Hvar

Hvar is a nice little coastal town that attracts both charter tourists and super-yacht owners. Overlooking the town and harbour is an old restaurated fortress offering some great views. It's a fairly easy walk up. The entrance fee is 10 Kuna.


There's plenty of restaurants to choose from (e.g. Pape, Junior, Paradise garden, Macondo), most of them serving decent seafood.

Prices vary from 20 Kuna for a sandwich & 40-60 Kuna for a pizza or spaghetti to 120 Kuna for a fish plate. And at 15-20 Kuna for 1/2l of good Croatian beer or about 30 Kuna for 1/2l of decent Croatian white wine, you won't leave thursty. To seal the meal, many restaurants offer a glass of grappa on the house. A can of Coca-Cola costs about 5,25 Kuna in a supermarket. Tap water is potable (= free).


Sirena, our communist era hotel, is located in a perfect little bay, just a 30' stroll from town.

Sulawesi, Indonesia, July 2005

Looking for critters specialized in remaining strangely invisible.

travel blog

Indonesia - info sheet

Visum	A visum is required for Belgian citizens! And there's a departure tax of 75000 Rp. In Copenhagen, a one month visum can be obtained from the Indonesian embassy within 2 weeks. Besides your passport you must bring two pictures, a copy of your travel documents, fill in an application, and pay 350 DKK.
Transport	• Flight from Copenhagen to Frankfurt: 80' • Flight from Frankfurt to Singapore: 12h • Flight from Singapore to Manado: 3½h • Taxi from Manado airport to Manado city: ½h. • Boat transfer from Manado harbour to Bunaken: 25'
Time	N-Sulawesi time = Copenhagen summer time + 6 hours
Weather	Air temperature: 30°C. Often overcast with some downpours every couple of days. Water temperature: 28°C.
Currency	1 USD = 9000 Rp (Indonesian Rupiah)
Language	English is spoken by some.

Singapore

It's a 45' ride from Murex Manado to the airport. Followed by a 3,5 hours flight to Singapore. The airport's left-luggage charges about 5 SGD/bag/day. Not cheap, but very convenient. The MRT to Bugis takes about half an hour or so. We've got 24h to shop, before continuing our journey back to reality.

After previously having tried trendy Japanese conveyor-belt sushi (3-6 SGD/plate) and popular food court Chinese noodles, we now choose for a no-nonsense dinner served on banana leaves in an Indian eatery (4,5 SGD).

From Little India to China Town only takes 5', thanks to Singapore's speedy MRT. Most of the smaller stores are closed on Sunday, but not the big shopping centers like Sim-Lim Square, Funan Digital-Life Mall or Raffles Shopping Arcade. In Singapore, to shop is to be. And with the bargains to be done here, it's hard to resist the urge to acquire a few things just to confirm your existence. In my case: Arena & Speedo swimming trunks (35 SGD/piece), 'Shadow divers' by Robert Kurson (20 SGD), 'An essential guide to digital underwater photography' by Michael Aw (25 SGD) and a pair of Merrel walking shoes (50 SGD). I managed not to buy an ultra-portable Sony Vaio laptop (3700 SGD) for writing my reports while on the go, a Suunto Mosquito dive computer (500 SGD) as back-up for my Vyper, and a lot of other things.

Before you know it, time's up, and you've got to head back. From City Hall to Changi airport, 45' by MRT (1,5 SGD).

Murex dive resort outside Manado

While aboard the Liburan, a headline in a dive magazine jumped out at me: 'Betlehem, better than Lembeh'. Betlehem being pretty near to Manado, we decide to leave Bangka a day earlier, to check it out.

From Bangka we're first transferred to the mainland, stepping off the boat onto the black sand beach of a small fishermen's settlement. Our pick-up arrives soon afterwards and drives us to Murex's dive resort just outside of Manado. A long 1,5 hour ride, through the city's maze of lanes. Once there we're given a nice bungalow with a remarkable sense of privacy, thanks to lush vegetation and cascading water, creating a double wall of green & white noise.


The next day we're on our way to Betlehem. Hoping to see a rhinopia scorpionfish. But they're here no more. Still, it's an enjoyable muck dive with four seahorses, a weedy spider crab, some anemone crabs, several nudibranchs, a line of sharp looking razorfish and a school of small barracudas.

Murex dive resort on Bangka

On our way from Lembeh to Bangka, a pod of dolphins graces us with their presence, effortlessly riding the ship's bow wave, before veering off to go somersaulting in the stern waves. The crossing only takes a slow 2 hours, after which the Liburan drops us at Murex's small resort, where we accommodate ourselves in one of the spacious sea view bungalows. Our guide here is Kennedy, who does his best to keep all the tourists satisfied. The food's excellent and for once there's no noise disturbing the peace.

The diving here is mainly around pinnacles overgrown with soft corals or along sloping walls. Currents can be pretty strong depending on the tide. Making it totally impossible for me to photograph the tiniest seahorse I've ever seen. Actually, it being only a couple of mm tall, I can't even say I had a good look. Not a dive goes by without at least one frogfish being spotted. Considering they pretend not to be there for a living, it must seriously undermine their self-confidence to constantly be in the center of divers' attention.

Dedi had some problems with his ears, so I left my eardrops on the Liburan. Only to get hit a couple of days later by a double ear infection myself. Despite preventive action. Luckily some Dutch divers staying in the resort had some eardrops I could use. But I still had to stay dry for three long days. I guess there must have been something nasty in the water, because three other tourists also had ear problems during our stay on Bangka.


My favourite site here is actually located on the mainland. A 15' crossing from Bangka, Paradise Pier is first class muck diving with more critters per square meter than I've ever seen. The pier is heaven for all kinds of creatures, from refuge seeking juvenile batfish to hidden daemons waiting in ambush for innocent souls. Hot springs keep the water temperature comfortably warm. An ideal playground for photographers indeed. But beware where you put your hands!


A sea fan is home to several wonderful harlequin ghost pipefish. At some point four of them even posed together. With sunlight in their back they almost seem to have a halo. A beautifully colored frogfish, inspired maybe by the pipefish's typical head down position, tries hard to keep his precarious upside-down position between a sponge's arms. Among paradise's rubble you can find devil scorpionfish and false stonefish, moody cuttlefish and small seasnakes looking for some morsel. Nudibranchs are all over too, should you run out of usual subjects.


Surrounding the pier are three different habitats: seagrass, sandslope and coralreef. There I saw green pipefish, baby frogfish, small stingrays darting out of the sand, a whole colony of frantic hingebeak shrimps and even a hovering army of ghost shrimps...

Liburan live-aboard in Lembeh strait

For 150000 Rp, Ron arranges a boat to bring us back to Manado, as there's no public crossings on Sundays. It's a rainy boat drive, together with some islanders going to the big city for some shopping. At the mooring quay, Mr Anky is waiting for us, and brings us to Bitung, N-Sulawesi's main harbour city and the Liburan's home base. A 1,5 hour drive. After settling the payment, we're then brought to the Liburan, a basic live-aboard that will be our floating home for the next week. The crew gives us a cordial welcome, taking care of everything as we settle in. Dive gear is set up immediately, as they fully expect us to go diving straight away. We don't object.


The Liburan can supposedly take up to eight passengers, besides a crew of at least six. However, as it happens to be, we're the only ones to have booked this trip. So we've got the whole ship for ourselves, and the full attention of the very friendly crew. A real luxury. Now, I can't imagine eight divers on this rather small ship, as even six would be crowded. The crew's the most professional I've ever seen in Indonesia, working together efficiently as a team, to make our stay as pleasant & comfortable as possible. Rudi, the German owner, isn't there, but Ferry, the captain, and Dedi, the dive guide, make sure everything goes smoothly.


After lunch and a small siesta, we're ready for our first dive. The site: Aer Prang. 70' later we surface, after having seen a small blue-ringed* octopus, a rare golden-orange* giant mantis shrimp, a fingered dragonet, a big stone fish dug out of the sand by Dedi, a seahorse, a black crinoid squat* lobster and various nudibranchs. Without a doubt one of the most fantastic intro dives I've ever had. Now this is what I call muck diving extraordinaire! Am I glad I just acquired a digital UW camera, allowing me to shoot and shoot without concern of running out of film.


Lembeh strait is not that long actually, and there's absolutely no need to be on a live-aboard. All the dive sites are within a short boat ride of the resorts here. But make sure that they have a 'maximum 4 divers per guide' policy. Especially if you're into photography. In our case it couldn't have been more perfect, with Dedi as our personal guide. For a trip like this to be successful, the guide's the one who has to deliver. He's got to find the critters. Knowing where to look is one thing, seeing is another. Especially in Lembeh, where what you see is not always what it seems. On the strait's mainland side, the sloping bottom mainly consists of black lava sand. Here's where incredible critters roam and hide in full sight. Pretending to be sponges, weed or sand. You could spend a whole dive without seeing any of them but for the guide's gift of detection.

