Marc's Public Blog - Diving

Diving from Heron Island, South Great Barrier Reef

2011-01-30T16:00:00Z

Since Jennifer and I were in Brisbane for linux.conf.au 2011, I figured it would be a good idea to go to Heron Island on our way back and do some diving there.

To get to Heron Island, you fly to Gladstone, and either pay a lot for helicopter ride which isn't very useful for saving time since it can only carry 15kg of luggage, which is useless for a diver (the rest goes by boat, so you have to wait for it either way). The cat does go at 30kts, so it flies. It's however very pricey ($240 return per person) and the ride is difficult when the sea is rough (we had stuff flying off tables and people throwing up left and right).

Gladstone has a single runway for the daily quantas turboprops

Qantas Bombardier Dash 8

The high speed cat takes people back and forth to Heron Island

Those who can't deal with the sea, can get a shorter scenic flight

Heron Island

In a nutshell, Heron Island is a small island (2.3km around, I jogged it in 13mn in the sand), it is is situated 2H by fast boat from Gladstone, south of Cairns and north of Brisbane. It is a bit expensive to say the least, the basic rooms with food for two go for $400 a night, and go up from there. Diving is extra at first $65/dive down to $45 a dive after a few dives (gear costs extra). That said, if you add it all up, prices are comparable to being on a liveaboard for a week, except that you get 3 dives per day instead of 5 dives per day. On the flipside, you get to stay on land, although if you factor in the mosquitoes, lack of AC in hot damp weather, and stupid very loud mating birds that made a lot of noise all night every night, it may or may not be a win :)

However, I felt that seeing nesting turtles come at night, and baby turtles hatch at night and go to the sea, would be cool (it was). While I don't overly mind being on a boat for a week, it's also nice to be on non moving land and still go diving easily every day :).
My quick review of Heron Island is that the staff was fantastic, the island was fun to walk around, and accomodations were not bad, but it was hot and humid at night without AC and having windows opened meant more noise from the birds :-/ (while basic accomodations are already expensive to start with, there are even more expensive ones with windows and AC). Since we had the more basic accomodations (reef room), I was woken up every night by stupid birds with loud mating calls all night (this was because it was mating season). The upside is that it was also trail of turtle nesting season and the start of baby turtle hatching season.

A few pictures from Heron Island:

an old boat that got beached on the reef

our first reef room wasn't bad, just a bit far from the dive shop, so we moved to a closer one.

yummy :)

we had many good meals :)

The information center was quite good

going out of turtles at sunset, got us a few sunsets :)

Heron Island Birds

those sea birds evolved to trees and make crappy nests out of dry leaves and poo, their efforts were cute :)

Egrets (another name for Herons), which Heron Island comes from

The shearwaters which only come at night, sleep on the ground, and keep everyone awake with loud mating calls

The seagulls were very defensive of their eggs (and see the newboarn baby)

Turtle Nesting

Each night, big green turtles came out of the sea to crawl up the beach to a spot they chose to dig a nest for their eggs. The entire process can take around 5 hours, and one has to be careful at not shining light at turtles when they come up, or they dig as it will spook them out and they'll go back to sea without laying their eggs, which is bad.
We saw a video of the whole process at the nature centre, and that waa very informative on what to do and not to do, but it's also a lot easier to see highlights of the entire process already filmed, than to spend literally all night to watch it yourself (turtles aren't known for being fast :) ).

turtle watching: you're doing it wrong

tracks from the nesting turtles

they come after sunset close to high tide

and spend hours to make big holes

Lost Nesting Turtles

Unfortunately, from time to time the village we were in tended to confuse the turtles as they were trying to get back to the ocean. One got stuck in the garden behind our condo, and one got stuck in the smiming pool, which is easier to get in than to get out for a turtle.

trying to get back to the ocean (we helped it)

this one was more stuck

took a few people to get it out :)

and back to the beach

Baby Turtle Hatchling

Of course, the best part was the hatchlings. You had to be by the beach by sunset and be lucky: typically if you were at the right place at the right time, you may be lucky and see them come down the beach to the ocean but you had to be fast since it typically only took 2mn or so (it's easy to miss). In our case, we improved the odds a little bit by looking for holes that they were likely to come out of. Twice, we found an early hatchling that made it out outside but that looked stunned or not quite awake yet. From there, we were able to wait and see hatchlings come out of that hole.
Normally, they make their way to sea without help, but we helped them by protecting them from seagulls, and used our own lights to steer them to the ocean

this is what the eggs look like

aren't those things cute? :)

to the ocean

you can use a flashlight to help the hatchlings to the sea

another nest I found

once the top ones got out, it was a swarm

watch the video to see how fast they go

watch the one on the left that flips over itself :) (light is in front of them so that they go for it)

by then, we found some lost turtles that were lured by the jetty light, we had to hand carry about 30 of them back to the beach where they could go to the water on their own. They weren't big, but they were squirly, it was hard to carry just 3 or 4 at a time since they tried to get out of your hands to fall back on the sand and run in the wrong direction :)

hand rescuing turtles from the jetty lights

yes, it's tempting to take them home :)

Jennifer even managed to rescue one of them from an evil seagull, although we did see 3 more seagulls with hatchlings in their beak that we were not able to save :( (the sad truth is that their survival rate is actually one to one thousand from egg to not having been eaten by fish or sharks in the sea).

Diving

As much fun the Island was, we were of course there for diving.

The diving, well, was ok but not great. We did get to see critters that we haven't seen elsewhere (including my 14 days diving the great barrier reef higher north), but there were a few issues:

3 dives instead of 5 per day is probably not a huge deal to most, but still to note for the hard core divers who do 5 dives a day on liveaboards

they offered night dives every other day, but they were priced at $90 per dive, or double a regular dive, even when the night dive ended up being from the jetty because we couldn't use the boat the one night they did have a night dive with enough signups. Honestly, I think it's unreasonable and likely a reason why they didn't get many night divers the week we were there.

The diving visibility was poor more than 50% of the time, due to runoff from the island. It's apparently not always as bad for that season (which isn't the best one for vis), but for our week it was not great, and I heard the previous weeks were not much better. Some dive sites like Pam's point were quite good though, when you could actually see something.

The dive staff was a bit 'tense'. It's probably because they have to enforce what likely are the strictess diving rules in the world (courtesy of the state of Queensland which has become a bit of a nany state unfortunately). You're supposed to be back on the boat with 50 bars, and I've been sent back up with as many as 80 bars left :-/ (not that it takes 20 or even 30 bars to get back to the surface from 18 meters in good sea conditions). I'll put aside how they were so worried that I wouldn't be able to get to the 10 to 18 meter bottom without holding a line down in light current and even insisted once that I really had to take the rope down (it was totally unnecessary). If you add the fact that you had to follow the divemaster everywhere under water, it was a bit annoying compared to a liveaboard where you're trusted dive on your own with a buddy, and somehow find your way back up to the surface and the boat, even in current (!).

So, diving was a bit annoying at times with the extra rules and restrictions, and the vis being ok or good less than half the time, wasn't ideal. Yet, we still saw some nice critters as I said above, so it wasn't all for naught, pictures below should show that. Diving came up to about $1000 per person for 16 dives, and BCD/reg rental (on top of the $340/day to stay at Heron Island on a 'special' they were running).

