map of 1811 – The first full map of Australia to be published

Divers swim and play with white beluga whales under the Arctic ice in the White Sea, Russia

A diver gets up close with two white beluga whales under the ice in the White Sea, Russia.
The two grab the diver's arms and appear to be helping him swim (other pictures)

From TheTelegraph

These wild whales are not yet on the endangered list, but are considered to be under threat from pollution and loss of habitat.

Pictured here at a special whale sanctuary designed and built by Marine Biologists from St Petersburg University in 2006, the beluga is thriving.

The "natural farm" acts as a nursery for breeding whales, as well as acting as a rehabilitation centre for former performing animals before they are set into the wild.

The natural bay under the ice means that the whales are protected from the strong currents of the wider ocean and left to breed in peace, while also leaving them free to roam as they wish.
Occasionally, guests at the local dive centre can swim with the whales, and get close enough to touch.

Franco Banfi, an Arctic diver and photographer, who took the pictures, said: “When a whale comes up to us and swims by, it looks you right in the eyes. Obviously we don’t know what they think, but they are very curious creatures.
“Sometimes, I'm sure they're trying to figure out what we are and where we came from.
“As a photographer, I’ve always been driven to bring photographs of animals one hardly ever sees to a printed page."

But while the beluga, or white whale, is built for these harsh surroundings, the diving team face extremely tough conditions to get close to the gentle creatures.
Before each dive the team have to create holes in the three-foot-deep ice using a hand saw, just to get through to the sea below.
Once they’re in they have to swim around in heavy layers of clothes in the -10°C waters.
But the short straw is for the volunteer who gets to stay above ground in -30°C winds, making sure the ice hole doesn’t freeze over and trap the group.

“Photographing a story in very cold water can turn into a logistical nightmare, “ says Mr Banfi, 58.
“But, if we are well trained, the underwater part of things is not really as harsh as you might think."
"When we come out on land, temperatures can get down to – 10°C or -20°C and things will instantly freeze, so we can barely move.
“Cold itself will not hurt the equipment, but it may slow down some of its functions as well as our own.
“Because of the ice-layer and snow cover, there is not sufficient light to shoot with ambient light and batteries lose their charge more quickly in cold weather.”

Mr Banfi said he was keen to show the beauty of the undersea world to those who can’t face the icy deep themselves.
“As photographer, I’ve always been driven to bring photographs of animals one hardly ever sees," he said.
"I want to see these amazing animals in a way that only a few people have seen and I want to share it with others.”

Paul Lutus : confessions of a long-distance sailor

From Wikipedia

Paul Lutus is a computer programmer from the hey-days of the home computer (read: late 70s and early 80s) who sailed around the world in a tiny boat and wrote about it.

As a a thinker he put an interesting spin on sailing and man's relationship with the sea.
It's a interesting read which could inspire you to get out there and do some long distance sailing.

Before becoming a software author, Lutus designed electronics for the NASA Space Shuttle
and created a mathematical model of the solar system that was used by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory during the Viking Mars mission.

After working for NASA, in 1976 Lutus moved to a remote location in rural Oregon and started living in a cottage in complete isolation.
There, he started writing computer programs on his first personal computer, an Apple II. In the 80's, he would eventually program Apple Writer, an international best-seller for the Apple II, plus some programming environments.

In 1983, Lutus received Reed College's Vollum award for contributions to science and technology, and was named Scientist of the Year by the Oregon Academy of Science in 1986.

Between 1988 and 1991 Lutus sailed solo around the world in a 31-foot sailboat.
His book about the sail, Confessions of a Long-Distance Sailor is free on his website.

One of Lutus's latest software projects is Arachnophilia, a Java Web development workshop available free on his website. The program is released under Lutus's own version of the Careware license.

Links :

• Eclectic navigation : describing some ways to accommodate the reality that our charts aren't completely trustworthy
• FurledSails Podcast : #83 & 84
  

Rare ocean sunfish drifts through area eating its weight in jellyfish

Marine biologist Tierney Thys asks us to step into the water
to visit the world of the Mola mola, or giant ocean sunfish

From TCPalm

As a youngster growing up in Miami, Ed Rice said his grandfather would share tales of his life as yacht captain, including one Rice says he will never forget — that of seeing an odd-looking ocean sunfish for the first time.

Sunfish look like a huge swimming fish head, as if a predator took its body behind the dorsal fin. But that’s the body these gentle giants are born with and sunfish spend their lives drifting slowly in the ocean’s currents feeding primarily on jellyfish.

Rice, of Palm City, got a first-hand look at a sunfish himself last Friday while returning to the St. Lucie Inlet after a offshore fishing trip aboard his boat, Scooter 2, with his son Daniel and friend Steven Trull.

“I guess I saw its fin break the surface of the water,” Rice said of the commotion in the water due east of the House of Refuge. “We made our way closer and could clearly see this odd fish as it swam next to the boat.”

Rice, 55, said he went online to research the sunfish, which revealed the estimated 4-foot across, 400-pounder he had witnessed was small. According to the website Oceansunfish.org, the largest sunfish ever recorded was 10 feet from nose to tail, 14 feet from tip of dorsal to tip of anal fin and weighed 4,927 pounds.

It takes a lot of jellyfish to reach that size, said Mark Perry, director of Florida Oceanographic Society on Hutchinson Island in Stuart.

“They’re very rare around here, but once in a while we’ll hear of one seen by a fisherman,” Perry said. “They’re native to temperate and tropical seas. Sometimes they can be seen swimming near the surface as they eat jellyfish or sun themselves.”

For Rice, it was an encounter he won’t soon forget.

“I had never seen one in some 40 years of fishing in South Florida,” Rice said. “Now my son has seen one, too, and one day he can share that with his kids.”

The recent influx of several species of jellyfish in Treasure Coast ocean waters has produced a number of stings for beachgoers. Offshore anglers working waters south of Fort Pierce have reported seeing millions of jellyfish out 4 to 5 miles from shore.

The dense population of jellyfish has also produced numerous turtle sightings along the coast, as turtles are also known to prefer jellyfish as a favorite food.

MOLA MOLA (OCEAN SUNFISH)

• Slow-moving, drifts in oceans currents
• Can grow to more than 4,000 pounds, but most sightings report a diameter of about 6 feet
• Eats jellyfish, Portuguese man-of-war, squids, sponges and other bottom dwellers
• Close relative of trigger fish, porcupine fish and puffer fish
• Is the world’s largest bony fish
• Are preyed upon by sea lions and orcas

REPORT MOLA MOLA SIGHTINGS

Researchers with Oceansunfish.org request that when boaters encounter a mola mola to please report it online at www.oceansunfish.org/sightings

Links :

• Ocean sunfish photos