I spent about 3,5 hours underwater every day, doing 18 dives in all, seeing at least one (for me) new critter on 14 of those. I've marked them with an * in this report. It's truly amazing actually. Normally I'm happy to see just one new creature on a whole trip.


After our wonderful first dive, Dedi kept us thrilled with more of nature's amazing creatures: Giant, painted, warty, hispid* & white-striped hairy* frogfish; a yellow* shortfin lionfish; devil, leaf & ambon* scorpionfish; false, reef & estuary* stonefish; cockatoo & longspine* waspfish; velvetfish*; pink & yellow* pygmy seahorses; various kinds of hippocampus; a winged* pipefish and two robust* ghost pipefish; a pair of scrambling seamoths; a mimic* octopus quickly floundering into its hideout in the sand; cuttlefish; blue, black & yellow ribbon eels, snake eels and several moray eels; longnose*, bubble-coral, cleaner, anemone, emperor & mantis shrimp; hermit, box, boxer, anemone, decorator, whip coral & soft coral crabs; tiny pink squat* lobsters on a sponge; cockatoo* flounder; flying gurnard; mandarinfish* romancing at dusk; coral & banggai cardinalfish; a small bamboo* shark; stingrays; tiger & egg cowries; electric* clams; lots of nudibranchs and a polyclad flatworm.


This list is by no means complete, but it should give you an idea. Besides being a magnet for critters, the strait's sandy slopes are also a kindergarden for various fish species. One thing we did not see, is the rhinopia scorpionfish. Next time maybe.

On the Lembeh island side of the strait, corals are more abundant, with plenty of soft corals and sponges, should you get bored with the black sand. There's even a wreck or two.

M.C. homestay & dive center on Bunaken

As agreed beforehand, Ron, the Dutch manager of M.C. DiveBunaken picks us up behind the Celebes hotel at 10am, for a free 25' boat ride to his homestay on Bunaken, right beside the village, facing mainland Sulawesi. At 9 Euro pp/night, including three meals, it's a bargain. The food is excellent. Even though we had fish and rice twice a day, for most of the week, I never got tired of it. Coffee, tea and water are free of charge. With even a big 19l water bottle in the bungalow for our convenience.


The bungalows are basic, with an Indonesian style mandi and a small terrace. They're a bit too dark for my taste, but OK. All the front row bungalows are being renovated at the moment. There's no power during the day, but at night the homestay is connected to the village's generator. The village's proximity is a bit of a nuisance due to the noise from the public addressing system in the evenings and mornings. Imagine a woman rallying people to donate for a new church or house for the priest, every evening, again & again. And religious pop songs at 5am... Interesting local customs indeed.

Two boat dives cost 35 Euro (including, I think, equipment). There's a 7 nights (room+meals), 10 boat dives and 1 night dive package for 210 Euro. Visitors must pay a 150000 Rp Marine Park fee, valid for one calendar year. Jimmy, one of the two dive guides, is friendly, but doesn't speak much English.


The wall dives around Bunaken are relaxed and nice, with quite a few soft corals and big barrel sponges. Fish life is abundant especially at reef corners, but don't expect anything bigger than an occasional napoleon or a turtle. With a bit of luck though, you might spot an eagle ray passing by or a reef shark down below. And if you're really really lucky, as was a Vietnamese girl during our stay here, a juvenile whale shark might cruise in from the blue for a closer look!


The wreck between Manado and Bunaken is definitely worth a dive. Especially for wide-angle photography. With a maximum depth of about 39m, it's a bit deep, but it allows some nice swim throughs.

Manado

Only a short flight away from Singapore, but a whole other world. There are no trolleys in the arrival hall. Besides it being only a short stroll to the outside, they would cause too many jobless porters. After having checked our options, we take a taxi, for 50000 Rp, from the airport to the Celebes Hotel, a slow 30' minute ride due to some traffic jam.

The Celebes is perfectly located close to the harbour, right where the small boats moor and depart for Bunaken. The basic room, at 50000 Rp for two, including undrinkable coffee and a toast for breakfast, is just four walls around a bed, but we don't need more. It's just for one transit night anyway.

Having nothing else to do, we walk around town. Checking out some supermarkets & malls. They're quite something actually. Besides the AC being rather chilly when entering from the sweaty streets, you almost get blasted off your feet by the noise level of the public announcements and music. I mean, it's just impossible to think, let alone talk, while in there. But Indonesians seem to like it. The louder the better.

A Coca-Cola can costs about 3000 Rp, as does a 1,5l bottle of water. You can get a basic meal in a street side eatery for 6000 Rp.

Sea&Sea DX8000G underwater camera

Though branded as a Sea&Sea underwater camera, it's actually an eight megapixels Ricoh Caplio GX8 digital compact camera in a polycarbonate Sea&Sea underwater housing.

At time of purchase, this camera was the best solution considering my requirements: a very compact underwater set-up both with wide angle and macro capability, at least 5MP, no shutter-lag to worry about, a maximum depth rating greater than 40m and an affordable price tag.


⊕ Sea&Sea's housing perfectly envelops Ricoh's GX8 compact camera, and allows easy access to all its functions.

⊕ Very compact package. I want to be able to take the camera into caves & inside wrecks, so the smaller it is, the better. Besides, with my dive gear already taking up most of my travel weight allowance, I just can't afford an extra case with bulky camera equipment. Another advantage is that the DX8000G's small size allows for some great shot angles from 'dirt'-level.

⊕ The 0.6x wide angle conversion lens, which can be put on or taken off underwater, turns the already wide 28mm* into a very wide 17mm* lens (* focal lengths are 35mm film camera equivalents). Perfect for pictures of large subjects - when they dare come close, underwater sceneries or wrecks.

∅ Zoom range. With a 3x optical zoom lens going from 28mm* wide angle to 85mm* portrait, I can take both diver pictures (without having to back off too far) and super-macro shots of pretty tiny subjects (as close as 1cm with wide angle or 10cm with tele lens).

⊗ Zooming badly affects image quality, making it quasi useless.

⊕ Maximum depth rating of -55m.

⊕ Auto-focus. What a great feature after the manual guessing with Sea&Sea's analogue Motor Marine II EX.

∅ The camera does have some trouble auto-focussing in low light low contrast situations. There is however also a manual-focus option, but I haven't bothered yet to try it out.

⊗ Lacking optical image stabilization, a.k.a. anti-shake, it's hard, though not impossible, to get sharp pictures in super-macro mode due to hand shake, body movement or restless subjects. You really need to be able to stabilize yourself (e.g. with a stick). Plenty of light of course helps too.

⊕ Instant feedback! Allowing for corrective measures on the spot when necessary.

∅ Rather small 1.8" LCD.

⊕ MMC or SD memory cards up to 1GB. I kind of like the fact that I can use these multi-purpose memory card formats, in stead of the more brand specific ones like xD, compact flash, memory stick, etc. I use Sandisk SD Ultra II (512MB) & Extreme III (1GB) cards, good for about 150 & 300 photos respectively, in JPEG format at maximum resolution (3264x2448 pixels).

⊗ Internal memory of only 26MB. A joke really. But as far as I know, this is the case with most digital cameras, e.g. none really have any useful internal memory.

⊕ Almost unlimited number of exposures, with adequate memory-card & fully loaded batteries. No longer limited to 36 film exposures, this gives me the freedom to try again and again with various settings & angles, allowing me to experiment & try things out (without it costing anything).

⊕ Image quality is arguably not quite the same as with film cameras. The original JPEGs often have a certain flatness, missing the vibrant quality & depth of celluloid. However, with adequate editing software a lot can be done :o)

→ underwater snapshots taken while shark diving in the Bahamas

∅ Rather poor low-light performance. Due to the small 1/1.8" CCD sensor, using ISO values above 100 immediately results in very grainy images.

⊗ While it's really great to be able to take AVI video-clips at 30fps, the maximum resolution of only 320x240 pixels is sub-standard.

⊗ Lighting issue: I did not buy an external strobe for this camera, because I don't like the fiber-optic cable slave-mode solution. In my opinion, it drains camera batteries for nothing besides slowing down the camera too much - as it takes several seconds to reload the built-in flash, during which the camera is out-of-action. In stead I've tried to use my dive torches:

• Green Force's TriStar Diamond (less than 30W halogen equivalent), with its three little LEDs, doesn't quite come close to providing the necessary light for macro shots, but using it may help afterwards during post-processing to restore some of the reds.

• TillyTec's HID 35 (125W halogen equivalent) with flood reflector, in conjunction with TillyTec's LED 1000 (100W halogen equivalent) with diffuser, provided just enough light for an underwater video project in Mexico's cenotes. In the total darkness of the fresh water caves, photography however still wasn't practically feasible with this camera.

