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Totally fab shots.. you have clearly had a very good trip!
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News
There used to be plenty of fish in the sea – nowadays that’s no longer the case. In the past few decades, fish stocks have plummeted and many fish species are now considered endangered. Divers interested in conservation can do their part for a healthy ocean by being smart about their seafood choices and avoiding endangered stocks.
News
Divers are like motorcyclist in that there is an instant connection brought on by the share passion. Most of the divers would stay after the dive and talk about the dive often they would refer back to the dive logs to retrieve some information from a previous dive on the site, or to talk about another site. Many of the log books were very impressive with the details that were in the logs. I had a small log book that was part of my training package only about 3 x 5 inches in size.
News
The first two dives of open water training are almost all skills, with little time for exploring. The third dive is mostly a repeat of your first two and if you do good you generally have some extra time. In my open water training, my third dive started on a small patch of sand and after a few skills practices we swam over to a small wreck. The wreck was of a LCU, the Landing Craft Utility.
News
Every so often the media run stories about a new artificial reef being created by sinking of an old ship. Sometimes it not even a ship that gets sunk, but cars, tanks and off the coast of Ocean City Maryland you will find schools of fish taking up residence in retired New York City subway cars. When these items are placed purposely underwater they must be fully cleaned and all the hazards materials removed.
News
Being informed about the environment is important, empowering, and oftentimes depressing. For those that are tired of reading about how the ocean is falling apart and would like to do something about it – there are plenty of things you can do! Scuba divers interested in volunteering to help the environment have options, here are a few.
Feature
As typhoon Yolanda tore through the Philippines it was inevitable that there would be significant damage to the diving infrastructure in the areas that were affected. It is important to remember that the Philippines is a large country and despite the scale of the typhoon the majority of islands were not affected.
If you have a trip planned - we recommend checking with the Dive Centre you have booked with before you go – and perhaps if they are in an affected area if there is anything you can do to help with the relief effort.
Our feature writer, Charles Davis, who is based in the Philippines reached out to Dive Centres to see if there were any on-the-ground updates and we will post updates on dive locations as they come in.
The following report comes from Rock Steady Dive Center- they are based on Coron, a small town on Busuanga Island – the largets island on the Calamianes Group located in the north of Palawan.
They are running an appeal in conjunction with a local guest house where you can donate direct to them where they can efficiently deliver aid and support to the local people who need it most. You can donate by sending a PayPal payment to padie71@yahoo.com - They are posting a screen shot of every donation here.
Typhoon Yolanda Report – Karin and Gerd – RockSteadyDiveCenter
“Coron was hidden badly from the typhoon, Coron divers lost complete their shop and 3 boats, SeaDive lost their big boat blue and a newer boat, Dive Cal lost all their boats, Amphibi Ko lost all their boats. Corto Divers and ourselves were really lucky to have only minor fixes required – e.g. plywood. We will operate on Monday again as our staff is out on the streets to help with relief goods for people in need.
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Latest from the dive community
Mola mola
Padang Bai5 Aug 2010 - 30 Aug 2013
Bali is the finest place to see mola's and lot of other creatures. 5 types of shark , manta's , frogfish , ghost pipefish, nudi's , sea snakes , seahorses and a lot more. Nice wreck too . Great dive center : OK divers. I had some 300 dives there and still want to go back
Manta's
Padang Bai16 Jul 2013 - 16 Jul 2013
Not quite Padang Bai but while in Bali in July of this year (2013) I went diving around Nusa Penida with Bali Hai diving. I visited 2 dive sites while there:
* Batu Lumbung a.k.a. Manta Point
* Crystal Bay.
The 1st site I dived was "Manta Point" to do my 1st ever dive with Manta Rays. I was really excited on the way out but also tried to stay a little reserved as we all know with nature it's never a sure thing. My excitement was soon justified though as we pulled up at the dive site. Our guide and his keen eye spotted manta's before we'd even got our kit on. Great stuff, so we rushed to finish getting ready and no sooner had I surfaced from my stride in and looked back down in the water there was 1 right beneath me. We ended up seeing 5 different manta's on the dive around the site and what a thrill it was to be with such majestic creatures in their natural environment. I'd definitely recommend this dive to anyone visiting Bali.
My 2nd dive was to Crystal Bay in the hope of seeing Mola Mola (Sunfish). Speaking to experienced locals and tourists around Bali and the Gili Islands while we were there, they all said this was 1 of the best places in the world to see Mola Mola and there was a good chance of viewing 1. Unfortunately we didn't get to see Mola Mola as the currents were quite strong and our guide said with the currents being strong the Sunfish don't normally visit as they are unable to just float by the reef wall and be cleaned. However this was a great dive to do even without Mola Mola. It was teaming with beautiful colourful fish and corals and it is where I saw my 1st sea snake as well (2 of them). So that was pretty cool. A must if you are visiting Bali at any point and hopefully you'll be lucky and get to see Manta's and Mola Mola.