They had several weird sharks and rays we hadn't seen before, like the Wobbegong Shark, or the Shovelnose Ray, not counting some pretty huge (man size) cownose and cowtail rays.

plenty of green turtles

very nice big rays

they were not scared

this one was 'not quite right' :)

lunch was right there :)

not too sure what those were

wobbegon shark

teamwork

We also did some diving by the Jetty and found a few rays and sharks that like to hang out there:

See more images for Diving from Heron Island, South Great Barrier Reef

Diving in Maui

2010-09-07T15:00:00Z

We spent 3 of our mornings in Maui diving with Ed Robinson's Diving Adventures since we had a great time with them last year. It was only 8 dives, but still, they were good ones, especially the plane wreck, boat wreck, and the amphibious vehicle wreck.
You can see many more pictures of our Maui Trip here.

This was the first day, including a wreck dive:

Molokini

Second day:

nice frogfish

wrecked plane

grr...

Third day:

Molokini Birds

amphibious vehicle

we finally found an octopus

once it's found, it sticks to you for protection from other predators

See more images for Diving in Maui

Overdue Boat Pictures from Belize Diving Trip

2010-08-19T15:00:00Z

They kind of forgot to include the pictures they took of us on the DVD we bought.

Thankfully one of the passengers was able to get a copy, finally.

Here are a few highlights:

See more images for Overdue Boat Pictures from Belize Diving Trip

Trip to Belize and Diving off Belize in the Aggressor III

2010-05-29T15:00:00Z

My friend Arturo proposed a diving trip somewhere you don't have to make sure you come back out the same hole in the ice you made to get in the water (i.e. not Monterey :) ), and we ended up in Belize.

Most of the time was spent on the aggressor diving, but we also visited things around Belize a little bit.

Here is the GPS track of our trip including the dives and flights, showing a good visual overview of the trip:

Nice view over Miami

Belize City

Ok, so Belize City isn't great to visit, but there were a few nice activities not too far from it.

Belize is where cars go to die, they're stripped for parts and left where they were

want fruit?

oui!

Cave Tubing

Cave tubing was nice, we got to hike through a forest with our tubes and come back down going through caves. Nice, relaxing, and pretty. Thankfully insect bats did a good job of eating most of the mosquitoes.

nice caves

fruit and insect bats

Lamanai Mayan Ruins

Those were a bit farther and included a 1h boat ride down a river to a place where driving would have likely taken longer. The boat ride was actually pretty fun, including the monkey visit, and the ruins that are only very partially excavated due to lack of funds, were pretty impressive (the guide also did a good job of describing the Mayan culture and history). The mosquitoes in the forest were however very numerous and fierce...

natural glue

Diving off the Belize Aggressor III

Oh yeah, right, we were there for diving originally :)

'I fell'

keeping track of where we went and our dive sites (used to make the map above)

It was gatesfest where we got to try Gates housings and equipment

Between the dives, we got to visit Half Moon Caye, which was a nice little excursion:

juicy hermit crabs there too

But back to diving: Belize was not the best place we've been to so far, but it was still enjoyable to dive and the water was a nice 29C. They did have very juicy sizeable lobsters and crabs though :)

lionfish are pest with no predators there

juicy crab

nicely sized groupers

very juicy lobsters :)

we got to try DPVs

that turtle was very bright, it went straight into those weeds

the famous blue hole

stalactites in the blue hole

cleaning shrimp

nice eagle rays

did I mention lobster? :)

gates equipment at work

All good things...

Come to an end...

Nice dinner the day before leaving

See more images for Trip to Belize and Diving off Belize in the Aggressor III

Diving in Hawaii

2009-08-11T15:00:00Z

In all this time, we had never dived in relatively closeby Hawaii, so it was about to fix that :)

The Big Island

Since we were on the Big Island first, and we had planned to be on the Aggressor, we just didn't do any shore diving. The aggressor had a total of 27 dives available (I did 23 of them, Jennifer a few fewer to rest), so that was going to be more than enough for Kona diving.

see the fish?

(video, click me)

cleaning shrimp

slipper lobster, so easy to catch and yummy :)

(video, click me)

plancton

my first hammerhead shark

nice turtle video

same turtle going to the surface to breathe

killing a crown of thorns, they are a pest that eat coral

nice octopus

little eel trying to swim away from us

nice scorpionfish flying

see the fish?

it was a scorpion fish

The diving was pretty good, but the two Manta Ray night dives were specifically impressive. Those do count as a "something you have to do in your life" if you are a diver or snorkler.
The bad news however is that on our second Manta Ray night dive, we had a some current and I got pushed from the rock I was landed on. End result, due to my boyancy being heavily set to make me sink so that I could stay at the bottom while both my hands were busy, I fell on a sea urchin and got about 20 spines in my right leg just 3mn into the dive (one hand was busy holding the diving light and the other hand was taking pictures, so it was hard to hang on). The short story is that it did hurt like a bitch during the entire dive, but the second night Manta Ray dive was still incredible. As for the sea urchin spines, they broke off and stayed in my leg, but after applying bleach on them I was better about 3-4 days later.

one of the mantas from mantaville

and back during the manta ray night dive

20 sea urchin spikes in my leg, that did hurt like a bitch

The Aggressor was a good boat, and their staff was fantastic. The only downside of course is that it's not cheap.

Patty gave us nicely folded fresh towels every day

cocktail party with our friendly staff

See all pictures from the Kona Aggressor

Maui

Maui was next. I organized dives with Ed Robinson for all days but one, and Pro Divers for the remaining dive. Pro Divers was good, but since they only have one boat with 6 divers, you do get stuck with the other divers on your boat, which could be a problem if there is a big difference in skill level (although they try to avoid that).
Ed Robinson however was even better. They knew their fish too, but they have 2 boats which can take 2 groups each, so you're more likely to end up in the level just for you (which also matters if you dive deep with nitrox since you can stay at the bottom longer). We also really enjoyed the 3 dive days and the special "dive with Ed" day. Ed is the owner for more than 20 years and knows everything that's in the water. It was well worth it.

nice cleaner shrimp (video, click me)

(video, click me)

Manta Ray with two remoras attached

(video, click me)

Very nice Eagle Ray

(video, click me)

Octopuses are fun to play with

birdies came after each dive for some snaky cakes

See all pictures from Maui

Kauai

Kauai was last (but not least). We went with Fathom Five for diving, as recomended by our book. They were quite good, the other thing I did not care for was the mandatory briefing at their shop and basically throwing an hour away on any subsequent day of diving instead of being able to meet them directly at the boat. For the rest, they were quite professional and knew their stuff.
We however did one other dive with Kauai Scuba aka Mana Divers, to try a DPV (underwater propulsion vehicle) and I cannot recommend them for their policies and front desk staff. See my More interested in your money than your safety review on google maps for details as to why I would avoid them.

During the dives, I found a place filled with lobsters, and waited patiently for our last day which was just when lobster season had opened. Unfortunately, the one I plucked was both a female and a tad too small, so we had to thrown it back in the water. Bummer :)

2 frogfish

dinner, although just 2 days before lobster season was opened

DPV dive

Monk seal

caught dinner :)

but had to put it back, it was a female and too small

trip to Niihau

Monk Seal in Niihau

See all pictures from Kawaii

Conclusion

Hawaii definitely has plenty to offer for diving. It might not be one of the 10 best spots in the world, but it's definitely not too shabby. Also, compared to many other dive spots, on the side of non diving activities you can do when you're above water, the Hawaii islands definitely have a lot to offer.