⊕ Battery type: Two universally available AA cells (alkaline or rechargeable), custom-made high capacity rechargeable battery or AC adapter. So far I've used:

− Rechargeable AA NiMH cells from Sanyo (1.2 V, 2300 & 2500 mAh). While kind of satisfied with their performance (good for about 100 shots w/o flash), they completely self-discharge within a week and totally give up after about a year's moderate usage.

+ Rechargeable AA NiMH cells from Ansmann (1.2 V, max-e 2100 mAh). These provide enough power for my camera to be almost always on, even on 2h long dives! Remarkably better than my supposedly more powerful, but unreliable, self-draining Sanyo cells.

⊗ Battery indicator: Consisting of only 3 rather imprecise levels (3/3, 2/3 & 1/3), the battery indicator isn't of much use, except as a very rough & unreliable estimate.

Singapore

Singapore's hot & humid. 6 hours ahead of Copenhagen. 1 USD = 1,6 SGD. 1 Euro = 2 SGD. It's probably the cleanest city in the world. And Singapore's pretty efficient mass rapid transportation system, MRT for short, brings you anywhere in no time. Especially with an EZ-link card, getting in & out of the subway is a breeze. Or you can walk. The center's not that big actually.

If you need to find a specific road, street or bridge, check out this pretty cool city map of Singapore. Good old unfoldable city maps are available for free in the airport (among other places) and pretty handy once you're out on the street trying to find a particular place, be it a street, mall or subway station. Street names are well-posted at each intersection to help you around.

We're staying at a backpackers place called the Inn Crowd. They've got mainly dorm beds, but also some double rooms at 48 SGD/night, including basic make-it-yourself breakfast. It's located in Bugis, Little India, close to Sim-Lim Square, a big shopping mall full of all kinds of electronics.

However, the Adelphi's my primary target, as that's where Singapore's Sea&Sea dealer is housed. And I'm lucky. The DX8000G, Sea&Sea's latest UW digital compact camera, has just arrived. Replacing the less than a year old DX5000G. It being brand new, I can't get a special discount, but the promotional price is a pretty good deal. And I do get 3% off for paying cash. After that I can relax. I got what I came for. Besides the camera & housing, I also bought a 0.6x Wide Angle Lens, rechargeable batteries, and a couple of SanDisk Ultra II 512MB SD memory cards (90 SGD/piece).

A Coca-Cola can costs about 1,2 SGD, as does a 1,5l bottle of water. You can have a nice meal for 5-10 SGD.

Flight #1 cancelled, #2 delayed, #3 missed

Summer vacation means busy airports. So we make sure to be there in good time. There being no check-in queue, we find ourselves in Copenhagen airport's departure hall way too early to have a gate assigned. So we just stroll around while waiting for a gate. Waiting for a gate in fact till 17:10 our planned departure time. At which point we're finally told that Maersk has cancelled its flight to Frankfurt. No reason given. We're just redirected to a service desk, where they're not quite prepared to face a whole flight of stranded passengers demanding a solution. However, all other direct flights to Frankfurt are fully booked. But they assure us they'll get us there no matter how nor when.

In our case that means we're rerouted to Prague first, at 18:25, on a SAS flight, stuffed in the tail end between the MD80's two engines. That's a very noisy place. But hey, we're flying. And with a bit of luck we should make it to Frankfurt, even though only half an hour before our flight to Singapore. We've been told to go for it, change terminals as quickly as possible and run for the gate upon arrival in Frankfurt. And just forget about our luggage...

In Prague's rather provincial airport, there's no personnel at our supposed departure gate. 20:35, our planned departure time, comes and goes without any information whatsoever. Until at 20:50 we're being told that our flight will be leaving at 22:00. Meaning there's no way we can make the Singapore flight. We've been told repeatedly that all subsequent flights to Singapore are fully booked. The little hope we'd left, now totally evaporates. At last we're on our way to a city we no longer have any reason to go to. It's 23:30 when Czech air drops us in Frankfurt's deserted airport. Our luggage is actually waiting for us by the time we make it to the belt. But it's too late to get anything done. All airline offices being closed, we head for the airport's Sheraton hotel, only to find out that there's some international football match in town and not a single room's available. However, one of the clerks knows about a small family run hotel only 5' from the airport, at 140 Euro for a double room, half the Sheraton's price. A bargain we sure hope to get paid back. A bit later a friendly Turkish looking man picks us up and cramps us in his old Mercedes together with another traveler. It's hot and humid as we drive through the night to the Taubengrund hotel. It could be any town, almost anywhere. The room's decent enough, and after a quick shower I just crash into bed.

Next morning, as we have breakfast in the Mediterranean looking dining room, Marianne calls Singapore airlines. What was just totally impossible yesterday, is no problem at all today. We can fly at 12:35! With our luggage. Once again we have a holiday, thanks to Singapore airlines' helpful attitude. We're given a ride back to the airport, where check-in is a breeze, making it all real. The flight is on time, we've got decent seats, with private view-when-you-want movie displays, the food's pretty good and we even land on time. Only 12 hours later than originally scheduled.

Take care of your gear!

Right before leaving for Malaysia, we had our regulators fully serviced, i.e. taken apart, cleaned, all small parts replaced, put together again according to the manufacturer's specifications and tested.

On the 14th dive of the trip my S550 second stage started to leak. Purging nor a thorough rinse afterwards solved the problem, it still leaked on the next dive. So I took it off, not wanting to risk a free flow, using my octopus in stead for the remainder of our stay.

Of course I brought my regulator back in for revision as soon as we got back home. The verdict: Both 1st & 2nd stage were pretty dirty. The filter in the 1st stage actually had to be replaced again. Rather unusual after only 29 dives! Meaning the tanks must have been in a sorry state inside. Full of corrosion dust. As for the leak, a piece of the rubber seat in my second stage was chipped off. Possibly by a little piece of rust hitting it at high speed.

But that's not all, the 2nd stage was full of salt and dirt too. As I said, though the crew supposedly took care of the gear, it never got much more than a quick dip in the tub. At the end of the day. Together with another 50 sets or so. The tub's water must have been saltier than the sea.

Even though I took care of my own gear the last couple of days, after having witnessed the poor treatment it got, the damage had already been done. I should have known better. I did actually, but... lesson learned: Always take care of your own gear. Nobody else cares as much as you do.

Sipadan, Borneo, Malaysia, March 2005

Diving around a small oceanic island rising 600m from the deep.


trip report

Malaysia - info sheet

Visum	Belgian citizens, among others, automatically get a three months visum upon entry.
Transport	• Flight from Copenhagen to Tawau: 21-26h (via Amsterdam & Kuala Lumpur) • Mini-bus from Tawau airport to Tawau city: ½h • Mini-bus from Tawau airport to Semporna: 1h • Speed-boat from Semporna to Mabul: ¾h
Time	Sabah time = Copenhagen winter time + 7 hours
Weather	Air temperature: 30°C (in the shade). Water temperature: 28°C.
Currency	1 USD = 3.7 RM (Malaysian Ringit)
Language	English is spoken by most.

Tawau - Semporna

Upon arrival in Tawau's small national airport, we are welcomed by an employee from the resort and immediately transferred to our hotel in Tawau: The Belmont Marco Polo. The fanciest hotel in town, with all modern amenities one might expect in a business class hotel.

Standard rooms cost 160 RM for two, including buffet breakfast. Cheap maybe compared to European price levels, but actually quite expensive when just around the corner you can e.g. get a meal for 2,5 RM from a night market food stall. Which is what I did straight away, trying out nasi campur, a plate of rice with all kinds of local dish samples. The outside world is quite a contrast really with the hermetic feeling of total isolation you have inside the hotel.

The next morning, our ride is waiting for us at 6:30 am, for the transfer to Semporna, a one hour drive through endless palm tree plantations. In Semporna, the minibus drives straight up to a comfortable speedboat, that zips us to Mabul island in less than 45'.

Sipadan-Mabul Resort

SMART is a very efficiently run resort, with a capacity of 90 in about 45 chalets of varying comfort levels, not counting the deluxe water-bungalows, of which more are under construction.

We got upgraded from the standard twin-share chalet we'd booked to a stand-alone chalet just like that, probably because of the length of our stay and having booked directly. A very nice gesture indeed, worth 300 USD or so, which we've appreciated a lot, now having a private hut in stead of a shared one in the back.

The hut, it doesn't look like much more than that from the outside, is pretty nice indeed and has both fan & AC, ensuite bathroom and a private terrace overlooking the gently waving palm trees and the sea.

A lazy stroll away, the large buffet style dining hall serves excellent Asian food 3 times a day. Coffee, tea & water are availale all day and included in the full-board price, while soft-drinks, beer & alcohol can be bought at the pool-, jetty- or dining room bar, where e.g. a can of soda costs 1 USD.

