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I think I remember your last report - another beautifully written and useful report with great photos :)
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Big business is now involved as well and it is being accepted as a means to raise funding. Forbes magazine has even done feature articles on how to get crowd funding. In 2013 an estimated $5.1 Billion was crowd funded online. The scuba diving industry and closely related items have also turned to crowd funding some successful, some not.
The small Pacific Ocean country of Palau is taking big steps to protect its environment. Two years ago, it teamed up with its neighbors and created a regional shark sanctuary covering 5 million square kilometers. Earlier this year, the country shocked the world by banning commercial fishing within it 200 mile economic zone. Palau’s waters are home to over 1,000 species of tropical fish, and their new national marine sanctuary will cover approximately 600,000 square kilometers, an area about the size of France. The country's constitution requires leaders to “take positive action to conserve a beautiful, healthful and resourceful natural environment.” They seem to be following that mandate. However, Palau's plan had a major problem. They own only one patrol boat to enforce the marine park regulations. Like so many others, Palau turned to crowd funding and it been reported that they successfully raised $100,000 to purchase drones and other monitoring equipment.
An established woman's watch company, the Abingdon company is a boutique business that has a narrow niche. They design and manufacture fashionable, functional watches for women aviators. For the last two years they have been researching and designing a new watch to expand their market to female scuba divers. They have designed a watch they named Marina and state that it easily stands out as a rare and one-of-a-kind entry in the woman's dive watch market. The companies goal is to keep the final retail price of the watch, which will be available in seven colors, below the $1,000 mark. To meet that target amount for their initial production of 500 watches they need to raise $63,000 by their kickstarter campaign. Backers at different levels can get different incentives. There were ten offers of Getting a free watch for a $450 pledge, they have already been taken. They still have a distance to meet their goal but they are doing well so far.
Having visited my brother who emigrated to Oz, we couldn't fly over Indonesia without a look see!!! (Still not dived Oz as Asthmatic so need to do more than a diving medical - another time!)
We stayed in Bali overnight and then transferred by boat - about 2 hours.
We stayed in Bali Sampan hotel on Gili - a small and clean place with good breakfast and helpful friendly staff.
The shower was open top - awesome sensation!
TV reception was intermittent -then, we weren't there for tv!
We prepaid with Manta Dive which was about a 10 minute walk, as discount offered. Fresh water to clean kit and a place to store securely (we always take our kit). Staff great and saw a myriad of things - sharks (white n black tip), rays, ribbon eels, manits shrimp and lots of turtles! There is a conservation programme on the Island where you can see them being raised.
There is no transport on the island other than horse drawn. Ask price b4 u get in! Or hire a bike from your hotel as we did.
It rained quite heavily for odd spells whilst there, soon went though.
The dive guide lived on Lombok (about an hour by boat) and he hired us a car which took us round the island - up through the monkey forests to the waterfalls. The climb is hard work and much water consumed-rest had! We were a bit of an attraction as the only pale skins the locals had prob ever seen. We paid about 2.50GBP for a driven scooter ride back down.
Indonesia is very humid and water is a must. We drank only branded spirits on our off evenings poss not legit otherwise.
GT is a great lively place to stay with plenty of low cost and upmarket eateries, including live bands.
There are many cats on the island introduced some time ago by a landowner. Many have bent tails or partial tails - all are well, just quirky now due to ancestry!!
A lovely little island that we called home for 2 weeks. A place where you could island hop to other places very easily.
I think I remember your last report - another beautifully written and useful report with great photos :)
Beautiful turtle photo. I have forwarded to a friend heading that way! Good timing.
We can't get there until 14th July. Can anyone advise how likely it is that they will still be there?
It will probably depend on the season and the weather.. and a bit of luck! How long will you be spending there (the number of days you get out will probably make the difference).
It is 'in' season.. but as Desmond says usually they are brought in by increases in plankton and how long this lasts for depends on the weather and currents. Maybe ask dive operators in April when the whale sharks season has been so far you may be able to see if it is later this year or earlier.
Hi,
In March I have a ten-day vacation in Egypt. Specifically holiday in Sunrise Royal Makadi Resort. I know that there are many diving places around resort. I would like to know or any diving center organizes diving with sharks?
Thank you
Best regards Zygimantas.