See all diving pictures See more images for Diving in Hawaii

Diving in Tasmania, Australia

2009-01-20T16:00:00Z

Since we were in Tasmania, we of course had to use the opportunity to do some diving. Unfortunately, even in the middle of summer the weather wasn't that warm. It was nice enough for going around, but the water was a somewhat cold 15 degrees C, or about the same than we get in Monterey.
That meant reasonably thick 7mm suits, which when they were properly sized and zippered, were good enough for me, but were taking their toll on Jennifer.

We started with a dive in Bichenot, which was actually a very nice short dive. Among other things, it was the first time we got to see a sea horse or sea dragons (thanks to the guide who we hired to come with us).

some spots had lots of minuscule fish

sea dragon

our first sea horse

they hang on with their tail

We then went back a few days later by EagleHawk Neck, which while closer to Hobart where we were staying, wasn't as good diving for us, even with a dive boat. I think we were however somewhat unfortunate on the weather that day (windy, and it cut us off from at least one dive site we could have used). We did get to see a few sea dragons on the first dive, and absolutely nothing on the second dive unless you count sea weeds.... Oh well...

hello power ranger :)

another sea dragon

See more images for Diving in Tasmania, Australia

French Polynesia

2008-08-24T15:00:00Z

Since I had been wanting to see French Polynesia for a little while now (what people often mistakenly refer to as Tahiti, which is a single Island, and quite frankly not the most interesting one), so Jennifer and I both having a little time off work at the end of summer turned out to be the perfect opportunity to go.
Unfortunately, by then it was a little late to be able to book within pensions (low key housing managed by locals for a much more reasonable price), so we had to go with the expensive resorts. The resorts per se were fairly good, but felt pretty overpriced when food and diving were extra and cost up to $120-$150 for 3 meals and $150-250 for 2 to 4 dives per person per day. In other words, that was not cheap. But eh, that was the price for going last minute and being able to go was at least worth it.
Credit goes to Ellen Clark from Value Vacations on getting us everything booked at the last minute and allowing me to pay in Euros and not in USD which were worth near nothing at the time. Ellen had also valuable insight about the different locations in French Polynesia since it's one of her specialties.

After conferring with Ellen, our itinerary took us to Tahiti, Bora-Bora for 3 days, Rangiroa for 5 days, Fakarava for 4 days and then on board the Aquatiki for 8 days to sail to nearby atols and protected biosphere that aren't accessible via plane. Some Islands only had 10-30 people on them.

Papeete

Anyway, about 3 weeks after the trip was booked, we were on our way to Papeete in Tahiti to connect to Bora-Bora. Quite frankly, Tahiti is mostly a fly through Island, but we at least visited Papeete a little bit while we were there by going outside for dinner that evening and going to the market the next morning.
For the fun story, I should also add that we left a bit quickly, and after not having done my homework on the local currency, I went to an ATM and withdrew 5000 CFP (francs polynésiens), which I thought would be a reasonable amount of money. Turns out it was just $70, so that didn't bring us very far :) They have nice bills though.

they do look like ancient francs

Here are pictures from Papeete not shown below.

arrival in Tahiti

local dinner in downtown Papeete at les roulottes

Le truck or local schoolbus looking transport system which actually worked quite well

visit of the local market before boarding our next flight

Bora-Bora

We then got to Bora Bora, which is the prettiest Island from the sky since it has some mountains (most other ones are pretty flat). It had ok diving, and the most non diving related activities. Outside of diving, we did parasailing, a 4WD tour of the island, and jetskiing around the island while having a snack on a small Island we went to.
We stayed at the Maitai, which was a decent location with view from heights. Since it was in Bora-Bora, it was overpriced and eating all meals there would have been silly expensive, so we shopped at the nearby store and made several of our own meals the best we could.
Below are a few pictures from the Bora Bora picture library (Flight, Maitai, Parasailing, Safari Tupuna, Waverunner).

nice flight to Bora-Bora

we saw a polynesian show at the Maitai

Those things were scary fast, over 70 miles per hour (120hp)

This is what a germinated coconut looks like and you can eat that

As far as the diving goes, here is a link to the diving pictures from Bora Bora. All in all diving was pretty good (2 dives each morning), and the guys at Top Dive were good, albeit maybe a little bit rushed for getting their 2 morning dives done as quickly as possible and be back in time for lunch.
Unfortunately I lost my first camera there (Panasonic DMC TZ3) after the strap must have slightly prevented the seal in the underwater case and got the camera wet underwater when the case leaked. I got back up right away to give the camera to the boat driver, but unfortunately I didn't get out of the water to remove the camera from the case myself and assumed he would do it after I told him there was water in the case and after I rushed back down the water for the group waiting for me. While it's hard to say after the fact if the camera could have been salvaged, I'm pretty pissed that the boat driver did nothing with it and just let it sit it its sea water for the 60mn that it took us to come back, ensuring that the camera (and even the SD card) would be well dead when we came back :(
Top Dive said that they weren't responsible for cameras or doing anything to the cases and that I should have opened it myself. I suppose it's the easy way out for them, but honestly a better boat driver would have at least opened the case to drain the water when given a camera in such condition, and it's a bit lame that Top Dive wasn't even willing to compensate us with a few free dives in return, considering that we bought 50 from them at full retail price. In other words, they didn't have to do anything, and they didn't. Would have been nice if they had though.

those guys were eating and destroying all the coral in Bora

those were the biggest sharks we got to see

After a 3 nights/4 days in Bora Bora, we left for Rangiroa.

Rangiroa

Rangiroa is more out of the beaten path as far Islands go. It's pretty small occupied space: a 12km strip of land with passes you can dive on each side.
There again, it was too late to stay at a moderately priced pension, so we stayed at the Novotel. The bungalows were a bit cramped and the beach bungalows were kind of a scam since there is no sandy beach (just rocks) and that people from other bungalows just put chairs in front of your ocean view door and sunbathe there. However, on the flipside, they had wireless internet in the rooms (yes, yes, I need help, I know :) )
Here is a link to the rest of the pictures from Rangiroa.

Our second bungalow in at the Novotel Lagoon Resort

there was a little surprise in our room :)

this is an old style city hall, like you may have seen in France 100 years ago :)

it didn't quite make sense to have a car for 12km and one road

Rangiroa didn't have much to do once you visited downtown (which meant 3-4 stores and that's it), but we were plenty busy with 3-4 dives per day with the great guys from the local Top Dive. The diving, quite frankly, was plain awesome. Between plenty of Manta Rays, playing with dolphins (or them playing with us :) ), and challenging dives like a high speed drift dive at 30 metres. As far as the diving goes, here is a link to the diving pictures from Rangiroa

this looked like a scene from Hitchcock's "The Birds", they were out to get me :)

some of those dolphins were very playful, and one even could be pet

no idea what that was

Plenty of Manta Rays to be seen

And just because we got lucky, our last dive was the best one of all, we saw eight manta rays and multiple dolphins that came to play with us. We couldn't have asked for anything better. Jennifer even got to touch a dolphin finally.

they were all over during this dive

I was able to pet this guy on the belly

and Jennifer was able to pet this one too

While the weather wasn't stellar during our last days in Rangiroa, luckily the lagoon is protected from the wind so even when it rained, we were able to score some great dives. The same did not hold for Fakarava as I'll explain below.