While the resort maintains a high standard despite the number of tourists, the dive operation suffers a bit from its emphasis on quantity in stead of quality. Though they've got plenty of powerful twin engine dive boats, they still cram as many as 10-12 divers in a single boat. Another thing that struck me, is that several boats will drop their divers at the same time at the same site, in stead of choosing another site or waiting 5-10'. Three of our dives were basically ruined by the sheer number of divers in the water at the same time, reminding of similar situations in the Red Sea around Hurghada, where the sea periodically turns into a giant jaccuzi of exhalation bubbles.

Some of the dive masters seem burnt out by their factory style working conditions. It's hard to care and remain personal when you get exposed to too many new faces every day. Breefings covered the bare minimum and no extra information was ever volunteered unless explicitely asked for.

SMART offers full service, meaning that gear is carried to and from the boats, set-up and rinsed afterwards, without you having to do anything. A service I'd rather do without, as I prefer to handle my gear myself. But that isn't quite an option. Unfortunately some of the (non-diving) staff doesn't quite know how to properly handle & set-up gear, and the rinsing isn't much more than a quick dip in a tub. Another problem is the state of the tanks. Too many are leaking, sometimes in a disturbingly noisy way. And several times we had minor problems with the outboard engines on the way to or from Sipadan. Clearly indicating that it's not only the dive masters that are overworked.

In theory you can dive with nitrox if you want to, but in practice it's not that easy to obtain and at 35 RM per tank very expensive indeed. Considering the number of divers, they should have a dedicated nitrox fill station and offer it for free. Now, that would be a service I'd appreciate!

The diving however is great, even though visibility was rather poor, varying between 10-15m around Sipadan and rarely exceeding 5m around Mabul. Turtles are still abounding on many dives and cruising or resting white-tips are a regular sight. We didn't get to see the large circling school of barracudas, but this time I did get two glimpses of an investigative hammerhead. Muck diving is in, and though the term is slightly misused here, critters can be found: harlequin file fish, flamboyant cuttlefish, clown frogfish, leaffish, devil scorpionfish, real and false stonefish, etc

Sipadan island has been closed off since january this year and the old resorts are slowly being broken up, in order to restore a semblance of natural peace, the island being an important nesting ground for the turtles it became famous for.

Only armed marine guards are now allowed to overnight on the island, to protect the precious source of income that well-to-do visitors are, rather than the turtles, whose eggs they now can dig up and sell without annoying witnesses. During the day their main pass time is watching the 100s of tourist divers crowding one of the old resort piers during the in-between-dives break, and making sure they don't wander off too far. All these divers now come from neighboring islands like Mabul & Kapalai, and even from Semporna on day trips or live-aboards. So I doubt the ecological impact of too many divers will be lessened in any way by the closure of the old resorts on Sipadan.

The island has definitely become much more accessible than 10 years ago. Resulting in more and more divers now crowding the place and feeling like great adventurers... but under water they're just clumsy humans trashing into the corals without a care. A sad sight. Despite explicit warnings that divers not respecting the fragile environment will be forbidden to dive, I never saw a dive master admonish anybody.

On several occasions during our stay, I heard muffled blasts while diving around Sipadan, as if something heavy had been dropped in the water above me. Once it unmistakenly felt like an explosion. Pretty near. But then, shock waves travel long distances under water. According to our guide they're caused by dynamite fishing in the Philippines. Not a very pleasant thought. I've previously seen the ghastly desolation of coral reefs totally destroyed by dynamite fishing in Indonesia. A sight I imagine one can compare with the utter devastation of an atomic bomb dropped upon a vast city.

Sipadan - Mabul - Kapalai

Sipadan - Mabul - Kapalai, three small islands forming a pretty ideal combination of game & treasure hunting.

Two hours after setting foot on Mabul island, we were in the water for a check-out dive, during which I got surrounded by small yellow tail barracudas, maybe mistaking me, with my yellow fins, for their big brother.

A normal dive day consists of two morning dives around Sipadan, between breakfast and lunch, followed by an afternoon dive around Mabul or, exceptionally, around Kapalai.

Besides or in stead of the boat dives, it's also possible to do unlimited jetty dives from the water bungalows pier, as long as you've got a buddy.

Rides from Mabul to Sipadan take anything from 15' on a calm day with a powerfull twin-engine (115hp) speedboat, to more than 30' on a rougher day with a smaller twin-engine (85hp) boat.

Sipadan offers better visibility and more action, while Mabul and Kapalai are known for the small stuff.

Flying turtles

Turtles are all over the place around Sipadan: sleeping in wall crevices, swimming over the reef, seeking food among coral rubble, slowly rising in the blue towards the surface for a precious gulp of air...


Several times I had at least 4 of them within my field of vision! They're not always there in numbers though, and sometimes we only saw one or two. But hey, some places you're lucky if you see one in a whole week's diving.


More often than not however, there were more of them than I could care to count. Small and large. Hawksbill and green. And I had close and personal encounters more than once, with turtles swimming right up to me, barely avoiding a collision.

Circling barracudas

On our first Sipadan dive, at Mid reef, we passed a small school of circling barracudas. But we never met them again afterwards. However, around Mabul, to my delight, I got surrounded by small yellow tail barracudas twice.

Huddling humpheads

Also on our first Sipadan dive we were lucky to see a tightly packed school of about two dozen sleepy humphead parrotfish. They look kind of prehistoric to me. With their big coral crunching beak-like teeth, oversized heads and small flapping pectoral fins. Normally you have to get up real early to see them, but then, you may be so fortunate as to see hundreds of them, as did a Japanese girl during our stay.

Streaming jacks

On two of our dives around Sipadan, at South point & Turtle patch, we got to submerge right into a fairly big school of silver jacks, endlessly streaming in the shallows, as if in a hurry to nowhere. Quite an hypnotic sight, and one of my favourites. I could hang out there in a trance with them forever.

There's also a large gang of young jacks hanging around the water bungalows pier.

Cruising sharks

On most Sipadan dives, we saw white-tips cruising around or resting on the bottom. But unlike the turtles, these predators are rather shy and usually moved away each time I tried to sneak closer.

One day, we also came upon a fairly big leopard shark, who inevitably also got tired of too much attention, and slowly swam away.

On our one and only 6am early morning dive, I was lucky to twice get a glimpse of an inquisitive hammerhead coming out of the blue to check out the commotion, but deciding it wasn't worth calling his friends.

I noticed at least one grey reef shark during a drift dive, but not close enough to call it a good sighting. Too bad, for these dudes look like real sharks, unlike the not-quite-so-serious-looking white-tips.

Walking critters

Twice I found a big mean looking stonefish basically fully in the open, which is rather unusual as they prefer to dig themselves in the sand or hide themselves among coral outcrops they try very hard to simulate.

In front of the water bungalows jetty an artificial reef consisting of wooden structures and hollow concrete blocks is a good place to look for frogfish, several of which have made it their home as it attracts a lot of small fish seeking refuge. There're at least three rusty red frogfish pretending to be harmless sponges. Mika, a Japanese dive master, also found a yellow clown frogfish for us. The cutest little (10cm) thing I've ever seen. It kept trying to walk away from us using its fin-feet, in the most comical cartoonlike way. The next day we witnessed a bigger black frogfish doing the same slow-motion wobbly moon-walk down a sandy slope. While slowly gulping in water as if out of breath. What a wonderful world!


Also around Mabul, two small flamboyant cuttlefish were crawling over the sand, maybe in order not to be blown away by the current, after in vain having tried to get away from us big madly flashing monsters. The comparatively big reef cuttlefish also shows up now and then.

Lisa, a Philippina dive master and probably the best spotter of the dive resort, dug up a devil scorpion fish out of the sand (using her handy pointing stick). After which it crawled around on its claw-like fins, seeking a more peaceful place.


On several occasion we saw leaf fish, some yellow, some black. They're another "I'm not there" kind of pretender found in various locations.

Crocodilefish, big and small, can be seen on most dives around Mabul, usually on sandy bottoms, but I also got to shoot a picture of one perched on top of a coral boulder.

Besides the above mentioned critters, we also saw nudibranchs, ribbon eels, snake eels, moray eels, mantis shrimp, cleaner shrimps, colony shrimps, anemone crabs, octopus, lobster, cowry shell, etc. And, though I didn't see them, there are mandarin fish both around Mabul & Kapalai.

Semporna - Tawau

We spent two nights drying out & off-gassing in Semporna, a harbor town with an impressive fishing fleet of small-medium sized boats, all setup with large arrays of big lights for attracting fish.

The boats' fishing lights are clearly visible at night from Mabul's beach, and slightly annoying when you just want to gaze at the starry Milky Way.

Semporna, though not what I'd call a nice place, is worth a look around, if only to get some local flavor and a sense of daily life, especially around the market place, but also in the town's commercial streets.

