Issue #22: The magazine that goes deeper
Our Spring 2021 issue dives deeper into the underwater world than anybody has done for some time. Deeper into Truk Lagoon, deeper into St Helena’s biodiversity, deeper into our damaged oceans, deeper into the Abyss. Order your copy now or subscribe for a year from just £9.99
*£9.99 for a digital-only subscription including all content plus 80+ digital back issues. £22.99 for all digital content plus 4 x art-quality quarterly print magazines for £22.99. Available worldwide (international shipping extra).
Evolutionary isolation has a huge impact on the flora and fauna that inhabit any given location, but there are not so many places left that are truly isolated from the rest of the world. St Helena is among one of the last bastions of true biodiversity, and Rémi Demarthon and Alexandra Childs set out to explore its many endemic species, and the actions that dedicated Saints are taking to ensure its survival.
If St Helena is an isolated part of our planet’s surface, there could be no more remote frontier than the depths of our deepest oceans – a frontier we’re busy destroying before we’ve even taken the time to visit. Marine biologist Helen Scales takes us on a journey into the Brilliant Abyss, with a dire warning of the damage we’re causing and the measures we need to take to ensure the depths remain protected.
Many divers never heed the warnings of their peers until something goes wrong and they wish they’d paid more attention. For some divers, that realisation came tragically too late. With a past misadventure weighing heavily on his mind, tech-diving guru, broadcaster and film-maker, Stratis Kas, decided to tell the story of the day he nearly died – and invited a host of diving luminaries to also tell the tales of their own Close Calls. We feature three extracts from this fantastic book of gripping diving yarns with important lessons to be learned.
Truk – or Chuuk – Lagoon was the site of one of the most destructive naval battles of the Second World War, and the graveyard of the Japanese Imperial Fleet has since become an underwater museum to the horrors of war – and what many consider to be the pinnacle of wreck diving. Resident expert Martin Cridge takes us on a tour of five of his favourite ships, beautifully photographed by Steve Jones, who reports on the history behind the wreck diving capital of the world and how some of its tonnage came to lie beneath the waves.
We’ve managed to put protections in place for just five per cent of our oceans, but even five per cent is a huge amount of water to cover. Environmental campaigner and National Geographic expedition leader Paul Rose was instrumental in safeguarding more than five million square kilometres of marine protected areas, but here he tells us why it’s not enough, and what more needs to be done to safeguard our seas before it’s too late.
Nudibranchs! Everybody loves nudibranchs! Our Big Shot Nudibranch photo competition was a great success, and turned up some beautiful pictures of some of the ocean’s most brightly coloured gems. As promised, the best pictures are published in our superlative coffee-table magazine, printed on art-quality paper to highlight the brilliance of the photography. Find out who won the best of the ‘naked lung’ shots – and find out what’s in store for Summer…