Fakarava

By the time we flew to Fakarava, the weather was raining with low overcast and we had strong winds, currents and sea during our time there.
Fakarava is even more off the beaten path: it's more spread out land-wise but there are only 700 people across all that land. Quite frankly, there isn't much to do other than diving, which is ok since we were there just for that :) Unfortunately, we were greeted by rain and strong winds which prevented us from going diving the next day.
We stayed in the Maitai Dream there, the sole hotel (again because all pensions were full). The Maitai Dream was probably the best place we stayed at in comfort, decor, and secluded area, but unfortunately no internet, which made for a long day when we were stuck all day in the room due to torrential rains. Oh well, we had to find other things to do :)
Below are a few pictures from the pictures I took in Fakarava

despite the bad weather, we at least enjoyed some nice views

this little juicy fellow was walking around at night by the sea

Due to weather, we first lost one day of diving because the sea was too rough to go, and then for the 3 remaining days we were there, except for one great dive during the only in-current we had in the Lagoon, the rest of the time the Lagoon kept emptying all day and night, preventing us from doing the great dives in the pass, and forcing us to dive one coastline over and over again (the best dives are possible when the current is in and the lagoon is filling up from the ocean, and we only had those conditions once out of a possible 7 times :( )
This made our time in Fakarava somewhat disappointing, and shows that their site is really weather dependent when Rangi mostly isn't.
All that said, here are the diving pictures from Fakarava

this fish evolved into swimming sideways and one of is eyes migrated on the top side

Unfortunately Rangiroa is where Jennifer also lost my old canon S500 camera by having one of her hair in the underwater case. We almost rescued the camera, but after being dried, it still behaved erratically, and I ended up killing it entirely in a last ditch effort to revive it.
By then, we were down to 2 cameras (out of 4) and only one that could still go underwater (we had two panasonic TZ3s).

Aquatiki

Our reason for being in Fakarava was mainly because we had opted for a liveaboard as our last leg of the trip: we had an 8 day trip on the French Aquatiki. I thought I'd give a quick review of the boat and staff:
The staff of 3 (captain/engineer, hostess/cook, and divemaster) was great. They were all very good at what they did and the divemaster was specifically knowledgeable and able to find a good balance between safety and enjoying great but sometimes difficult sites.
The boat itself has the basic amenities: you do have a shower/toilet per cabin (3 cabins of 2) but you have to pump your own seawater in the toilet and pump out the shower water in the drain (it also makes a not so nice sloshing sound all the time, which isn't great when you're already feeling queezy). We did get hot water in the shower at least (which I hear is not true of all smaller boats), and basically it was adequate but not recommended for people who require a somewhat better level of comfort, or feel a bit claustrophobic in a cramped cabin.
The boat is actually pretty slow, it uses a combination of low power engines (72HP) and sailing which give anywhere between 4 to 10 knots depending on the wind and currents. This made for some long rides in rough sea to cover distances that weren't that great, so the Aquatiki only goes to 4 places or so over the week and does multiple dives and activities at each location. This in contrast with boats in the great barrier reef that motor to 4 to 5 dive sites per day at twice the speed, or more.
It however turned out to work out since each anchor point had interesting nearby dive sites to visit. The Aquatiki does bring you to Atolls that you wouldn't be able to reach otherwise, and it mostly depends on the sea, currents and winds: they can make a different itinerary each time they go out. While some boat rides can be a bit long, the upshot is that the boat is eco friendly and doesn't dump a lot of diesel in the water, especially when it's sailing :)
The aquatiki only offers two dives a day which is either more relaxed or less than some other boats that do 4-5 per day depending on how you look at it. The main reasons for that are that they only have air (no nitrox), and some of the dives can be pretty deep (30m is almost routine, 40 to 50 metres is possible if the divers are qualified and the site warrants it). Because the Aquatiki also offers bigger 15L tanks, you end up being very tired when your body gets rid of all that nitrogen from the deep dives on air and you wouldn't want to do more than 3 dives a day anyway.
As for language, the crew is indeed French and speak basic English as needed, but a single English speaking guest might feel out of place as everyone else would be speaking french all day and during meals. It was a bit tough for Jennifer at the dinner table when everyone was chatting, but that's the price you pay for going in a foreign country.

While they are indeed the only boat available either way, we don't regret our trip at all, despite the pretty rough sailing, and all other guests were also very happy with the combination of diving and time to visit remote Islands and totally deserted Islands.

this shows the places we went to via the Aquatiki

you can see the jigsaw track to Toau due to sailing against the wind

Here are all the pictures taken from the Aquatiki.

the biggest hermit crab Jennifer found

it actually came from this shell and jumped out of it when Jennifer caught it

a 10 person pension on Marativa Island

we didn't get to taste the coconut milk fed piggies, but they looked tasty :)

une cabine téléphonique qui prennait les cartes france telecom, alimenté par paneaux solaires. Trop fort!

we didn't get to try the piggies, but we got plenty of freshly fished lobster. Yummy!

another nearly deserted spot with 12 bungalows, a dive shop and a few people

excursion to small islands with pink sand

our boat

My own charts, just to make sure we don't get lost :)

And now, a link to the Aquatiki diving pictures and a few are below:

my first deco dive

the people from Marativa took us to a spot where Manta Rays feed

Remoras tried to stick to us as if we were sharks

my deepest dive yet

stonefish

Tumakohua pass is known for a population of 400 sharks

nice eagle rays

did I mention many sharks? :)

Conclusion

While this wasn't the ideal trip money-wise due to more affordable pensions being filled up (and quite frankly the expensive resorts not being worth the money they charge), it did just fine considering the little advance notice and planning we had.

Ellen Clark did a great job finding us what was still available last minute, and getting us the whole trip designed and booked in 4 days. The mix of Islands she recommended, worked well, the only disappointing part was bad weather in Fakarava, especially in the winter where weather is supposed to be better, but there isn't much anyone can do about that.
All is all, the trip went quite well, even if it sucked to lose two cameras in the process. While it was very nice, I would however say that French Polynesia is not great value for your money: there are places that are just as nice, and much more affordable, but for me it was fun to see parts of France, how it used to be 50 to 100 years ago and I'm guessing that Tahiti can still more or less afford its current prices because it's French speaking and it's the top destination for French speakers. For English speakers, it does remain a great place to see, but there are other ones that can be seen too for less money.
In parting, here's a link to all the pictures of the trip to french polynesia, and one to all the diving pictures.

Diving Fiji on the Aggressor III

2008-02-16T15:43:00Z

A couple of hours after arriving in Suva, we boarded the Aggressor III (which used to be Aggressor II), and found out that they only had 7 out of the 10 possible guest, served by a crew of 6. That was a pretty good ratio :)

The rooms were the standard double bed with single bed on top so that they could host either a couple or two roomates that each get a bed. The room wasn't great, but typical for a boat, and good enough for the trip (no pictures, it's just too tight to get anything useful without a fisheye lens)

The boat's moto was indeed "dive, eat, sleep", and it was close to that. We had 4 to 5 dives a day (depending on whether we had a night dive on a specific day), and that indeed left little time for anything else if you also add dumping the pictures off your camera and sorting them after each time (which I did so that I didn't have 2000+ pictures to sort when I got home).
The food was pretty good, the crew was absolutely fantastic, and the captain was super friendly. He was quite interested in my GPS setup (Garmin Vista HCx on the window, linked to my laptop to nRoute in vmware with Bluecharts maps, to get tracks and dive sites as shown below). In return, he was nice enough to share his windows laptop with a GPRS card that gave occasional internet access when we were close enough to a shore with a suitable cell site.