The first night we stayed in the Dragon Inn, a picturesque place built on stilts above the water. Standard rooms, placed in long rows, only cost 66 RM for two including a very basic breakfast, but are not very pleasant, being rather dark and way too musty for me. The huge stand-alone VIP bungalows, at 135 RM are nicer, but offer no peace from the constant roaring of outboards cruising by, nor from the nearby mosque's early morning chants.

So we moved to the new Seafest Hotel for our second night, which besides actually being cheaper, at 97 RM for two, offers modern comfort, satellite TV and a nice buffet breakfast. A delicious buffet dinner in the hotel set us back 14 RM pp. Otherwise you can have a decent lunch for 5 RM. A can of soda or a 1,5l bottle of water cost 1,5 RM only.

Sharm El Naga, Egypt, October 2004

Red Sea shore diving.

trip blog

Egypt - info sheet

Visum	A visum is required! In Copenhagen, a one month visum can easily be obtained from the Egyptian embassy within two working days. Besides your passport you must bring one picture, fill in an application, and pay 188 DKK. With some charter companies it is possible to obtain a visum upon arrival.
Transport	• Charter flight from Copenhagen to Hurghada: 5h • Transfer from Hurghada airport to Sharm El Naga dive resort: 1h
Time	Hurghada winter time = Copenhagen summer time They change to winter time beginning of October in Egypt, but end of October in Denmark.
Weather	Air temperature: around 30°C. Warm and dry, blue sky, mild north wind. Water temperature: 27°C.
Currency	1 Euro = 7.5 E£ = 7.5 DKK
Language	English is spoken by some.

Free diving

With clear water and a sand bottom invitingly sloping down between the corals, I just had to try and see how deep I could swim using fins and only one breath of air. A big amphora being the tempting goal down below. Thereby discovering the great feeling of free diving and setting a new personal record - a rather easy thing to do when it's your first serious attempt.


As I reached the point where my lungs were just too compressed to squeeze any more air out of them to equalize, the amphora seemingly only an armlength away, but out of reach nonetheless, I turned around and looked up at the surface high above... what a sight!

Then I started finning up, slightly worried about shallow water black-out. This is not something you want to try without a buddy watching you from the surface, ready to dive down and pull you up should the worst case scenario occur!

Fish let you come much closer, even letting you swim among them, when you're not blowing expanding bubbles all the time, at least as long as you don't frantically move your arms around, using just your fins in stead.

So now my head is buzzing with free diving jargon like: constant weight, static and dynamic breath-hold etc. I definitely have to look for a low volume diving mask... besides training my breath-hold capability and improving my underwater swimming & finning technique.

There's nothing like being under pressure

During our one week stay, we only did two boat dives: Sadana point, a rather disappointing steep sloping wall, and later on, just to make at least one more boat dive, Green gardens, a beautiful hard coral reef - that is, if you can find it without breefing. The wind caused waves made the boat rides, although not very long, not very pleasant either.

So we ended up choosing for the house reef in stead, diving it 10 times, including 2 night dives, and appreciating it more each time.

The beach entrance with its sand slope is a great place for lazy crocodilefish, just lying on the bottom while waiting for a meal to present itself to them, scorpion fish blending in with the corals and pretending not to be there, lionfish resting underneath overhangs, flounders and blue-spotted stingrays.


The left side has very nice hard corals, with pairs of masked butterfly fish slowly swimming around here and there, but there's more marine life on the right side, where we saw schooling fish like fuseliers and sergeant-majors, a big barracuda getting its teeth cleaned for a more snappy bite later on, a turtle minding its own business and a squad of seven squids hanging out in the blue, performing -at a safe distance- a little razzle dazzle show of changing colors and threathening postures.


During our night dives, we saw two small cuttlefish, getting pretty upset with us trying to take a picture of them, a few shrimps, lots of long spined sea-urchins and crabs decorated with anemones according to the latest fashion, unless of course it's just for camouflage and self-defense. All the while with an escort of two not-to-be-pushed-away lionfish, using our lights to successfully hunt by, thus having adopted the frequent intrusions of divers to their advantage. Twice I guiltily witnessed the swallowing of small out-of-luck fish by the bigger fellow - thereby making me, I confess, an accomplice to cold-blooded feeding.

Sharm El Naga

About 40km south of Hurghada lies the Sharm El Naga dive resort, located in a quiet little bay with a beautiful house reef easily accessible from the beach.

The dive center's former managers having left recently -in apparent discontent- to start their own business in Safaga, the place isn't as well run as it should be. The temporary dive crew lacks enthusiasm and knows little or nothing about the dive sites, all maps and buoys having been taken away, resulting in boat dives not really being promoted.

Each day, from 9am to 4pm, the beach is invaded by day tourists, brought from Hurghada resorts by tour busses, as this is the only beach with a snorkable reef in the neighbourhood with full amenities like rinsing showers, toilets, bar, fairly decent restaurant and fully equipped dive center offering rental gear, discover scuba classes, etc. Unfortunately, all those snorkelers also use the rinsing basins meant for the dive gear :o(

The AC bungalows are located away from the beach and have wind sheltered private terraces. We switched the AC off and just left the window wide open, enjoying the quietness and peacefulness of the desert, the silence broken only by the gentle surf of the sea...

Prices
• 8days/7nights half-board w/o diving = 175 Euro
• 8days/7nights half-board with 5 diving days* = 345 Euro (* 2 boat dives per day + unlimited shore dives)

For full-board add 40 Euros to the half-board price. But unless you're a big eater, it's not really worth it, as that includes a big lunch (worth 40 E£), which is just too much food. A sandwich or salad is fine and only costs about 20 E£.

If you plan on doing mainly shore dives, and only a couple of boat dives, it might be worth reserving for half-board only, and pay for the dives separately. A 1.5l bottle of water costs 7E£ as does a can of soda or juice.

Yucatan, Mexico, April 2004

Inside five very different cenotes between Tulum & Coba.

Mexico - info sheet

Visum	Belgian citizens, among others, automatically get a three months visum upon entry. No departure tax. Nor immigration control when leaving. Which strangely means I got an IN stamp but no OUT stamp!
Transport	• Shuttle mini-bus from Cancun airport to Tulum pueblo (35 USD/person): 2h • Taxi from Tulum pueblo to the beach (30-35 Pesos): about 4km • MAYAB stop bus from Tulum to Playa Del Carmen (20 Pesos/person) • ADO direct AC bus from Tulum to Playa Del Carmen (31 Pesos/person): 1h. Remark that the ADO bus does not stop in the tourist bus terminal on 5th avenue (= the shopping street), but several blocks away from it! • Direct AC bus from Playa Del Carmen to Cancun airport (65 Pesos/person): 1h. Leaves from the tourist bus terminal located on 5th avenue - close to the Playa-Cozumel ferry terminal.
Time	Cancun time = Copenhagen summer time — 7 hours
Weather	Air temperature: 30°C hot and humid. Partially overcast and relatively windy, with an occasional thunderstorm. Nights are usually cool during the winter months but were abnormally so now too. Fresh water temperature: 24°C (in the cenotes).
Currency	1 USD = 10.5 Pesos
Language	English is spoken. But knowing a bit of Spanish is recommended when you don't know your way around.

Mindoro & Luzon, Philippines, Oct-Nov 2003

¤ IANTD Normoxic Trimix Diver
¤ TDI Advanced Wreck Diver
¤ IANTD Trimix Diver

travel blog

Philippines - info sheet

Visum	No visum is required - unless you want to stay more than 3 weeks. In Copenhagen, a 59 days visum can be obtained from the Philippines consulate within two to four weeks. Besides your passport you must bring one picture, a copy of your travel documents, fill in an application, and pay 345 DKK.
Time	Manila time = Copenhagen summer time + 6 hours Manila time = Copenhagen winter time + 7 hours
Weather	Air temperature: about 30°C warm and humid. Partially cloudy, with an occasional shower now and then. Water temperature: 27°C.
Currency	1 USD = 54 PHP
Language	English is spoken by most.
Electricity	Electrical plugs are USA style.

Seahorse parade

Armed with a Sea&Sea MotorMarine IIex underwater camera, it's a whole other game now. The hunt for subjects is open.

Asia Divers being rather busy, I've switched to Frontier Scuba. I already dived with them last year and know Rick (the owner) and Oying (the main guide). It's a smaller dive shop, offering a more personalized service, meaning you can have Rick or Oying as your private guide on most dives.


And they're a photographer's best friend! In stead of telling which dive sites I'd like to see, I ask them for a certain fish or marine creature. Then they just bring me to a site and find whatever I wanted to see. It's quite incredible. Today, Oying found three seahorses and a big orange frogfish on our first dive. And plenty of colourful nudibranchs on the second dive.