There should be pretty good provision for this.. however dive centers may not be able to 'guarantee' seeing sharks - but can take you to places where they are frequently seen. If you can't find answers from dive operators in Makadi - you are pretty close to Hurghada (a massive diving hub - you can probably get in touch with some via this site, or also maybe Safaga).
“We thought the videos would be scientifically interesting for marine biologists — showing the dynamics of each creature’s movements — but they’re also artistically appealing,” said Young.
I followed the link to the Edgertronic camera, which itself was a kickstarter project, the camera has the ability of record 18,000 frames per second. Your standard movie theater film is 30 frames per second.The camera was not designed for underwater photography so a special case was made. Mike Matter who designed and founded the company that builds the camera is also a MIT grad.His goal was to produce an inexpensive camera for research purposes. At less than $6,000, it is about the same as a week’s rental of other cameras. He named the camera after one of his professors and a man often called, among other titles, the Father of High Speed Photography,Harold “Doc” Edgerton.
One item that disturbed me about the report was the section on boating and surface incidents. There were 38 in the UK report plus some more in the international section. Some of these were shore divers having problems leaving the water and 24 incidents involving lost divers on the surface. I have been on a dive boat that has lost divers for considerable time and once been in open water with no dive boat in sight. So these stats bring a chill to me. In an international incident a diver died when the dive boat was unable to recover her back to the boat in rough seas. In a UK case a dive boat had to call for assistance when they lost 6 buddy teams on the surface, when diver aborted dives because of bad conditions. Another case a sail boat spotted two divers adrift, over 2 miles from their dive boat.
Read the Boat
Reading the report, I believe will help all diver keep things in the proper place. A couple of final comments, more advance divers were involved in incidents than any other level of training, and the beginning of the season had a lower percentage of incidents.
Been to Bonaire a couple of times now and only done shore dives (due to time limits with work) but they have all been very worth while. It seems like it doesn't matter where you dive here, you'll find an ambundance of life. One of the sites was at a dive resort called Buddy Dive, another from a hotel called Plaza and the third a quiet beach down the road.
All sites were similar due to being withing 1 - 2 miles of each other but was not disappointed at all. Managed to see many, many different fish, Tarpon, Squid and lots of different coral. Can't wait to get back with time to do some boat dives!
I always think that when shore dives are in good condition it bodes well for the off-shore ones!
My husband and I stayed at the Ocean Vida and used the Dive Centre attached - Sea Explorers.
The Dive Centre is excellent and well managed. Like everywhere, you have to get used to their way of doing things.
Once enrolled and the first dive completed, we were given the same guide for the rest of 7 days we booked.
Which was excellent. Loy knew every nook and cranny and the best place to see everything you 'might see'.
Our first time 'muck' diving, we soon got used to using a pointer so as to disturb less of the bottom and corals.
We saw things we had never seen before - from the biggest frog fish I've ever experienced, the Pegasus fish and my beloved pygmy seahorses!
The trip to Monad Shoal is a must - one of THE reasons for travelling 33 hours! You do leave at about 5am and get to the dive site just as the sun begins to rise. You're straight down to 28 metres, where you sit on the sandy edge and wait... not too long - there were the Thresher sharks winding their way up to be cleaned.
An amazing site not to be missed. The Eagle Ray swimming past was bonus.
Currents were very mild.
You can dive at a nice slow pace and search for the curiousities that appear.
Home also to my first night dives. Another first and one place where you are guaranteed to see the Mandarin fish coming up to mate. Colourful and playful, a great experience. It can get a little busy at times, with a several divers attending (about 15 or so).
The diving was chilled and abundant with life.
The Dive guides wanted us to get the most out of our experience & made sure they found as much as possible.
The Island itself is small and caters for diving in the main. Food and drink vary from cheap as chips to 5* a la carte.
A trip on foot around the island is recommended to get a feel for the true place - take much water with you as the humidity can be overwhelming at times!
May is the Festival time on the Island so the locals arrange games and bands as well as the boat parade around the Island.
Nicely timed - I am thinking of going to the philippines in feb. Threseher shark cleaning station sounds simply unreal!
WOW that is a tiny tiny sea horse.. I could hardly see it in the picture at first.. you must have a keen eye!!
Really good dive operation which has all the expertise you need but is happy for you to do your own thing also. We based ourselves at Yellow Sub but they've a number of other stores around where you can tank exchange also and they all seemed great. From beginners to advanced, all were catered for very well.
Sylvester diving with ice
in Europe Germany
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