/p>
If you want it, here's a GPS track of the dives and boating with did in the Aggressor .

Anyway, there go the diving pictures I took (not counting the first one :):

Mmmh, lobster for dinner

Fiji is known for its soft coral. Beautiful colors indeed.

There's a scorpion fish in there, see it?

Ok, you get a second chance

A nice octopus, a bit shy and didn't quite like to be touched :)

A tiny Orang-Outang crab

Ok, one more chance at that Scorpion Fish

Those little fellows hide in the sand, pop their heads up when they think they're safe, and let the current bring nutrients to their mouths

Ok, so you didn't do very well spotting the scorpion fish? Here's some help with a video of a moving scorpion fish
Also, I really like this plant that changes color when you touch it . You can see more in my Best Of Fiji Aggressor III diving pictures , and the rest of my Fiji Aggressor III diving pictures .

Thankfully, we had a much better equipped photographer, Alex, on our boat, with a DSLR and fancy marine case. He was nice enough to share his pictures with us. You can find all of them here , and a few samples below:

Jennifer and I

If you're cool, you take your sunglasses under water too :)

Alex, the photographer at work

That said, the boat was a bit more than just diving. We were allowed to fish in most of the waters we were in, and caught the occasional Tuna that we ate on the boat. We also stopped ashore one evening for a local Island Fijian Village visit, and the few times we were close enough to shore to get internet access, I was able to swap mails and patches with Ralf on Rig3, on which I was working a bit during the little downtime I did have.

Food was quite good, considering we were on a boat with a small kitchen

We got some good and fresh sashimi from that Tuna we caught on the boat

All dressed up before the village visit

Bula! (welcome)

The Village kids sang and danced for us

Mixing the kava we drank as part of the Kava ceremony

Drinking Kava | We were invited to dance with them

We loved playing with those little hermit crabs :)

You can find more pictures from the Aggressor III and the Village Visit

Anyway, those days were tiring, but it was a great week. The only minus for the Aggressor is that they boat you back in the middle of the day after only one dive on the last day instead of boating you back at night after a full day of diving, like most liveonboards. Considering that ear plugs are cheap, I don't see why they do that.
The rest was great though, it was a fun week.

Anyway, you can find all the pictures from the Aggressor III trip , including Alex's.

One week on Beqa (pronounced Bega) Island, south of Mainland Fiji and Diving

2008-02-10T12:58:00Z

Our redeye flight from Melbourne to Fiji was uneventful (although it made for a pretty short night). We did however have to deal with the Australian bullshit of 7kg per carry-on, and some overzealous enforcer who was determined on having me check in extra stuff and pay luggage penalties). Ultimately, I managed to put 6 to 7kg of weight in my jacket and pockets, and pass the checkpoint, but it's just annoying and turns me off from flying through/to Australia. Bunch of morons...

Anyway, we arrived in Fiji after a short flight and we were greeted at the airport by our driver who drove us 2.5h around mainland towards the south harbour where we took the boat to Beqa. On the way, he had some time to stop us at a market for us to visit, and enjoy local fruits (and a bag of chips for Jennifer :) ).
From there, we took the boat to Beqa and spent the following week there, relaxing on the Island after our two daily morning dives.

The dives took 45mn to 1h of boating to get to, and weren't breathtaking for the most part, but they were good enough. Our last day of the week, the shark dive, we weren't as lucky as some others were, as we only had 2-3 sharks that didn't stick around very long. The visibility was also very murky, but that's mostly what we got that week, and it was better than the previous week when they got a hurricane.
A few pictures below:

The little buggers were hungry :)

This was a cleaning shrimp. It would also clean your teeth if you let it

Wreck dive...

Baby lobster. Still a bit small to be eaten :)

this fish had a hook in its mouth, and escaped being caught

You can find more pictures in the Best Of Beqa Dives gallery, or find all of them here.
If you want it, here's a GPS track of the dives around Beqa Island , with a few samples below:

However, the nicer part of being on the Island, was our beach bure (buré), with outdoor shower, private pool, and coconuts that we got just pick up from the ground (more on that later). Then, each day there was some kind of Island related activity, namely a visit to a waterfall, a visit to a local village school, learning how to deal with coconuts and cook with them, and of course the typical Kava ceremony (local mildly narcotic drink). Having our guide show us around and share his culture with us was very nice.

Our bure

Nice parrots

We indeed had fruit bats flying around during the evening and night

Top of the waterfall hike

Part of the school visit

Kids get to play with machetes in school while I was told not to run with scissors

One of the weekly activities was a dance show by the warrior clan kids from the local village

As for coconuts, we indeed got busy with them, it's not everyday that you have coconuts in your yard. Those things were everywhere... The first day, Jennifer banged a coconut on stones until she was able to peel out the outside tusk. That took close to an hour and a lot of sweat :)
The next day, I got inside one with the saw in my swiss army knife, but that also took a lot of effort (close to 30mn).
We later went to the coconut class and found out you could open them in less than 1mn with a machete in a stick (you make the stick sharp, and impale the coconut on it). Of course, I knew a machete would help, but my swiss army knife wasn't quite the right size :)

The green (young) coconuts were easier to cut with my swiss army knife, and had little meat, but lots of juice

You can also look at the remaining non diving pictures (i.e. village, activities and other) in Beqa

As an added bonus, the Island even had a point to point internet radio link, although the owners weren't very open to my putting a wifi access point on it :) and getting my laptop to work on it proved to be a bit difficult, albeit possible.
Anyway, a week after having arrived, and 6 days of diving, we went back to the mainland to catch our transport to Suva, the capital and where we'd be boarding our one week live on board boat.

Finished one week in Beqa Island, South Fiji, next: live on board boat

2008-02-08T17:03:00Z

I managed to get some radio point to point internet connection on the island to send those few words.

We had a great week on the island: two dives in the morning, and Island activities in the afternoon. The time went by fast. Tomorrow, we're transferring to a boat for 1 week of live on board diving, and then flying home.
I doubt I'll get any internet on the boat, even if they claim to have Email :), so I'll be back online in about a week.

Diving the great barrier reef on the Spirit of Freedom

2007-01-30T07:47:00Z

hing one way or the other, and since Jennifer hadn't been able to go with me last year, it made sense for me to go back to the great barrier reef on a week long live aboard dive boat.
This year, I went with the Spirit of Freedom , mostly because it ended up being the only boat that matched the plane dates I had. Unfortunately, only a quad share room was available for half the trip, and that was kind of tight space-wise, and it wasn't quite the cheapest trip available, but the boat was quite nice and the staff top notch.

giant potato code

a sea snake, which I'm told is friendly, but I didn't get close enough to check :)

the giant cod was about as big as Jennifer

A shark from the shark feed

The small fish looks out for the blind shrimp which has the job of digging the hole

Of course, the above are just a few samples from the Gallery of Pictures Taken From Great Barrier Reef Flight .
During the trip, I passed the 100 dives mark (to 110), and Jennifer likely quadrupled her number of dives at least, as well as did much better on control and air consumption by the end (from 40-50 bars more than me to about 10 bars less than me), and she also got nitrox rating in the process.