Not a day goes by without us seeing a new critter: pygmy seahorses, spotted and thorny seahorses, seamoths (aka dragonfish), slender pipefish, seagrass filefish, flying gurnard, dragonet, cockatoo waspfish, frogfish, lion-, scorpion- and stonefish, reef- and flamboyant cuttlefish, octopus, anemoneshrimps and -crabs, hermite- and boxcrabs, green and white mantis shrimp, blue and black ribbon eels, moray eels, flounders, various kinds of nudibranchs, seapens, etc. Besides of course all the other free moving reef fish (usually not inclined to be photographed) and the occasional turtle.

There was a problem with the camera's macro-frame, but several pictures did come out anyway, though not as many as hoped. Lesson learned: develop asap, so you can take corrective measures.

Recreational diving

Having finished all my technical courses, I can now enjoy the freedom of diving with just one tank again. All I have to do is rollover into the water, have a great time just looking around and surface when I'm done.


My recreational configuration is of course technically correct: meaning I'm still using a harness and backplate, but now with smaller, single tank wings. I can't get much more streamlined than that, except by becoming a freediver.

A typhoon passes by

It's been raining through the night and all of the day. The intensity varying from drizzle to tropical downpour, soaking everything and everybody venturing outside. A perfect day for watching movies, except there's no power and they won't start the generator until nightfall. So most tourists hang out in the bars, soaking there insides with San Miguel beer, thus restoring their humidity balance with the outside world.

IANTD Trimix Diver -upgrade-

Instructors	Dave Ross (academics+skills) Sam Collett (training dives)
Dive center	Tech Asia, Small La Laguna, Puerto Galera, Mindoro, Philippines
Duration	4 days
Dives	1 confined water session 3 trimix dives to max 80m
Price	300 USD + about 240 USD for Helium (incl. the instructor's)
Requirements	IANTD
Comments	Having done the normoxic trimix course only a few weeks ago with the same instructor team, this course was just an upgrade to full trimix. In order to go yet a little deeper, there are some new skills to master and some additional risks to consider. The main one being the fact that the bottom mix is now hypoxic at the surface and shallow depths. Actual bottom time gets even shorter and decompression time longer (e.g. about four times the bottom time for medium deep dives). As more Helium is needed in the mix in order to keep a clear head, the price tag per dive goes up accordingly too. Dave and Sam are great dive professionals who take their job seriously and do it thoroughly, gladly sharing their knowledge and experience - they're truly an example to follow. Remark that the full trimix course would normally take longer, require more dives and cost more.

Manila to Small LaLaguna

After a short overnight stay at Malate pension (550 PHP/night), I took an early morning taxi to the City State Tower Hotel (31 PHP) and bought a bus/ferry ticket to Sabang (400 PHP). The bus left a little after 8am, and we arrived in Batangas around 10:30, from where I took a big banca outrigger directly to Sabang beach. The crossing took an hour, and could potentially get wet depending on the wheather conditions.
My fully furnished studio at Sha Che (500 PHP/day) was waiting for me, and I made myself comfy straight away. Now I can truly relax, having worked my way through the two main dive courses I wanted to do here. The one left is just an upgrade of the first one, so I can take it easy from now on :o)

Subic Bay to Manila

Not liking Subic too much, I left it as soon as the course was done. I could again share a chartered van (2700 PHP) back to Manila with Mark and Steve. With the same old driver, barely understanding a word of english, and always nodding yes to whatever we'd ask him. But he got us where we wanted. Through the endless traffic jams.

TDI Advanced Wreck Diver

Instructor	John Bennett
Assistant	Mark Cox
Buddy	Steve Bates
Dive center	MasterDive (used as a base only), Subic Bay, Mindoro, Philippines John Bennett and Mark Cox run the Tech Dive Academy in Port Douglas, Australia
Duration	5 days
Dives	1 confined water session 8 wreck dives on air or nitrox
Price	750 USD
Requirements	TDI
Comments	More than just an introduction to overhead environment diving. The skills are very much the same as for cave diving, but the environment and its hazards pose different challenges. Again, buoyancy control is crucial to perform the line laying, following and retrieval skills, through narrow to tight horizontal, vertical or inclined restrictions. Propulsion technique is very important to avoid silting up. And of course one has to be very aware of one's air reserves. Contrary to cave diving, we were never totally gone from daylight sources, except for a short shaft penetration. Gear configuration is very much an issue here, as anything dangling or sticking out could be a potential entanglement hazard. And believe me, things do get tight in there, I've never felt so big before. Though the skills must be mastered, they're relatively easy to learn. The main challenge really is mental. To remain in control when things don't quite go as expected. With six divers (one instructor, one assistant and four students) we got to practice no viz exits a lot. With that many divers working their way through narrow corridors, silting up is almost inevitable. Bubbles cause falldown, holding on to a coral encrusted corroded beam causes clouds of rust particles to swirl around, just looking at something intensively might cause it to crumble. In these no viz situations, the guideline truly becomes a lifeline. My hands must have a hundred small cuts from feeling my way around and my fingertips are pretty much worn off. The equipment seriously gets roughed up too from all the bumping and scraping. My corrugated inflator hose didn't last very long before being punctured. My wetsuit still bears rust colored marks on the thighs, from when I clammed myself in doorways. And my fins have several new scars. The visibility outside the wrecks varied from around 3-5m to an amazing 8m the last day. A pitty really because one can not get a sense of the size of these great wrecks. Nor that some of them are actually battleships. Visibility inside the wrecks was usually better than outside - that is, untill we messed up everything. John Bennett, current world record holder of deep scuba diving on mixed gas (308m!), is a sympathetic man, who knows what he's doing. He's a good instructor, but being four students was a bit too much to my taste. We did get a lot of training dives, but not as much actual line laying/retrieval practice as necessary in my opinion. Especially if you've never done this before. The course itself wasn't somehow as structured as the cave course I did in Mexico. There wasn't e.g. as clear a progression in skill difficulty or general understanding. There's no exam by the way. We only used MasterDive as a base, it being located conveniently close to the wrecks. Having our own equpment all they provided was doubles with air or nitrox. The doubles were in a rather sorry condition and they didn't have enough of them. They've got no gear storage space to speak of nor adequate rinsing facilities. But what can you expect from a dive center squeezed in a cargo container. I can't honestly recommend them. They're not very well organised and the way the local shop assistants mistreated our precious life-support equipment was beyond stupid carelessness. I've actually never seen anything like it. I couldn't have subjected myself nor my gear to their care a day longer then required. My doubles were bubbling from the right tank valve in a rather noisy way (loosing 40bar overnight), but all one of the guys in charge could say was: "He'll survive". A pity really for I would have liked to do some non-training wreck dives after the course.
Training wrecks	El Capitan: Large freighter about 80m long lying on its port side between 6 and 21m. A nice wreck where we did our initial line laying, following and retrieval skills.
	USS New York: WWI battle cruiser about 100m long, sunk in 1941, lying between 18 and 21m. Ideal for wreck penetration training. Some passages have barely recognisable permanent line.
	LST: Land Support Transport vessel lying upright in 36m deep water. Allowing multi-cabin penetration, after getting through a short but narrow stairwell. We used a deco stage here, left outside the wreck during the actual penetration.

Subic Bay

We stay at the Mangrove mini-resort hotel/restaurant on Baloy beach near Olongapo city. For 1200 PHP/night you get a big but not very well designed aircon room with hot shower (but no direct light in the bathroom) and small TV (uselessly far away from the bed). There's a small closet, but no wardrobe, no table, no chair. All rooms overlook the bay, and there's a mini swimming pool. The restaurant serves decent food at reasonable prices (150-250 PHP).

The busy main street, a 10' walk away from the resort, is rather shabby and of course dusty, heavily polluted and noisy. In short, not a pleasant sight.

Mangrove is a 15' ride from the ex-military base and the MasterDive dive center we'll be diving from. They'll pick us up every morning and bring us back in the afternoon.

Subic is a strange place, with lots of British and Australian expats, all rather storyful characters. Everybody on the wreck course I'm following being British too, I feel very much an outsider, having no particular interest whatsoever in the rugby championship nor being much of a social small talk beer drinking mate.

It being the 1st of November, I witnessed quite a sight: the hillside cemetery crawling all over with people coming to spend the day and night with their ancestors. Having a family picnic around the graves, chatting away with relatives, the ghosts left pretty much speechless as far as I could tell. At night the whole hill was lit up by thousands of flickering candles.

Manila to Subic Bay

I shared a chartered van (2700 PHP) with John Bennett, Mark Cox and Steve Bates. The long ride through congested traffic took about 3½ hours, including a short lunch stop, at, of all places, a roadside McDonalds.

Manila

Manila is a huge sprawling city, with over 10 million people living in it. It's got a chaotic traffic situation resulting in pretty mad driving habits and the accompanying pollution problem. Most of the public transport still seems to be handled by the typical jeepneys, together with loads of taxis, motorized tricycles, pedicabs and even the odd horse cart.

