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Although striped marlins (Kajikia audax) are slower than some of their billfish cousins, their 50-mph speed was plenty fast for me. I tried to swim alongside this stealth bomber of the sea as it worked a baitball to separate individual sardines from the silvery mass. Amos Nachoum has the story.

A new photo competition has taken root on the western coast of Sweden, where local and international participants enjoy an exciting week of shooting underwater in Smögen, competing for attractive prizes. One of the contest’s organisers, Annika Malmberg, shares the story of the event, from the initial idea to the final result, as well as plans for its future.

A joint group of GUE divers from Norway, Sweden and Finland, led by project leader Gunnar Midtgaard, documented the wreck of the Blücher in Norway, and its condition, during the summers of 2011 and 2012. Mattias Vendlegård, who served on the photo team during the project, has the story.

Shark aficionado, photojournalist and conservationist Andy Murch, a self-confessed “elasmo-holic,” braves the chaos of Christmas holiday travel during a pandemic to get to Costa Rica, in his quest to capture images of elusive sharks and rays in areas less travelled.

Once a year, the Solitude One liveaboard makes the 800km journey from Anilao down to Surigao in the Philippines, stopping at Verde Island, Romblon, Ticao, Malapasqua and Southern Letye on the way. On this dive cruise, one can dive with whale sharks, thresher sharks and manta rays, or do super-macro underwater photogra­phy and even black water dives. Mattias Sellin shares his adventure.

Considered the longest continuous and second largest in the world, the reef systems of New Caledonia have some of the most diverse concentrations of reef structures on the planet, providing a home for a vast diversity of species, including 2,328 fish species. It is an important site for nesting green sea turtles, and there are also large populations of dugongs and humpback whales. Pierre Constant shares his adventure.

In this edition, we meet dive professional, technical diving expert, accomplished writer and X-Ray Mag columnist Simon Pridmore, to find out his motivations for writing his Scuba series of dive books, and how his books are different from other dive books on the market.