Monterey Day 2: 3 Cold Dives

2006-11-26T13:22:00Z

While in Monterey, it made sense to at least try to dive there. I kind of prefer my water at 29 to 30 degrees C, and didn't quite look forward to 14-16 degree water, but eh, it was worth giving it a shot :)
The first dive was a bit short, and with pretty bad visibility, but it was a reasonable intro dive for that morning

The next two dives were going to be boat dives on the Silver Prince. The first was a depth one, down to 25 metres or so and it was pretty freaking cold, despite the multiple layers of wet suit, booties, gloves, and hood :)
The second dive was off shore in kelp, and that was more manageable. I had the pleasure to be visited by a seal that came nibbling on my fin for a few seconds before taking off

The other pictures from the dives in Monterey

Catalina Trip and Diving

2006-10-02T13:49:00Z

Jennifer and I flew to Catalina and spent 5 days there from Sept 27th to Oct 1st.

Jennifer was signed up for a 3 day course to get her PADI open water certification, and I also asked the divemaster to check her out for a deep dive so that she was known to be ok at 30 meters depth (and certified all the way down to 41m due to PADI making no sense)
While she was doing that, I did a boat dive on the first day, biked inland in the morning of the second day

... and I did a couple of shore dives the second day (no pictures because I proceeded to lose my camera off my wrist right as I entered the water, but luckily someone found it and returned it later), and on the third day, Jen was able to accompany me on the boat dive, as she managed to get certified in 2 days instead of 3.
The 3rd day, we did 3 dives together, which all went well, although Jen didn't have enough weight on her 3rd dive to stay down at the end, so I gave her some pretty rocks to weigh her down :)
Also, there are several Unis ana lobster, aka lunch, that escaped :)

Giant sea bass are always nice to see when they're almost your own side

remnants of uni

potential lunch :)

You can also look at the rest of the diving pictures in Catalina

On the 4th day, since we couldn't dive before flying, we used the time to bike up to the airport (11 miles, 1600 feet up), but while the plan was to bike at leas to little harbour, and back to Avalon before taking our luggage and the shuttle back up to the airport, the weather turned bad, and we had fog, light rain, and colder weather when we were in T-shirt and sweaty, so I opted for taking the shuttle back down, return the bikes and ride the shuttle back up with our luggage for an early departure, in case the weather got worse, and to give ourselves a larger window of opportunity to make the flight home (but soon, this won't be an issue thanks to the IFR rating, more about the flight there )

found one :)

And you can also look at the rest of the pictures taken in Catalina

Diving the Great Barrier Reef in Australia

2006-01-23T05:58:00Z

Day 0 (Tuesday):
After going to the Nimrod office in Cairns to fill out some paperwork and be picked up to go to the boat, we got a scenic flight to Cooktown.

We boarded the boat at 18:00 after visiting Cooktown (where capitain Cook first arrived in Australia, incidently after getting his boat stuck on the great barrier reef :) ).
Our boat has a nice little crew of 6: the skipper, the engineer (who makes sure the engines, electricity, air compressors, and water makers (reverse osmosis from sea water) all work), our cook, our hostess, and two divemasters.
Also, because it's off season right now, as the summer is the rainy and cyclone season, we only had 7 people in the boat and I was able to upgrade to a single room with double bed since it was free and they were happy to make a little extra money. That was a good deal since I was slightly worried about how well I would sleep.
The divemaster gave us a quick breefing on how things were going to happen, and since I signed up for the nitrox course, instead of going to bed early, I got to watch the PADI nitrox DVD before finally crashing a bit after 23:00, for a wakeup at 06:00 (first dive at 07:00).

Diving Day 1 (Wednesday):
It's going to be a tough week, 5 dives a day (including a night dive), but the worst part is that we get fed after every single dive, and pretty good food even :)
A pre-breakfast, 1st dive, a real breakfast, 2nd dive, lunch, 3rd dive, pastry or cake, 4th dive, dinner, 5th/night dive. So much for my plan to get back in shape during my vacation :) (they say that we'll burn it off, but I call BS on that :) )
Anyway, the first 5 dives went fine. The day was busy as I was spending all my free time reading the PADI nitrox course, and taking the lesson review tests.
Incidently, the night dive was the most interesting (usually you don't see as much), as we saw our first turtles and a decent sized shark that came quite close to me.

You can find pictures from those dives here , and below a few daily highlights from the best of directory :

Yes, it's a giant clam

Those baby shrimp could not help but follow the light from our flashlights

Diving Day 2 (Thursday):
The morning dive site was incredible, multicolored fishes swimming all around you, and nice schools of yellow fishes, as well as a few barracudas (not as nice as the huge schools I saw at Barracuda Point in Malaysia, but that's probably the best spot in the world for that)
By my 3rd dive, I had also finished all the tests and I'm now Nitrox certified (Nitrox means diving with an air mix that contains more oxygen than the regular 21%, in order to decrease the amount of nitrogen that ends up in your blood, and that forces you to shorten your dives if you go too deep for too long). Nitrox is an interesting beast as it helps staying longer under water, but oxygen at higher pressures can also be toxic (not fatally so, but convulsions under water aren't a good thing since you'll most likely drawn in the process). Anyway, I now know the tables that explain when it's safe and beneficial to use higher oxygen content, and I'm certified to dive with Nitrox

You can find pictures from those dives here , and below a few daily highlights from the best of directory , as well as a video of a Giant Morray :

Small crabs with a clown fish

Nemo, meet baby nemos :)

Cuttlefish are so much fun, curious, playful, and of course colourful

Diving Day 3 (Friday):
Even though I'm not in my own bed, and the temperature on the boat tends to fluctuate between warm and cold, I still had a good 8H of sleep; for some reason diving makes one fairly tired even though it's not strainous exercise
I was happy to have my tools and bare necessities with me again. This time I got saved by the superglue: the bandaid on my left big toe just wasn't sticking, but I did need it to be there since the fins had ripped a piece of skin off. This is where my trusty superglue came to the rescue: glue the bandaid to my skin (always works wonders) :)
Today we did 3 dives, and left early by 15:00 for a 16h 120 nautical mile (138 statute miles / 222 km) trip to the Coral sea, for a way out there reef (Holmes Reef). Man, I can't say I've ever felt sick on a boat, but I'll have to admit that I'm not feeling too fresh right now: I barely touched my dinner as I'm slightly nauseous. 12H of boating and rough see to go... this is going to be an interesting trip and night...
In the meantime, I haven't had great luck writing my talk for LCA in New Zealand, it's hard to focus right now... I'm more thinking about the mythbusters episode where they tested sea sickness remedies, and the evil turning and spinning chair they had to simulate sea movements, as well as how sick it made poor Adam....
And come to think that I can fly 120 nautical miles in 1H instead of 16H by boat :)
Well, in the end the sea and the boat won after about 6 hours: one paperbag overboard, one... I guess, now, I feel a little bit better as a result.

