Oceans, rivers and lakes look free of the borders that annoy and confound land and air travellers.  When a boater crosses from the waters of one country into those of another there is no guard to wave to. That  illusion can be a problem.  Last year 54 year old Richard Baker was crusing along with a fishing line lowered into the waters of the US Virgin Islands when, without noticing it, he crossed into the waters of the British Virgin Islands.  The water looks the same on both sides of the border after all.  In the event, the BVI coast guard saw his line pulling through BVI waters and arrested him for fishing without a license.  He was fined $46,000.  Unable to pay the fine he was sentanced to one year in jail.  That's a severe consequence for not paying attention to the GPS.  Well here's a small piece of good news for folks who take their boats to fish in Canadian waters: you can fish and even anchor there without having to report to customs officials.  BUT you still need a Canadian fishing license. Here's the full story from Eric Sharp.

A twenty pound lobster named Goliath was spared the pot by a kind hearted Marlene Casciano.  Ms. Casciano bought a raffle ticket to win the giant crustacean on Super Bowl Sunday.  She prayed and her prayers were answered.   “I named him Goliath because of his size, because it’s biblical, and because we were playing the Giants," said Casciano.  Goliath, estimated to be 50 years old, has avoided the ultimate mid-life crisis.  After a one month cool down period at the Boston Aquarium he is now headed to a new home at the Montreal Biodome.  

Read more:
Boston Herald
Taunton Daily Gazette

A 1000 lb 14 ft hammerhead shark was recently caught in Florida. This creature is beautiful and it's sad to see it dead. Here it is on CNN. In contrast to the CNN video this one from YouTube shows a guy catching a hammerhead on a Florida beach. It makes me smile. Fast forward to the middle.

Austrian scuba diver Marcus Groh, a 49 year old lawyer, died this past Monday after being bitten by a shark in open water off the Bahamas. This would be a simple tragedy if it weren't for the fact that Mr. Groh made the active and "informed" decision to swim around with shark bait in shark infested waters. He was on a shark dive run by Scuba Adventures where chum is thrown into the water to attract sharks so that divers can get close to them... and the divers don't stay in a cage. That's the point of the whole exercise. The divers get close to real live sharks WHILE THEY ARE FEEDING. I'll bet that Scuba Adventures sees business increase as a result of this story. Many people like to flirt with danger and even death. The fact is that the odds of being hurt or killed on a shark dive are pretty low, less than 1% from what I've read. Nonetheless there ought to be a class of Darwin Awards set aside specifically for shark divers. Seriously now.

Here are some links to the story:

Greta Van Susteren on Fox
Mike Celizic on MSNBC