Guinea 2010 100th Anniversary of Birth of Jacques Cousteau

The Republic of Guinea issued 2 souvenir sheets on 12 July 2010 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth Jacques-Yves Cousteau, inventor of SCUBA. The stamps in the first souvenir sheet also feature Émile Gagnan, co-inventor of SCUBA, and Jean-Michel Cousteau, the eldest son.

Uganda 2010 Boy Scouts of America - Aquatic Activities

This stamp features aquatic activities as one of the adventurous undertakings of the boy scouts of America. The stamp is one of the 3 found in a souvenir sheet released for Uganda in 2010 to celebrate the centenary scouting. The stamp features the silhouette of a skin diver.

Palau 2010 Endangered Species - Napoleon Wrasse

Palau released on 21 December 2010 4 souvenir sheets featuring 4 endangered species: Napoleon wrasse, sharks, turtles and dugongs. One of the 3 98c-stamps on the Napoleon wrasse souvenir sheet features a scuba diver.

Togo 2010 Cousteau's Birth Centenary

A commercial issue from the Togolese Republic celebrating the birth centenary of Jacques Yves Cousteau. The issue comprises 2 souvenir sheets, one with 4 stamps and one with a single stamp. The Alcyone, the expedition ship with the experimental turbo-sail, is featured in both sheets.

Maldives 2010 350 for Climate Change

I discovered this issue being listed on Maldives Post Office website. Issue date is published as 23 June 2010, and it is entitled plainly as "350". Googling with keywords: maldives 2010 350 scuba diver, I found out that the organization called 350 (350.org) was created to raise awareness about climate change around the world; the number 350 refers to the number of parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide concentration in the air that must be reduced to, in order to avoid irreversible damage to the world. 350.org website states the current number to be 388 ppm. The scuba diving President Nasheed of the Maldives, who held the world’s first underwater cabinet meeting on 17 October 2010, led a 24-hour scuba diving relay a week later, with 350 scuba divers, in the world’s largest recorded scuba diving event. This issue, comprising a souvenir sheet with 5 stamps, marks this event.

Canada 2010 Blue Whale Under UV

It has come to light that the Canadian 2010 Blue Whale $10 stamp has security features that include the silhouette of a scuba diver suspended above the whale itself, which is revealed only when shone under short-wave ultra-violet light!

Vanautu 2010 Smile With Us - Underwater Post Office

This is one of the 10 stamps released on 15 December 2010 by Vanuatu, in a set entitled "Smile With Us", to celebrate being listed as one of the ten happiest places on earth in 2010 by Lonely Planets. The place is happy because the inhabitants are happy going about their daily lives. This particularly stamp features a snorkeller sending a water-proof postcard at an underwater post office, manned by a postal worker in scuba gear! Postcards posted at this post office are cancelled by an embossing device, instead of an ordinary inking stamp.

Canada 2010 Blue Whale Full Sheet

The Canadian 2010 $10 Definitive features the blue whale, the image being the work of master engraver Jorge Peral. This stamp was produced using a combination of two printing techniques: intaglio (for the whale in the foreground) and offset lithography (for the colours in the background). The intaglio process (which was used to produce Canada’s first postage stamp) was recently reinvented using a new, state-of-the-art laser engraving technology. The colour control markings on the left margin of a full sheet of 2 are in the shape of scuba divers.

Tristan da Cunha 2010 Conservation

Tristan da Cunha released a new set of definitives with 12 stamps on the theme of Conservation 1 Novermber 2010. The 1p stamp features a team of naturalists traveling to a dive site in a RIB (rigid inflatable boat) belonging to The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. In the boat, one can spot 2 divers all kit up in their blue and black dry suits, while the dive tanks are located at the bow of the RIB.

New Caledonia 2010 X'mas

The New Caledonian Christmas issue, released 4 November 2010, features Santa Claus on his sleigh in an underwater vista. Santa's sleigh is formed from the 2 halves of a giant scallop, pulled by 4 seahorses, instead of reindeer; and he is wearing a diving mask with a snorkel, air bubbles escaping from it. The seabed is decorated with an octopus on a brain coral, and reef fishes, like the clown fish swimming around a sea anemone, the bannerfish and the yellow longnose butterflyfish.

Vanuatu 2010 Aerogramme

Vanuatu Post released 2 new aerogrammes for 2010, the design of one features birds while that of the second one features marine fauna - dolphins, reef fishes and coral reef. The marine fauna aerogramme has a stamp printed on the top right corner featuring a scuba diver looking out from a hatch of the SS President Coolidge wreck.

Australia 2010 Reef Fishes

In anticipation of a rise in basic postage from 55 cents to 60 cents, Australian Post is issuing the first part of reef fishes issue on 21 June 2010. This first part comprises 4 stamps featuring the regal angelfish, the spotted sweetlips, the clown triggerfish and the golden damsel. The cover of the booklet with 10 self-adhesive stamps features the silhouette of a scuba diver shining a torch. The cover of the chequebook with 200 stamps also features the same silhouette.

Vanuatu 2010 Shanghai Expo

For the World Expo Shanghai 2010, Vanuatu Post issued a self-adhesive souvenir sheet with 4 stamps on 30 April. The 40 vatu stamp featuring the dugongs of Epi has a snorkel diver in the background, probably a tourist who has come to enjoy the close proximity with the dugong.

Cuba 2010 Marine Depths or Seabeds

Cuba Post issued a set on "Fondos Marinos" or "Marine Depths" on 20 February 2010, with 6 stamps and 1 souvenir sheet. The souvenir sheet marks the 15th anniversary of the world record for no limit breath held free dive by Deborah Andollo (this record has been broken by others since then). The 6 stamps feature a variety of marine fauna, and 4 of them also feature scuba divers.

UK 2010 Classic Album Cover - Space Girl & Bird

The sheetlet selvage features a girl wearing a deep sea diving helmet, with a yellow bird perching on her hand. This figure is actually a spray painting on steel, by an elusive artist known as Banksy, entitled "Space Girl and Bird", that was auctioned off for £288,000 at Bonhams 25 April 2007. This piece of expensive art was part of a series of designs commissioned by pop band, Blur, for the cover of their Think Tank album and featured on Blur’s 5-track CD cover. The remaining artwork mostly feature people wearing the same type of diving helmets. The sheetlet shown above is found only in the prestige booklet of the Classic Albums Cover issue released on 7 January 2010 by the Royal Mail.

Boyle's Law

This stamp is part of a set of 10, released by the Royal Mail on 25 February 2010, to commemorate the Royal Society. Well, the long-haired guy on the stamp is Robert Boyle, who discovered Boyle's Law, which is so important to understand for scuba divers. This is the scientific phenomenon that requires us divers to wear weights and an inflatable device (the buoyancy jacket, mate), and for us not to hold our breath when using scuba equipment underwater.

Robert Boyle was also featured on an Irish stamp released in 1981.

Liechtenstein 2010 Water Rescue

On 1st March 2010, Liechtenstein Post issued a set of 2 stamps for the 3rd series of the Voluntary Civil Protection Work featuring mountain rescue and water rescue. The sheet shown here is for the water rescue stamp, the bottom left half of the stamp shows scuba divers conducting a search, while the top right half shows 3 divers conducting rescue work, one of them towing a rubber raft containing a victim securely tied down. Water rescue service in this country is rendered by the rescue specialists of the "Bubbles" diving club, the work include search and rescue of missing persons, salvage and cleaning of groundwater wells.