You can find pictures from those dives here , and below a few daily highlights from the best of directory , as well as a video of a The Mario Land looking sea bottom :

Tiny cleaning shrimp

Mario Land :)

Diving Day 4 (Saturday):
Damn were we happy around 07:00 when we finally heard the engine stop. Finally, after 16:00, we had arrived to Holmes Reef. Between you and me, I would have been perfectly happy diving other closer locations of the barrier reef, especially Cod Hole, but that wasn't what this trip was about, so I went along with the boat :)
I started feeling gradually better after the boat stop rocking on 3 axis all the time, and had a light breakfast, but once in the water, it was of course much easier since it didn't rock at all :)
Also, for better or for worse, I've been getting plenty of sleep. I just came back from a 1H nap after an 8H night :)
The dives were nice, especially the school of big eye trevally. It was intereresting the weird swimming patterns they did, like a swirm of bees. One even had a piece of its flank that had been eaten out.
I also got my lip bit by a vicious clown fish that was protecting its anemone instead of hiding in it :)
That said, the highlight of the day had to be diving among sharks, which had been lured with a box of fish lowered in the water. Honestly, I still don't know how much of a bad idea it was. While it was quite interesting and exhilarating to see, it just felt like the danger level was a bit too high for my blood. What made me especially nervous was the much bigger shark that was making long and wide circles around the boat and us, wondering what it should be doing with us. After 20mn under water, I had seen enough and decided to come back up, I saw no reason to tempt fate any longer, and had had my heart beat enough by having 1.5m sharks swim less than 1m away from me.
Well, just after writing this, I went to Dive #4 for the day, which was supposed to be a nice cave dive, looking for holes and connections between them. While we did some of that, we were also escorted by about 10 sharks that kept swimming around us. Even though they were not really of the size that are known for attacking humans (a bit less than 2m), their circling around us, and the "we can take all 4 of you look" just made me quite nervous.
My dive buddy (divers always go by 2 as a backup and for safety), finally got spooked when a shark came out of a cave right behind my head as I was blocking the small hole out. I should have been scared shitless, but I didn't know it was there, so that was just as well. However, at that time, we elected to end the dive and head back for the boat.
Later, I was told that they were just following us as they were hoping for food as they sometimes get fed by humans, but as far as I'm concerned, had any of us happened to have any cut yielding any blood, it would have been really bad news for us.
At that point, I just wasn't really up for the night dive. As I wrote on the board "it's not because you can't see them that they aren't there".
It's true that according to statistics, our odds of being attacked were quite low, but eh, why play negative odds to start with? I'd rather be run over by a bus if no one minds :)

You can find pictures from those dives here , and below a few daily highlights from the best of directory , as well as a few videos

That was the bastard clown fish that actually attacked me :)

If you look carefully, one of the upper fish has a piece that was bit off

If you ask me, this looks like a bad idea all around :)

What you may not see too well are the two divers in the upper left of the pcicture, being followed by all those sharks

Eh, I tried to warn them that they were going to be shark bait :)

Diving Day 5 (Sunday):
Today was our last 3 dives. The funny thing is because I elected not to go to yesterday's night dive, I'm now one dive short of 75 dives in my logbook, but no biggie :)
The dive were mostly uneventful, but we still saw a few nice things. Thanks to Nitrox, I was able to do the last dive and not worry about depth or nitrogen absorbed: my dive computer said I'd be good to fly 4H before my flights to New Zealand on Monday. This is just as well since I have plans to go fly a small cessna over the great barrier reef before I leave anyway.

You can find pictures from those dives here , and below a few daily highlights from the best of directory , as well as a video showing how quick a Fire Dartfish really is:

The Fire Dartfish: it's there, you blink, and it's gone

All in all, this was quite a good trip, and an interesting experience of leaving 1 week on a small boat, something I had never done (cruise ships don't count as boats as far as I'm concerned :) )

Malaysia Wrap Up

2005-09-28T01:16:00Z

Well, first of all, it was obviously great: I now know why the Islands off Sabah were ranked among the top 10 diving spots in the world. I did around 35 dives there, including night dives, something I had never done (then again, neither had I swam next to giant turtles, decently sized sharks, or huge schools of fish, like a Giant Swarm of Barracuda )

I could post more pictures, but some of the best examples are the few 30 sec videos I took. Everything is of course in the diving directory , but for highlights, you should look at the Best of Lankayan and Best of Sipadan-Kapalai

On my trip back, ended up buying a giant Sea Shell and Coral in the Malaysia airport, as well as a couple of things in Hong Kong. Funny thing is that in Hong Kong, security detained me apparently because of the Coral, as I think it was illegal to have/buy in Hong Kong (hard to tell, their English was so-so). In the end, they let me go because the person they were waiting for to verify/decide wasn't available, able to show up in time for me not to miss my flight. My credit card company they freaked out again and almost disabled my card again when I signed up for wireless internet in the airport (tss, losers...), and I got home eventually, in coach (argh, do the seats in cattle class suck on Cathay Pacific, and $3000 for a one way upgrade to business, no thank you, I'll just fly another airline next time).
All was well except for the taxi cab driver who partially broke my coral while getting my suitcase with the coral on top, but 1H and some glue later, it was almost like new...

Oh, and my cat apparently missed me, thanks Xav for taking care of him again :)

All right, and if you're pressed on time and would like a few hand picked video highlights, enjoy:

50th dive, deep dive, and winding down

2005-09-24T22:03:00Z

My trip is coming to an end. I did 5 dives today (all can be found in my new diving pictures directory , with a much updated best of section)

I think it's hard to explain the feeling to be surrounded by several hundred barracudas swarming around you, or the fairly big sharks, turtles everywhere, etc, etc... I also celebrated by 50th dive, and reached 41 metres for the first time.
I also got a DVD of my dives this morning, along with a best of, of what the cameramen have captured in the region

Anyway, two more dives tomorrow morning, and I'm on the boat back to Tawau where I'll be catching a plane early monday morning back to California

Sipadan - Kapalai

2005-09-22T14:42:00Z

After visiting the Orang Outang in Sepilok, I took a 30mn flight South to Tawau, and a boat transfert to the water village of Kapalai.
Technically there is a island there, but practically, it is under water more than half the time due to damage made by fishermen that were doing dynamite fishing before it was both forbidden and strictly enforced (hence the small contingent of army in that village too)

There is the small price to pay of getting up at 04:50 for the 05:30 boat departure to the Island of Sipadan and its reefs, but the diving is spectacular: I get 3 dives by noon, and another one or two in the afternoon (watching my dive computer carefully to make sure I don't accumulate too much nitrogen in my body)

On my first full day, I got to see giant turtles (more than 1 metre), some eating, some swimming, and some sleeping, fish that look like remnants of dinosaurs, and fish you can barely recognize, even on the picture (like leaf fish, or rock fish). I also got to see a huge school of giant parrot fish: those were more than 1 metre long too, and they were many, quite impressive. The interesting part is that they actually eat rock, process whatever there is to eat inside, and actually shit sand, metric tons of it, and that sand is responsible for the nearby Islands still being there...
I finished the day with a night dive, which is always fun as fish sleep against rock or the bottom, with their eyes opened (no eyelids), and eventually wake up if you shine light in their eyes :)
Oh, and just to make things interesting, I also had to rescue my server from a,
slashdotting that hit the machine pretty hard due to overforking from Rig. All in a day's work :)

Here are a few excerpts from my dive pictures and videos (as I get the chance/bandwidth to upload them). Try the BestOf dir for highlights

This one is easy to spot, but usually they're a lot tougher to see

Crocodile fish, a favourite

Those 1 meter+ parrot fish do eat rock with their teeth

zzz, zzz, zzz....

