December 11 2009
Over the past few years, the Egyptian Red Sea has established itself as THE location worldwide to meet Oceanic Whitetip Sharks under water. Their presence at various dive sites has led to many unique and memorable encounters for both snorkellers and divers.
Recent reports of shark aggression, illegal shark baiting and feeding, and the unfortunate death of a snorkeller in June 2009 in St. Johns, have raised questions about potential changes in the sharks’ behaviour. Therefore it is increasingly important that we collect any available information on this shark species and document their behaviour, residency patterns and migrations paths throughout the Egyptian Red Sea.
Building on a population study on Carcharhinus longimanus that was initiated in fall 2004 by Dr. Elke Bojanowski, the Longimanus Project needs your HELP to collect underwater photographs and/or videos of Oceanic Whitetip Sharks taken on your safari or daily trips.
This footage will be used to identify individual sharks with the help of their natural markings; most prominent are those on their first dorsal fin and the lower tail lobe. Any new shark will be added to the individual catalogue (including around 500 Oceanics at present), while the sighting history of familiar animals will be updated.
In order for the footage to be useful, we need to know the dive site, date, and full name of the photographer(s). Please use the below folder organization/storage procedure:
Main Folder - dive site - date (e.g.: Daedalus Reef - 15.01.2009)
Sub Folder - full name of photographer: add picture/video files to folder (in JPG or any other common picture/video format)
If you have photos / video from a second photographer, please add a second sub folder.
HEPCA will provide CDs/DVDs/memory sticks to store any photographs and/or videos showing Oceanic Whitetip Sharks, which were taken either by yourself or the guests on your dive trips. These will be collected by HEPCA staff or can be returned to the HEPCA office in Hurghada. Please email or telephone the HEPCA office to arrange this.
If there is any additional information regarding any aspect of your encounters with the Oceanic Whitetips, please feel free to include it in the form of written documents or notes stored anywhere on the disk or memory stick. Please note that we will make NO commercial use of any of the footage, but will solely use it for scientific and information purposes.
THANK YOU for your support.
For more information on Oceanic Whitetip Sharks and the Longimanus Project, please visit www.longimanus.info
Can you help with photo ID of Oceanic Whitetip Sharks?
Ta Ta to Tut? King's Tomb to Close for Five Years
Tomb of Tutankhamun Egypt (2:10 p.m. EST) -- Planning to take a Nile cruise in order to visit the famous tomb of Tutankhamun, aka King Tut? You'd better hurry, as it has just been announced that the burial chamber, the most visited in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, is to be closed for five years.
Starting in May 2010, King Tut's tomb -- the painted walls of which are degenerating with unexplained brown markings -- will be off limits to tourists for a joint conservation effort between Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and the Los Angeles-based Getty Conservation Institute. The groups will spend two years determining the cause of the unexplained spots (most likely, according to scientists who have worked on past renovations of ancient Egyptian tombs, the heat and humidity brought by thousands of daily visitors) and a further three trying to solve the problem.
This isn't the first joint effort between Getty and the Egyptian authorities; the Foundation has restored other tombs in the Valley of the Kings and has also designed a series of airtight cases for the display of several precious Egyptian mummies.
Of course, the closure does not mean that Nile River cruises -- and ocean-going ships that stop at Safaga on the Red Sea to bus people into Luxor -- should be off your radar. Luxor boasts many other spectacular attractions and activities, including hot air balloon flights over the Nile, the market in Luxor and felucca rides on the river. The Temple of Karnak, the smaller Luxor Temple and the exquisite Temple of Queen Hatchepsut will be open as usual.
Plus, there are plenty of other tombs in the Valley of the Kings and the less dramatic Valley of the Queens that are frankly more impressive than Tutankhamun's -- it's just that his is the most famous.
Here's the reason for the intrigue: Although King Tut was only a minor royal when he reigned 3,000 years ago, his tomb -- less glamorously known as KV62 and unearthed by archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922 -- was one of the few on the Nile's West Bank at Luxor to be discovered almost intact, packed with objects of untold value and beauty, including the famous golden burial mask. The mummy came complete with its own curse: Carter's patron, Lord Carnarvon, died mysteriously just five months after the great discovery.
Perhaps the brown spots are a new manifestation of the curse? "I always see the tomb of King Tut and wonder about those spots, which no scientist has been able to explain," said Zahi Hawass, the head of the SCA, in a media statement. "Now I am happy that the Getty will look at the tomb and preserve its beautiful scenes."
Even after Tut's burial chamber reopens, the days of visiting the tombs in the Valley of the Kings may be numbered. At the same time as the Getty restoration project, the SCA is working on a long-term plan with Madrid-based Factum Arte, a company that produces highly sophisticated facsimiles of valuable antiquities, to create replicas of the tombs of Seti I and Nefertari (neither of which is currently open to the general public) and Tutankhamun.
The exhibit, which is expected to be expanded over time to include more of the most fragile of the valley's 63 known tombs, will become a permanent installation on the same site, with the working title "The Replica Valley" -- and the real tombs will one day no longer be available to visit.
While it's without doubt a worthy and much-needed conservation effort, Egypt, for many, is an awfully long way to go to look at a model. Would you still want to visit? Vote in our poll.
--by Sue Bryant, Cruise Critic Contributing Editor
http://www.cruisecritic.com/news/news.cfm?ID=3553
Artificial Reef for marine research and technical diving
The 51m wreck of the Hebat Allah was sunk in 2004 and opened as an official dive site in December 2005. It is the first and only artificial reef dive site created in the Hurghada region, and is frequented only by technical divers due to the fact that it lies bolt upright on a flat sandy seabed around 45m depth.
In October 2009, HEPCA divers teamed up with GUE Egypt (Global Underwater Explorers) and Colona Divers in a project to install new moorings to secure the wreck and improve the safety of diving her. It is hoped that more and more technical divers will come to appreciate diving this unique wreck as the ship is almost entirely intact and the accommodation area easy to explore. Her masts rise up to around 15m below the surface.
The Hebat Allah project also recognises the importance of this wreck as an artificial reef in offering a unique marine research opportunity to monitor reef growth from a baseline of her sinking five years ago. An initial assessment of marine life and coral presence was undertaken in October and recorded some extensive fish life including groupers, lionfish, many schooling fish and also a turtle. There were several coral species, including some hard corals, but their current poor coverage is likely to be due to both the depth of the wreck and also the fact that it lies some distance away from an established coral reef.
Going forward, HEPCA and GUE Egypt, with the support of Colona Divers, are intending to dive the Hebat Allah frequently with the following goals of the project in mind:
1. To maintain the constant presence of the mooring lines (previous lines have been lost due to fishing activity and incorrect mooring practices) in order to maximise the Hebat Allah’s potential as a safe and exciting technical diving site
2. To survey and document the coral growth and marine life diversity at depths greater than 35m, thereby using the Hebat Allah as a valuable marine research site, as well as continuous monitoring of the overall condition of the wreck.
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