Dive the Tubbataha 2012

This blog hasn't been update for a while. But this doesn't mean nothing happened. I've longed to dive the Tubbataha (Philippines' first national marine park and is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and just want to know how many of you would like to join me too in Apr/May 2012.

The dive season for Tubbataha is mainly Apr/May/June every year, on liveaboard, where you get to see schools of Tunas, sharks (white and black tips, grey reef, nurse and leopard sometimes), schools of jacks, barracudas, Turtles, Mantas, and of course the many many beautiful reefs. Visit the Tubbataha Reefs National Park for details.

Tubbataha, I'll come to you next year!

NAUI's appreciation...

Today I received this with my 2009 membership card!

Master Scuba Diver Course - Part 2 (13 Dec 2008)

I'll teach part 2 of NAUI Master Scuba Diver Course on 13 Dec 208 in Hong Kong. If you wish to know more or join, email me at happy88diver@gmail.com!

Master Scuba Diver Course (8 Nov 2008)

I'm teaching a NAUI Master Scuba Diver Course this weekend in Hong Kong. If you wish to know more or join, email me at happy88diver@gmail.com!

Dive Footprints

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Guam

This is about the NAUI open water certification to my girl friend, CC, when I took her to her first diving trip to Guam in 1997. Thanks to CC's detailed dive log, which I taught her at the beginning of the course ;-), I could finish this as if we were there again. So if you are an instructor, you can save some time logging your dives, just make sure your students do!

Guam Access

We flew to Guam from Hong Kong on Continental Airlines - the only airline offering direct flights to Guam from our origin. Guam is also a major transit stop for dive trips to other parts in Micronesia including Palau, Yap, Chuuk, and Pohnpei. I was even recognised by the same immigration officer on my Palau trip 3 years later who pointed me to the same officer chop he had on my passport!

Access in Guam is easy. Car rental is most convenient. Otherwise choose a dive operator which offers you pick-up service. Of course I chose the former, at the end what is more convenient than going anywhere to want! With a rented car, we were able to do a sight-seeing, shopping, eating out at the many Japanese restaurants, the American style all-day breakfast coffee shops around the Tumon Bay. On the no-fly day, we headed to the Fish Eye Marine Park, Latte Stone Park, and Talofofo Falls. We even visited the Guam University!

Back to our dives, every morning we drove to our dive operator, Micronesian Divers Association, from there we started off.

First Training Dive Encounters

CC's training dive #1 was taken along the Piti Channel, a shore and easy dive recommended by our dive operator. Not only is this easy to start off for a newbie, it also helped me save some boat fees :-). CC was doing her mask cleansing while 2 eagle rays came towards the shore. This was CC's first underwater encounters! And this was our only spotting of eagle rays for the rest of this trip.

We did another 6 boat dives afterwards, covering Piti Channel, Piti Bomb Hole, Hidden Reef, Western Shoals, Gab-Gab II, SMS Cormoran Wreck and Tokai Maru Wreck. Amazingly the 2 wrecks are done in one single dive. Such a dive still remains as the only one I ever had!

Barracuda as a pet?

One funny thing came up. While surfacing from a dive from Piti Bomb Hole, we were greeted by a giant barracuda about 2 feet away. This was the biggest barracuda I had ever seen then, and for the first time I pulled my dive knife out of instinct, ready to defend...later we were told that this barracuda was in fact a 'pet' by some boatmen and would cause no harm to any divers.

Our dives ended on day 4. CC was granted with her C-card. She did great and in fact she's got her NAUI leadership qualification now! This trip was so much fun having your love one as your only student in class!






Budget (per person):
US600 (Flight + hotel)
US110 (5-day Car rental with Budget)
US300 (6 dives with Micronesian Divers Assocation Inc.)

Ref:
http://www.visitguam.org/
http://www.mdaguam.com/
http://www.budget.com/

NAUI Instructor 16807L

Maldives

Me and my girlfriend CC had this holiday for 1 week at Maldives in September 2006. CC planned this trip as my birthday present! What a lovely lady!

Sri-Lankan Holidays (Flight + Resort Package)

We booked this flight+resort package through Sri-Lankan Holidays in Hong Kong and flew to Maldives via Bangkok, which made us a return leisure stay at Bangkok afterwards possible with no extra charge. Of course we needed to book the dive package ourselves. Our practice is to book our no. of planned dives in advance as this would save us extra money compared to at the spot prices.

Adarran Club (Dive Point)

We stayed our first 3 nights at the Adaraan Club and did 6 dives with DivePoint (the dive operator attached). It is normal to see 1 dive operator to attach to one resort in Maldives. First day diving was so so...check out dives..Second and third days large pelagics like white tips, black tips, eagle rays, giant clams, but no luck on spotting eagle rays, the must-see in Maldives. One conclusion we drew: there were too few people on boat for the dive operator to take us further to see more as there were only 3-4 divers on boat for every dive then.

A side story... with mixed feeling, I sold my Sony P-9 with housing to our local PADI divemaster Jalaal after our 3rd day dive with Dive Point. He said he always wanted one, a digital camera for his coming new born baby! I hesistated a bit as the days followed we'd have no cameras, but US200 was not a bad deal so I finally agreed. I believe I had done the right thing, at least, for the divebaby... oops... I mean the divemaster's baby!

Full Moon (Euro Divers)

So we expected a little more from Full Moon, a more luxurious resort, which we stayed for the next 3 nights and did another 5 dives with Euro Divers. This time, to our full satisfaction, we saw what we intended to see before landing. 2 manta rays, 6-7 meters in width, came to the Manta Point after we descended and waited for about 10 mins. This was an unforgettable experience, especially for CC as this was, according to her, one of her best-liked dive. Our dive master briefed us to stay quiet below water, and when the mantas came, we could use our regulators to make air bubbles from below them. To our surprise, these mantas really seemed to like this act of being massaged as they kept coming back to where we stayed for the cleasing and our bubbles! We didn't expect to give massage to strangers in Maldives, but for mantas... they are very welcome. On our return journey to the dive base on the same day, towards sunset, around 20+ dolphins jumped off the waters around 200m in front of our boat. We were in a romantic movie!

On another day, CC yelled out she saw a very large fish splashing off the waters when we got off the waters after our last dive that day. Our DM Atsuko san, a very nice Japanese lady, told us that it might be a blue marlin. "It was HUGE!", claimed CC. Unluckily this was only seen by her as other people on board were busy getting dried and changing clothes!

I heard people saying the Maldives would disappear very soon, due to climate change resulting in sea level rising up every year. Yet I had the luck to have more than 1 trip to this paradise. Though we spent only 11 dives total, we covered some of the major dive sites including Lankan (Manta Point), Furana, Devils Reef, Maagiri Caves, Emboodhoo Canyan, Faana Thilla, Vaagali Thilla, etc.

We had so much fun and only regretted a little selling our underwater camera and housing so early. We missed some of the best underwater shots on the mantas!

PS. Euro Divers offered us a 10% discount for our next dive with them.

Budget

US1211 (HK$9451) on Flight + resort package

US195 (6 dives with DivePoint)

US205 (5 dives with Euro Divers with 10% discount)
Meals and drinks are extra!

Ref:

http://www.srilankanholidayshk.com/

http://www.adaaran.com/

http://www.eurodivers.com/

NAUI Instructor 16807L