It's not a nice city, and though actually surprisingly clean when you think about it, it doesn't look that way, giving a faded, drab, dusty impression, except for some of the towering glass buildings in the better districts. There's no real side walks to speak of, but then, anybody with some means wouldn't think about walking anywhere. Besides, it's just too hot to do that.

Manila is a city of great social contrasts. Shiny tall buildings look out over corroded metal shacks. A rich inner world of clean airconned malls versus the sweaty hot outer world of the poor. Where one person carelessly spends in one hour what another barely scrapes together in a month, or even a year.

Where on one side of a window a fat kid stuffs himself with a burger, while on the other side a starving kid is sifting through some garbage for a scrap of discarded food. It's a tough world we live in indeed. Armed guards are everywhere, some of them with heavy shotguns, to protect these fairy innerworlds from the harsh reality of the outside.

Ignorance is bliss. Better not to think about it too much. After all, I'm here on holidays, not to change the world. It's just that, well, I guess it bothers me when directly confronted with it like this...

I feel relatively safe walking around here, but I am cautious, trying not to display too much wealth. Most Philippinos strolling around in the mall are better dressed than me by the way. Nevertheless, with the amount of money I'm carrying, albeit in traveler cheques, the equivalent of several years salary for lots of people here, I feel like a walking talking winning lottery ticket.

The other day I'm pretty sure there was a guy following me through the department store. Maybe I'm being just a bit paranoid, but it would be quite a lot of coincidence that he happened to be interested in all the same random things as I was. As I slipped out, I saw him come out a couple of seconds later too, looking around, but by then I was already around the corner.

Small La Laguna to Manila

As I could get a private ride directly from Small La Laguna to Manila today, I got here a bit earlier than planned. I shared a big outrigger from Asia Divers with an american expat who'd chartered it, a 50' sail to some gravel beach near the Batangas harbour (1800 PHP for the boat, being only 2 that came to 900 PHP per person, but you could get a lot more people in that boat).

From there I got a free two hour ride to the Makati area of Manila in his chauffeured company car. From where I took a taxi to get to the Malate part of town (about 40' in the heavy city traffic, 90 PHP meter price).

Bug report

I've been indulgent with the mini-ants colony living in the kitchenette, thinking we had somekind of an understanding that they would restrict themselves to the garbage bag. Everything remotely looking like food being safely secured in the fridge, the only place out of their reach. However, I was barely gone for two days on a small exploration trip, and they already assumed they could just take over the place.

First I found a new nest in my logbook, which rather offended me, but still, I remained fairly polite, only shaking them into a frenzy and lecturing them about private property. Then I found another nest in a fold of my backpack, which quite annoyed me, but again I just sent them packing to a new location somewhere down the kitchen drain. And then my self-control just blew when I found a third nest in the lining of my jacket, which really pissed me off. No more mercy this time. The bug hunter in me took over and just wiped them all out.

Exploring the sunken past

Being a newly initiated normoxic trimix diver I got the chance to participate in a short two days exploration trip to Marinduque island to search for two Japanese WWII ship wrecks, estimated to be lying between 30 and 60m.

Trip organisers were Dave Ross, manager of Tech Asia, and Frank, a sympathetic ozzie owning "Rags", the very basic live-aboard for the weekend. Frank's also the manager of La Laguna Beach Club and Dive Center on Big La Laguna. They didn't need to ask me twice.

Friday around midnight we, four wannabe tekkies, Dave, Frank and three crew members boarded Rags. Rags is basically just a sturdy outrigger with a roof and four bunks, but you don't need more to go on a quest. Four tech divers means a lot of gear, each of us having a set of doubles and three stages (just in case), plus a compressor, and a couple of large oxygen and helium tanks.


The sea being a bit rough that night we only arrived at Marinduque the next morning around 9 am. We started by checking out the coastline, to compare the current shore's outline and background landscape with 60 year old aerial photographs from a battle report.

Dave and Frank kind of knew where to start looking, thanks to some written references in the report. A good thing cause I must say that every bay just looks the same to me. In the end however, it was an elderly local fisherman who helped us out, pinpointing the exact locations of both wrecks.


All excited we quickly geared up, eager to check out those forgotten wrecks. We jumped in as two buddy teams, and started our descend into the unknown and very murky waters. With a visibility of less than 2m, we had to stay close together indeed. The bottom appeared around 34m, a thick layer of very easily disturbed fine silt, full of worm holes. The anchor completely lost in it.

Slowly we started swimming around, not really knowing where exactly we were going. Being rather impatient I was already wondering whether to call the dive after 10', in order to avoid long decompression times, when Tex, my Korean buddy, suddenly signalled to me with his light. He'd found the first wreck.

At least what's left of it. It being a mine layer of some sort, it must have gone down with a nasty big bang. All what's left of it is some hull, strangely covered in what seems to be fist sized rocks. I picked one up, but gently put it back, just in case it was somekind of grenade...

Though there wasn't very much recognizable structure left, it's still quite fascinating to explore such a lost wreck. The other team, of older and more experienced tech divers, missed the wreck on their first dive, and tried very hard not to let their annoyance show. Even though we found it on our first dive, we almost missed it again on our second dive.


The next day we moved to the second wreck's location, hoping for better visibility, as we could see the anchor line going down a fair bit and the sun rays clearly visible in the dark water. Alas, 15m deep the visibility quickly dropped to about 1m.

Again we ventured out slowly in the misty green water, again I was wondering whether to call the dive, as suddenly a dark shape loomed up to my left, barely a meter away. If I'd looked to the other side at that moment, we would have missed it. This time there were some structural elements recognizable in the wreckage, making it a bit more interesting, but no artifacts. Either they've been taken away already or they've sunk in the silt.

This wreck had a bit more life on it too, coral bushes and a couple of fish seeking refuge in the many blast holes. Again the other team missed the wreck on the first dive, now seriously damaging their reputation. But they made up for it later on by drinking loads of beer. Sometimes blurred memories help soften reality I guess.

All in all a great trip, with Frank being an excellent host, cooking up great food for hungry divers. The return trip to Sabang only took six hours thanks to a gentler sea on the way back.

A little beyond recreational depth

To go just a little bit deeper (in the 40 to 60m range), for a little bit longer comes at a high price. For a bottom time of about 20' we usually had twice as much decompression to do - and that on trimix with special deco-gasses, on air I don't even want to think about it. The decompression time would also increase dramatically if the bottom time was to be extended.

The actual price tag per trimix dive varies according to the amount of Helium in the bottom mix - which is in function of the target depth and the equivalent nitrogen depth - but averages at about 100 USD for shallow deep dives (in the above mentioned depth range), Helium not coming cheap (about 0.04 USD/liter) and having to pay for the instructor's or guide's as well!


As preparation to deeper dives, I did several dives with 3 stage tanks (one 10l bottom-gas and two 5.5l deco-gasses), all clipped to my left side, besides the twin set (2x12l) on my back. Quite a load on the surface and a bit of a hassle to get them all clipped onto the harness on a rocking boat, but surprisingly alright once in the water, except for some clanking tanks noise when frogkicking.

You need to be very careful when switching gasses. Breathing the wrong one at the wrong depth could be fatal. But so is crossing the street at the wrong moment. After those practice dives, having only one stage tank seems like a breeze.

IANTD Normoxic Trimix Diver

Instructors	Dave Ross (academics) Sam Collett (skills + training dives)
Dive center	Tech Asia, Small La Laguna, Puerto Galera, Mindoro, Philippines
Duration	5-7 days
Dives	2 confined water sessions 2 training dives on air or nitrox 3-4 trimix dives to max 60m
Price	675 USD + about 180 USD for Helium (incl. the instructor's)
Requirements	IANTD
Comments	I might not be diving like a duck yet, but I sure can talk like one now. It took me a couple of dives to get used to diving with twin 12l tanks and two 5.5l deco-gas stages, while having to demonstrate all kinds of skills: total buoyancy control being the crucial one. But by the end of the course I kind of got most of it under control. A great course indeed, where I gained a lot of insight in decompression theory, thanks to Dave's ability to explain complex theoretical models in a very clear and simple way. Sam then put all the theory in practice, showing me how to safely plan and execute deeper dives. His very detailed de-breefings always to the point and crucial in improving my performances. Thanks to his good advice, I have indeed become a safer and more knowledgeable diver. I haven't been deep enough to notice that trimix breaths easier at depth than air, but then, I barely have any reference to compare with. Deep air diving definitely isn't my thing. Even with trimix I could still feel some narcosis, mainly because of the task loading I guess, and maybe also CO2 build-up, everything being new and me still having to actually think a lot instead of just doing it.

Small La Laguna

It's pretty quiet here at the moment in Small La Laguna. The atmosphere kind of subdued. Though there's a bit more people now compared to when I arrived. Sabang is a bit more busy.

