Sometime in the 1990s, two different species of lionfish made it into the waters of the Atlantic off Florida. Native to the Indo-Pacific, the venomous, predatory fish spread rapidly, decimating local reef fish in the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean. Lacking local predators to stop its spreading, the lionfish have been described as “one of the most aggressively invasive species on the planet“. So far, the most effective means of slowing the spread of the fish is for divers to spear them, a relatively slow and challenging approach.
I recently came across a video from 2015, showing a grouper eating a lionfish. Groupers and sharks are natural predators for the lionfish in the Pacific, but the Atlantic and Caribbean groupers have been slow to adapt to considering the new invader as a food source. Are local groupers and other predators developing a taste for lionfish? About the video: Continue reading
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Today, the New York Times featured an article titled — “
Captain Reinhard Hardegen
For many years, scientists had thought that great white sharks traveled north and south along the Pacific coast of America, feeding in waters close to shore. Then researchers at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station began tagging white sharks with satellite tracking tags. Rather than staying along the coast, great whites were traveling a thousand miles out into the Pacific in the winter and spring and congregating in an area which the researchers nicknamed the “
Ever dream of sailing the Pacific on an inter-island trading ship? Well, the Auxiliary-Sail Trading Vessel Tiare Taporo, based in the Cook Islands is looking for crew. This sounds like a fascinating opportunity for the right individuals. From a notice by 
The 
In 1614, Dutch sailor 
Manta Point is a popular dive spot off the southernmost shore of Nusa Penida Island, near Bali, Indonesia. Divers are attracted by the large number of manta rays which congregate there. On March 3rd, a British diver, Rich Horner, found far more than mantas at Manta Point. He found himself swimming in a sea of plastic garbage. His video of swimming through the mass of debris and trash has gone viral. It is disturbing to watch. The video is the bad news. The good news or perhaps the less bad news is that the video doesn’t tell the whole story. 
The deaths of 17 sailors in the separate collisions with merchant ships of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers USS Fitzgerald and the USS John S. McCain has raised fundamental questions about the seamanship of US naval officers on the two ships, and by implication, the fleet as a whole. A three-month internal review conducted by senior U.S. surface fleet leaders of the seamanship and ship handling skills of new deck officers has yielded deeply concerning results.
Norfolk’s forty-second annual