HammerHead News

Club Birthdays
Happy Birthday to: Michael Francescutti on 8/31!

The Great American Fish Count
On Sunday, July 29^th 2007, the PalmBeach HammerHeads participated in the Great Annual Fish Count to track the quantity and species of fish in our local waters as a way of gauging the health of our reefs. With the Palm Beach County Reef Research Team's support, we dove off both the Starfish Enterprises and Loggerhead to help gauge the health of the Boynton and Delray reefs. We had amazing visibility and an abundance of fish species to count and track. It was a wonderful day to be "on the bottom." Afterwards, we enjoyed a Post Dive Celebration at Amy Knight's Club pool in Atlantis where we enjoyed great food and prizes donated by our sponsoring dive shop, Wet Pleasures and other private sponsors. Thank you to all of our participants, sponsors and hosts for this great HammerHead event. Pictures will be posted on the web site soon.

Help Save the Bimini Islands!!

There is a serious and imminent threat to the biology and beauty of the Bimini Islands.

Those of us who've been heavily involved in the fight for the past 11 years see that we are at an "all or nothing" point in the project. The developer is lobbying the government very hard to allow them to continue with their plans for building Phase II of the project which includes a golf course. If this happens it will destroy Bimini's mangrove estuary and the fish nursery associated with it. The fishing community both domestic and tourist will dry up, too and the reefs will suffer from the silt and fertilizer run off.

We ask everyone to visit these web sites: www.restrictbiminibayresort.org, and www.savebimini.org and read the literature and watch the two videos available: "Saving the Sawfish" and "Bimini: Paradise in Peril". Unlike the developer, those fighting against this destructive project are doing so with virtually no money, but there is now a potential window to put a stop to this before it's too late.

The current economic recession in the States coupled with the growing criticism from the international community appears to be starting to impact the expansion of the project. Also the Bahamian government has paused for another look. It is important that one or more of the anti-Bimini Bay web sites gain higher ranking so that anyone who does a search for Bimini Bay also sees these counter web sites. There is another move to create a marine protected area in the same area - one branch of the Bahamian Government seeming to not know what the other's doing. As the map shows, the size of the proposed Marine Protected Area (MPA) keeps getting whittled down. Notice on the most recent iteration the developer would get to keep the entire west side of North Sound and the last of the pristine lee side beaches, including a nearshore tidal reef that he wants to bury under the golf course (see photos some of the areas to be destroyed-attached). On the map is the "Save Bimini" campaign recommendation to keep the northwest area included for protection. Please write letters and send them to the contacts listed on the web sites. Make sure you hit these major points: No golf Course, no more clearing of mangroves, no more dredge and fill, return all remaining unbuilt land to the people of the Bahamas to be included in the MPA, including the remainder of the west side of North Sound, the remaining lee side beaches and the near \shore tidal reef.

Click here to view maps and pictures

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