Having left Cape Town on 25 August 2008, the Marine Resource Expedition finally crossed the 14km strip of ocean separating Morocco from Spain, and ended the first leg of our expedition - West Africa.

Trying to fully understand the impact of the lack of fisheries management along Senegal’s coastline was exhausting and resulted in both Linda and I suffering from multiple illnesses including our fair share of malaria. Although it was tough, we encountered great projects and fantastic individuals working hard on current conservation issues.

The Save Our Seas Foundation has come up with another thought-provoking awareness campaign. For about six years I have been working closely with the dynamic and multi award winning ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi, Cape Town.

In this issue, the Moving Sushi expedition writes of their experiences in Senegal. It’s worth remembering that Moving Sushi’s expedition purpose is to film and document the state of Africa’s fisheries and marine resources. While the team members get to dive in exotic locations their work is fascinating, shocking and sometimes encouraging. Senegal doesn’t fall in the encouraging category unfortunately and this article tells us why.

Christopher Bartlett writes extensively on diving related topics and his article on shark conservation provides an interesting twist on why we humans should be concerned about conserving these little-understood creatures. This is not just another conservation article as Christopher takes time to explain just how inter-connected all animal and plant life really is and just how important sharks are to maintaining balance. Life is, after all, all about balance.

Departing from South Africa on the 25th of August 2008, the Marine Resource Expedition has explored and dived coastal reefs in Gabon, and most recently Benin. Termed ‘hotsopts’ these two countries are where the expedition spent a month understanding and filming fisheries and biodiversity for the documentary, which will be released in 2011.

Whale sharks have called Kenyan waters home for many years. Recently, there has been a significant increase which is perhaps related to the post El Nino mantis shrimp invasion. Based on Diani Beach the East African Whale Shark Trust was founded by Volker Bassen in response to the dramatic increase in sightings as well as increased interest from the tourist sector.

The wind-driven Benguela Current up-welling system is one of four eastern boundary current systems found on the planet. Situated along the southwestern African coastline between Cape Agulhas (34º5’S) and southern Angola at 10ºS, the Benguela Current system, and in particular its northern sector, adjacent to Namibia’s coastline.

In 1974 Peter Benchley wrote a novel that became a cult movie called JAWS. It portrayed sharks as bloodthirsty killing machines with an insatiable appetite for humans. The film gave rise to the intentional slaughter of many innocent animals; it branded sharks as man-eaters and instilled fear and loathing of them, a perception that continues to this day.

The world’s oceans are in deep trouble. From the northernmost reaches of the Arctic Circle to the Southern Oceans surrounding Antarctica marine resources have been harvested at an unprecedented rate.

It was a perfect day on the ocean at Sodwana Bay, South Africa. The sun was out in full force and the ocean was flat. We were heading back from an awesome dive on 7 mile reef when the skipper brought the boat to a sudden stop and pointed to a very large shadow just under the surface.