Last 2 dives of my Sharm trip
Dahab5 Nov 2013 - 12 Nov 2013
I recently done a weeks diving in Sharm El Sheikh to complete my advanced open water course and get some photography practice in using artificial light/strobes for the very 1st time.
We were diving with Ocean College Dive Center for the week and as we were a decent size group from a scuba school based in the UK we were able to say where we'd like to go. Me being a nivice to the Red Sea just went along with the rest quite happy to just be underwater.
Well the last day we chose as a group to take an hour and half to 2 hour bus journey from Sharm to Dahab and dive the Canyon and Blue Hole for our last 2 dives of the trip. It was well worth the trip out there with great sightings of scorpion fish and lots of lionfish as you can see from the photo's. It was also pretty cool watching freedivers practice in the blue hole. Pretty impressive stuff.
Well worth the visit expecially if you like getting some shore diving in as well as the boat dives.
Great White Sharks
Adelaide23 May 2012 - 24 May 2012
Not quite Adelaide when looking at exact location. But took a half hour flight to Port Lincoln to stay at the Marina Hotel and Apartments. Not much round there but this is where you want to be as the boats and dive centres of Adventure Bay Charters and Calypso that run day trips to cage dive with Great White Sharks are based at this Marina. I personally went with Adventure Bay Charters who while doing the cage dive don't chum the waters but use as they say a more eco-friendly way of attracting the sharks. They use sound waves to attract the sharks by playing AC-DC underwater (It worked). In a way they are right with the more eco friendly as the sharks don't approach the cage as aggressive.
We had to keep the pressure on the company to take us though as the sea's out were pretty rough but they could understand that we were desperate to get out as we had travel arrangements that might not give us the chance to do it another day. We went and it was a pretty hairy boat ride out but well worth the rewards.
Seeing Great Whites in their natural environment was an experience that will live with me forever and I will repeat one day in Mexico and South Africa. I would recommend anybody to do this at least once in their life.
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Yes Brian. I hope to do in South Africa one day as well and Guadeloupe. Thanks Liam. Yes it was Vandra, I remember the moment I was leaning my head against the bar of cage looked 1 way then the other and then back again and it appeared as if out of the blue straight in front of my face. such an epic experience.
Bahamas Aug '13 Trip
Grand Bahama31 Aug 2013 - 8 Sep 2013
Checked out the Bahamas for the first time. While the resort and area wasn't really my speed, the diving was definitely top notch. Went out on various dives with UNEXSO. The staff was some of the best I've encountered. Amazing sea life including with a lot of first times for me. We got to dive with sharks for the first time. I can't believe how many there were. Also got to see a grouper cleaning station, which I have never seen before. This was also my first time wreck diving which was exciting and my first time going below 65 ft. Will add more to this in a bit.
Novice divers in Sipadan
Sipadan24 Nov 2013 - 27 Nov 2013
I want to dispel a myth that worried me before going to Sipadan. I had read that only advanced divers should contemplate diving Sipadan because of the unpredictable currents. My wife and I dived Sipadan with Sipadan Mabul Resort (I think they call themselves "SMART Divers") and found the experience to be superb. My wife had only done 9 dives before going to Sipadan while I had done over 100 dives. The SMART divemaster we had was exceptional. Everything was kept relaxed and drama-free, there was no rush and when we encountered currents or other challenging situations he would help the group navigate throught hese with no problems. With a cautious and conservative divemaster like we had, diving Sipadan for beginners is not a problem at all and you just need to relax and enjoy the huge turtles, sharks, schools of barracuda and moral eels.
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I am hoping to get a bit more experience and maybe dive Barracuda Point. Did you dive this site? If so - is it a difficult dive site - are there a lot of currents there?
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Elli, yes we did dive this site and the currents were pretty strong (around 1 knot when we were there) but this is not a problem as long as you stick close to a good divemaster who is cautious and conservative (I strongly recommend the SMART dive-masters who were excellent. You do need to be able to get your buoyancy right and be relaxed drifting along but otherwise you should have no problems. There is one issue though - our divemaster steered us away from a down current which would have been scary if we had gone into it. This then brings me full circle - you need to choose a good divemaster and stick close to them.
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It must have been a great experience! Totally agree - when you are a bit out of your comfort zone - having the right dive master makes such a difference!
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