Wetnotes

Before moving to Canada, Tom researched the area looking for possible cave diving sites to explore. Tales of expeditions of epic proportions by Martin Groves and the Alberta Speleological Society began to emerge. One site briefly visited caught his eye... Karst Spring.

There's a serious threat to our oceans that few people know about and which every day is closer to causing untold damage to marine ecosystems across the globe. This is the threat of marine pollution caused by toxic chemicals leaking from the more than 8,500 potentially polluting shipwrecks that dot the world’s oceans.

Coral reefs are one of the oldest and most biodiverse ecosystems in the world, and they are vitally important for our planet’s health. But they are under threat. Over half of the world’s shallow water coral reefs have died, and it is predicted that they could all be gone within our lifetimes. Coral Restoration Project are on a mission to change this.

We all share some responsibility in helping to protect vital marine ecosystems from degradation and permanent loss. A group of youngsters, affiliated with Sound Diving in Plymouth, have joined forces with the National Marine Aquarium (NMA) to help restore the majestic seagrass meadows located in our local area.

The water looks inviting. Even though it is the middle of February, the winter sun manages to create an inviting turquoise colour as it reflects and refracts. So it isn’t until I hurl myself off the rocks into the water to begin my swim that I realise that looks really are deceiving.

"There is something truly magical about slipping beneath the surface on a single breath of air." Based in Bimini, Jillian Morris Brake is a marine biologist, shark advocate, scuba instructor, explorer, educator and unabashedly obsessed with sharks. She is also a fourth element ambassador.

The Underbathwater Photographer of the Year competition 2021 had hundreds of entries and the quality of so many of the submissions was incredibly high. Judges Alex Mustard, Saeed Rashid and Jim Standing had quite a challenge to pick even a short list from amongst the array of imagery.

A modern day Jacques Cousteau, Jill Heinerth’s adventures have brought her into some of the most inhospitable environments on earth, from cave-diving inside a recently calved Antarctic iceberg to surfacing from a dive through a service hatch in the middle of the highway in downtown Orlando.

When your dive buddy surfaces and starts fist pumping you know it’s been a special dive. After years of planning, we had just undertaken the first archaeological survey of New Zealand’s oldest shipwreck a project 225 years in the making!

At fourth element, we strive to find the best materials and processes to create products that are better for the environment whilst maintaining their performance. We have been using limestone neoprene for a long time to make our wetsuits, but what does that really mean?