Just before Christmas we spent a fantastic weekend at Nelson Bay. Water temperature was a very comfortable 22 degrees with visibility underwater pushing the 15 to 20m mark. Almost as good as it gets here!

As well as a mix of social divers attending,  I completed an Open Water Course. Congratulations to Bridget Harvey, Jamie Pinnock and Josh O'Hara. A testament to their underwater skills is the excellent buoyancy control demonstrated on every dive! Swimming flat, steady and comfortably off the bottom, preventing any damage to marine life or disturbing the bottom causing decreased visibility. Its a pity not all instructors spend more time on buoyancy control with their students!

Congratulations to Bridget, Jamie and Josh. Photographed here with Mudgee's 
leading dive instructor, Grant.

NELSON BAY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2008

ADVANCED OPEN WATER COURSE and SOCIAL DIVING

Congratulations to Adam, Jake and Nikki on your successful completion of your Advanced OW Course.

Great to have Amanda joining us, back on holidays after her first successful year studying marine science. Adam Argent (Pom), a great friend and PADI Staff Instructor had a great time and won some new friends. Great to see him doing some social diving for a change. Hopefully he will be able to get away again soon.

ANNUAL OVERSEAS ADVENTURE:

PHILIPPINES 

PUERTO GALERA JULY 5TH - 20TH 2008

As a starter...

What a place! What a trip!

Completing 33 dives in 28-30 degrees water. Viz a constant 20 to 30 even 40m! It is no wonder this is part of the most diverse area of marine life in the world as we saw many species of marine life you just don't see in Australia and the southern areas of the Pacific. Enormous frog fish (angler fish), pygmy sea horses only 5mm in length, unusual morays, barrel sponges so large you could hide inside, sea snakes, enormous fields of sea wips, the largest gorgonian fans I have ever seen, masses of fish and prestine undamage coral reefs along with pods of pilot whales, rocket drift dives, great wrecks, wall dives, underwater volcanic craters with hot springs...

It was just an amazing place and that is just the dives! Most dive sites (about 30) are only a few minutes away and there is 5 trips a day (if you have the energy) and day trips to outer islands / reefs. Asia Divers and El Galleon ir owned and operated by an expat Aussie, seemingly refreshed to have some fellow Aussies about!

Alli the resident Instructor has been here for nearly 20 years. She is an expat Canadian who quit a high profile, high paying embassy job for a lifestyle we could only dream about. Says alot about the beauty, safety and friendliness of this part of the Philippines.

Nightly we would sit at the Point Bar for cocktail happy hour - over 200 to choose from and 2 for the price of one. The cost - about $2 - $3! Cheap and risky if you got carried away! Plenty of non-alcoholic ones too.

The Philippinos are friendly and fun loving people and there was certainly never any hint of being unsafe or put in any kind of danger. We would all thoroughly recommend a visit here and would all love to return. Michelle, Matt and Sarah walked all over the area and through the streets and jungle.

Besides the diving, there is too much to do even in the two weeks we were there! The shopping is unbelievably cheap and good. The cheepneys were a hoot. Great waterfalls and swimming holes and the day playing paintball was a huge highlight - check out Amanda's legs in the Asia Divers Newsletter below. (Photos of the trip will be up soonish).

Congratulations to Duncan for completing his Open Water Course in such terrible conditions - pretty cool doing a teaching a course overseas! Congratulations to Sarah too for completing a Discover Scuba! As you can also see in the newsletter Grant did his 500th dive on the second dive of the trip - nice place to chalk up a milestone!!!!

CHECK US OUT IN THE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER FOR EL GALLEON RESORT/ASIA DIVERS: 

 

Volume 72: 2nd week issue, July   They Came From The Land Down Under! We have had a great time the past week with the gang from Australia. Mudgee Dive and Travel is the premier dive training facility and scuba equipment supplier in central NSW Australia. They cater for travellers, both diving and non-diving from all over NSW and travel internationally every year and throughout coastal Australia every month. In 2007 MD+T travelled to Vanuatu and this year we have been lucky enough to have them here with us for diving and sightseeing. For this trip, MD+T were joined by Annalea and Duncan from Broken Hill, Amanda from Lismore, Sarah from Hill End, Nigel from Young and Grant, Michelle and Matty from Mudgee. As well as the awesome diving, the non-divers became Hash House Harriers and have travelled all around beautiful Puerto Galera area by foot, boat and jeepney visiting beaches, waterfalls, primitive tribes and playing paintball. On top of all that, we’ve got plans in the works for the next week including Verde Island, the Hot Springs and a few other surprises. The whole gang from Mudgee Dive and Travel Grant got a well-earned shirt this week Sarah, the birthday celebrant of the week, Discovered Scuba with Josh and Mazi and discovered that it’s lots of fun!           Amanda displays her paint ball tattoo. Hmmmmm…think I’ll stick to diving! -o0o-

CHECK US OUT AGAIN IN THE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER FOR THE FOLLOWING WEEK: 

Volume 72: 3rd week issue, July  A final farewell Mudgee Dive and Travel left here with great memories of fantastic diving and lots and lots of fun. The grande finale was a sunset cruise to Luca’s for pizza and handing out of the certificates and t-shirts. Hope to see you back this way again, but we question the certificate, which was given to Julio by the group. Please see below!     In case you can't read it. It says "Julio "American Gigalo" for Being a Casanova"........hmmmmm -o0o-

Well over a hundred sharks - Grant, Kal, Nigel, Phil, Helmut had an awesome time but Phil tried to push his luck  maybe a bit too much at one point crawling up a narrow gutter with about 30 sharks cracking there tails above his head!

Visibility averaged over 20m and the water was a comfortable 20 to 22 degrees.

As you can see in the photos, there was no shortage of sharks!

ADVANCED OPEN WATER COURSE

Congratulations to Annalea and Nigel on your successful completion of your Advanced Course.

A major highlight of this trip was diving the Pipeline on Sunday morning with 20m viz in crystal clear water - the best I have ever seen here. The macro life is extraordinary and we finally saw not one but two angler fish - black and orange/red forms!

SCUBA REVIEW and SOCIAL DIVING 

Congratulations to Helmut and Melissa Eichner on your successful completion of your Scuba Review and your return to the deep after land lubbing for so long.