Having a kitchenette in my studio, I'm able to have self-made breakfasts and lunches, as I can find most of what I need in the local supermarkets: instant coffee and milk, sugar, drinking water (I have to drink at least 3l of water a-day to keep hydrated at 70 PHP for a 20l jerrycan), softdrinks and juices (about 1l a-day at 15 PHP for a CocaCola can), Nestle cereals (80-135 PHP), peanut butter (95 PHP), canned tuna or sardines, tomatoes and cucumbers, etc. There's also a Swiss deli where you can get decent European style bread (80 PHP for a large one), some pastry, ham and Kraft processed cheese (95 PHP/8slices) - perfect for sandwishes (given the local conditions).

You can buy all kinds of exotic fruit from women strolling along the beach, e.g. small bananas, green oranges, mangos, mangosteen, papaya and some kind of lychees with a potato-skin. I usually buy it from an old woman who probably charges 3 or 4 times too much, but I just can't bring myself to haggle about a couple of cents, when paying big dollars a little later for my diving.

Just to give you an idea, a dive boat captain or dive shop assistant earns about 100 USD per month. And that's probably a well paid job here.

At night they come out to feed

Another 6 recreational dives, this time with other tourists, just to attract some attention with all my tech gear. One of these dives was a night dive in Sabang bay. Except for the current being a bit too strong for a night dive it was pretty nice. My Green Force light was a pleasure and my 2 TekTite backup lights just great. I saw lots of small crabs and shrimps, beautiful anemones and a long slender pipefish.


During the day dives I swam around twice with a big green turtle; lay face to face with a white tip shark; admired some pretty fancy nudibranchs; a pair of anemone crabs; an egg cowry enveloped in its pitch black mantle; a couple of scorpion fish and a baby frogfish almost undistinguishable from the coral rubble it was lying upon.

I also did a short decompression dive, just for practice. According to Sam, my skill level is what he would expect from an advanced nitrox diver. And they can teach me a lot. Somehow I kind of slightly felt insulted by the way he said that. But then, I'm a sensitive person :o)

In a coral fan lives a happy pygmy seahorse family

I've done half a dozen recreational dives with twin tanks, just to get used to the feeling again. And except for my SuperWings being indeed a bit too much for this type of diving, it's going alright. I've been diving with a personal guide, Sam the first day, Alli the other two.

The water is a comfortable 28°C, so my 7mm wetsuit is more than enough, though not too much for me. Visibility could be better, I'd say about 10-15m.

I've used my Green Force Tristar Diamond primary light on 2 occasions now. Once in the shark cave, an overhang where whitetip reef sharks come to rest. And indeed, there was one, tucked away as deep as it could. I wasn't too impressed by my Green Force light though. Mainly due to the beam being too wide and diffuse under the circumstances, there being too much sunlight and too many small particles and fish in the water causing a lot of reflection. My TekTite Expedition Star backup light (at 1/5 the price) with its more focussed beam actually did a much better job. The second time I was a bit more satisfied, as I swam inside the Alma Jane wreck, where the Green Force's soft white light was quite pleasing, though lacking in power.

The coral reef itself is quite nice actually, and they've got plenty of critters in the shallower parts: praying mantis shrimp scurrying around or peeking out of their holes; cute little pygmy seahorses (smaller then my finger tip) holding on to their host fan by their tiny tails while looking at me with big round eyes; bully frogfish; shy electric blue ribbon eels; beautiful nudibranchs and amazing pin-cushion seaurchins. Even a sleeping extremely venomous seasnake lying motionless on the bottom. Untill I came too close and it lazyly took a peek at me through half-closed lids. After which I slowly backed away.

Tech Asia

I've met Dave Ross and Sam Collett, the two technical diving instructors of Tech Asia. And I've set up my gear. Of course they had their own opinion about it. Which was, of course, different from the way the instructors wanted me to do things in Egypt.

I guess I'll just have to find out what works best for me depending on the local circumstances. For example, they don't like my double bladder SuperWings here. As these are not DIR. Tech Asia by the way regularly organises GUE courses, advocating the Doing It Right philosophy. In the Red Sea however they wouldn't dive without double bladder wings, but then, they also use heavy steel tanks there.

Tech Asia's dive shop is well equipped, and they've got lots of stuff from Halcyon for sale: wings, backplates, harnesses, cam bands & reels; APEKS regulators & hoses; really nice Oxycheck spools; SMBs, wetnotes, stainless steel and brass bolts, etc.

Asia Divers is the recreational branch, whereas Tech Asia takes care of people like me who need special attention.

Manila to Small La Laguna

I took a short taxi ride from the Malate pension to the Citystate Tower hotel for 30 PHP. I could have negotiated the price down to 25 PHP, but at 7:30am, I didn't really feel like bothering. The lite-AC bus departed at 8am sharp, and arrived in Batangas at 10:15. There we had to hurry to catch the next ferry, which left at 10:30, arriving in Puerto Galera at 11:40. I had to pay 10 PHP passenger tax to walk through the harbour building in Batangas. Stepping from the ferry in Puerto Galera I pretty much folded myself into a motorized tricycle, for a short bumpy ride to Sabang. Price for the 20' uneventful experience: 100 PHP. From there it took me just a slow 10' walk along the beach to Asia Divers. Which is just around the corner from Sabang beach, on Small La Laguna beach.

Dave Ross, the manager of Tech Asia, brought me to Sha Che inn, where I got a whole studio with fan, coldwater shower, toilet, kitchen sink, gas stove, fridge, TV and even a double bed for only 500 PHP per night. Because I'll be staying 3 weeks, I get a beter price, otherwise the price would be 700 PHP. That's a much better deal than I'd expected. Food though is a bit more expensive than in Manila, meals in the El Galleon tourist restaurant right next to Asia Divers cost from 150 to 250 PHP. A coke is 30 PHP, a shake 70 PHP. Right now I can access the internet for 1 PHP per minute. In the FrogFish cafe, they've got slightly faster internet, for 2 PHP per minute, and you get 30' free access if you order a sandwich (costing 100 PHP).

Manila

Transfer from Manila airport to Malate pension, arranged by the hotel for 350 PHP. It took a while in the chaotic evening rushhour traffic, at least half an hour, but I don't quite remember.

Malate pension costs 550 PHP per night for a clean economy room with fan. Common shower and bathroom. Internet access from the pension at 60-90 PHP per hour depending on the time of day. The pension is about 5' walking from the Citystate Tower hotel and the Robinson shopping mall. From Manila to Puerto Galera by AC bus and ferry at 8am costs 400 PHP. Tickets and departure from the Citystate Tower hotel. ETA noon.

The Robinson shopping mall is the place to get stranded while in Manila. You can find almost everything there: fashion and sports clothes, all kinds of shoes, cool glasses, mobile phones, cameras and film, all kinds of electronical equipment, backpacks, toys, second-hand books (50-100 PHP), bric-a-brac, movie theaters, hardware shop, pharmacy, supermarket & department store and even a shop selling guns for "the good guys". I guess the bad guys have to go elsewhere? There's also an office from WGA super-ferries and a good internet cafe (1 PHP/minute) near the food mall and restaurants. I had lunch for 70 PHP in the food court. And dinner for 80 PHP in ChowKing - an asian fastfood chain.

Green Force TriStar Diamond underwater light

Green Force has a whole selection of light heads (Halogen, LED, HID) and multiple battery packs of various sizes that can be put together as needed, either directly (for handheld torches) or via umbilical cable (for handsfree lighting, together with e.g. a Goodman handle).

This modularity and the promise of a virtually unbreakable LED light with decent output and long burn time, made me choose for the TriStar with Flexi II battery. Not to mention it's "Made in Belgium".

⊕ Modularity & expandability.

⊗ Power? I was told by Green Force that the TriStar Diamond's output would be at least equivalent to a 30W halogen bulb. Alas, that's not really the case, actual equivalent output being at most 20W. With a 20° beam, that means it's useless during daytime dives or when there are a lot of particles in the water.

⊗ Twice the power and focus would make it an acceptable light, but as it is, it's just too weak for technical diving.

⊕ For recreational night dives however, I found it to be quite decent, the soft white light (5800°K) rather pleasant.

⊕ Burn time: together with Green Force's Flexi II NiMh battery, the TriStar Diamond burns for at least 9 hours at near 100%!

⊕ Robustness. Besides their long burn time, LED lights also offer some other advantages: robustness, lifetime of the bulbs, no problems switching them on & off at will, and in the case of the TriStar Diamond, built-in redundancy due to the fact that there are, as the name implies, three LED bulbs. All this unlike the more expensive and delicate HID lights which have a warm-up & cool-down delay and a limited number of times they can be turned on & off.

⊕ Maximum depth rating of -140m.