Daylight length, Solmar V, Pufferfish, & more

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Happy winter solstice . . .

TODAY (SUNDAY) WAS THE SHORTEST DAY OF THE YEAR - The winter solstice marks the shortest day of the year and even though the actual solstice occurred (astronomically) at 7:03AM this morning (Sunday), the entire amount of daylight for today - official sunrise to official sunset - was 9 hours and 53 minutes long, rising at 6:54AM and setting at 4:47PM. (Little known fact: Yesterday, Saturday, was exactly the same.) But starting on Monday, the day's are lengthening, although we only pick up a whopping 2 seconds on that day, but each day we gain a little more and then a little more. By March 16, we'll be back at 12 hours of official daylight. Whew!!!

EFFECTS ON DIVING - Sunset actually has an effect, certainly for Reef Seekers, on what time we start night dives. During the winter months, we can start as early as 5:30PM, because it's dark enough. But in the summertime, especially in June, we have to wait until at least 8PM, which is when the sun officially goes down.

FISH SOUNDS - Whenever we talk about ocean sustainability and balance of nature, one of the biggest obstacles to our understanding of things is that a lot of our knowledge requires eyes-on research, so we're limited by the amount of time we can dive, or the amount of time we could use a submersible - also in limited supply - to monitor observations. But now there's a new tool which is a combined underwater camera/microphone that can hear individual fish sounds and identify which species made the sound, allowing scientists to get a better handle of species counts which, in turn, helps better understand reef health. You can read more about this here: TRACKING FISH SOUNDS TO I.D. SPECIES AND REEF HEALTH.

ANYONE BOOKED ON SOLMAR V? - Undercurrent reports on some recent problems that seem to have affected trips on Solmar V to Socorro. Here's what they wrote: "After the death of a diver in late November, the operators of the veteran liveaboard canceled several weeks of trips to Mexico's Revillagedo Islands, with some divers finding out only after showing up in Cabo San Lucas. Divers report the owners have not responded to emails, have not been promised refunds, but many say they have been ghosted. But, just as we were finishing this email, the Solmar at last sent an explanatory message to clients, saying, "In the coming days, we will provide additional updates, including our anticipated timeline for resuming operations and the process for refunds for the trips that were unfortunately affected."" If you've got a trip coming up on that boat, give the operators a call to make sure the trip is running. The last thing you need to have happen is to fly down to Mexico only to find out that you're not going anywhere.

LAST-MINUTE GIFT REMINDER - We can do Gift Certificates for pretty much anything you can dream up. That could be a nice vacation - how does two spots for Indonesia in July, 2026, sound? - or a day trip to Avalon or anything else you can think of. If you're stuck for ideas for the special diver in your life, we can help.

HOW CUTE!!!! - Pufferfish have to be some of the most adorable fish that we regularly see. How can you not be captivated by those big eyes staring at you and that almost-smiling mouth? So imagine what the adorable overload is when you see a packed school of them that must contain hundreds - or even a thousand - of individual fish? I've never seen something like this but you can gaze upon it here: SCHOOLING PUFFERS.

And that’ll do it for now. Have a great week, Merry Christmas (almost), and let's go diving soon!!!

- Ken