Malaysia (cont)

2005-09-18T06:32:00Z

After waking up a bit before 05:00 due to mild decompression sickness (tingling in one hand, which had subsided by now), I started packing, went to enjoy a somewhat hidden sunrise (weather was overcast).
I got most of my pictures uploaded by leaving my laptop connected in the resort's office last night, and they are here: Lankayan Island and diving pictures
I'm now going to catch the 07:00 speed boat back to mainland, and stay a day at the nature resort to See Orang Outangs, and visit the city before I take my next plane to Kapalai Dive Resort for more diving (timing is perfect too, whatever nitrogen microbubbles I have in my body should be gone within the next 24 hours, making it entirely safe to fly)

Lankayan Island Dive Resort

2005-09-16T07:04:00Z

Current Music: Velfarre - Cyber Trance 10Y Anniversary
Current Mood: Sunrise at 05:50, that's tough. How about 08:30? :)

It's an interesting little Island: you can walk around it in about 10 minutes, everything, including fresh water is brought it by boat, and they have a diesel generator to provide power for the few people who live here, the Army, and us. The army? you say: yes, it's a very protected area for wildlife, and they protect both the Island and 10 nautical miles from Philipino fishing boats, as any kind of fishing here is strictly prohibited.

Damn, life is tough there, you have no idea...
3-4 dives a day, including a night dive on my first day (quite interesting actually, as long as you do bring a flashlight ;) )
On my first day, I also go thtere on time to see a batch of baby turtles being released.
The water has some nice tropical fish (obviously, since I am only a few degrees off the equator), temperature is typically above 30 degres C, which is quite bearable :)

All in all, I manage by taking it one day at a time :)

The Island had one phone/fax, and they just got a satellite internet connection (although I have to find out how much it costs them before uploading more pictures). Anyway, in the meantime, you can find pictures of Lankayan here

Trip to Malaysia

2005-09-14T21:18:00Z

25H of travelling is probably a personal record. I'm currently in my second plane, from Hong Kong to Malaysia, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to get some connectivity there since I just realized while dozing off that I entirelyforgot to make my mandatory estimated tax payment (some big sum of money) to both CA and the feds. It is going to be fun to arrange remotely, without my
files and my papers access codes and so forth (I was able to find a lot of information I needed in my local mail spool, and I'm looking in my browser history for .gov URLs right now to see if I have the CA web site for online payments). Doh, doh, doh!
Anyway, Hong Kong was a nice a clean airport, as expected. I didn't get to see a whole lot since I landed at 05:35 local time, but it was still nice to have gone through it. In the funny notes, it was cool to see that there were no less than 8 GSM networks my phone could chose from, and that I was able to use my nokia communicator to send Email ssh to my machine and look at my new messages with mutt while I was in line. That said, I was able to get a good WIFI connection some time later while waiting for my second flight, and I used the time appropriately (although I wish I had realized that little banking problem before then since I could have solved it from the airport and now it's going to be much harder)
The first flight on Cathay Pacific was so-so: I tried fruitlessly to upgrade to business, but I found out that on their planes the business section is much smaller than United's so it was overbooked. The other fun part is that a cash upgrade was $1200 one way, for just 1 out of the 3 planes. The full business fare return for just the first plane was $8000!!! In the meantime, their seating in coach sucked ass, and even my butt hurts from the bad seats. Oh well, bigger problems in life I guess...
Two quick notes after landing in Malaysia and waiting for my 3rd flight: I hadn't done homework and realized that Malaysia was actually a Muslim country, which kind of explained the Jelabas (sp?) I saw as soon as I got off the plane, and the muslim prayer room inside the airport, and the crescent on the national flag :) In other news, they have an interesting way to deal with with whatever is defined as illegal drugs here: trafficking is simply punishable by death.
Apart from that, weather looks lovely, and I have already picked up a bunch of pamphlets about all the great diving spots they have. I can't wait :)
Oh, and the international airport had what looked like a voluntary immigration counter (i.e. you walked by it, but didn't have to go through it physically). That looked weird... :)
In the end, I did arrive to the Island of Sabah at the Sandakan airport (that was kind of funny, the 737 landed on the runway, went to the end, and then turned around on the same runway to reach the terminal since there was no taxiway. I guess that explains why there weren't any international flights going there directly :) )
It's pretty to have houses on the water like this, but I guess you don't wonder why there are so many problems when a tsumani shows up, or even global warming over the next 50-100 years :-/

You can find more pictures from the air here , and pictures from my trip as they get posted and I get the chance to upload them (satellite connection on a pretty island in the middle of nowhere right now), there .
Oh did I just mention that the Island I'm on when sending this is so big that it takes 7 minutes to jog around it? :) and just because I'm lucky they got their satellite internet connection yesterday :)

Comments:
Là tu es bien dans 100 % d'exotisme...
Et tu n'as pas encore plongé ni goûté la nourriture.
Ce serait rigolo si tu rencontrais quelqu'un parlant néerlandais, car Bornéo c'est une ancienne colonie.
Que puis-je te souhaiter d'autre qu'ENJOY ENJOY ENJOY!!!
Bisous de ta maman.
posted by : 15 September, 2005 01:40

Santa Catalina Island and Diving

2005-08-24T23:38:00Z

I used the first two days to do 5 dives, 2 on monday (got there a bit too late for a boat trip that had already left) and 3 on tuesday (two on a boat trip, and one later at shore).
The interesting thing is that I forgot about how far the no flying after diving rule extended. According to the recommended rules, you have to wait 24H for flying after multiple dives. In real life, it's more complicated, as it depends what altitude the plane is pressurized for (usually 8000ft for commercial planes, 2/3rd of the pressure at ground level for standard temperatures), and it also depends how deep you went diving for how long, which means how much nitrogen you ended up with, in your blood. It was however recommended that I don't try diving this morning, even if I had 12H after the dive (in theory enough for a single dive, and ok if you stay at shallower depths), so I'm going to visit the Island and go Mountain Biking.

I did however take a lot of pictures, and am very happy with the underwater housing I bought for my camera. It is so much better to be able to see your pictures underwater while you are taking them, not be shy about how many you are taking, and be able to get them right afterwards. I can't believe I ever dealt with the crappy underwater film cameras.

In addition to some of the pictures below, I also got some short films, like:

Fish french kissing
Giant sea bass going right in front of my face while I wasn't watching :)
Giant sea bass playing movie stars with Dr Bill
Manta Ray
Friendly and curious fish
Flying Fish (watch upper right corner around the end)
Flying Fish that went right in front of me

Pictures of Santa Catalina and Diving are here

would you like a few more pillows? :)

those two fish were fighting, you could see them in action here

you can't see me

why don't you stick your finger in here?

Those giant sea bass can be more than 50 years old

Underwater commemorative plate

Getting Certified in Ibiza & PADI is mostly a scam

2004-06-28T15:00:00Z

Since I had definitely missed out in Australia by not being certified, this time I made sure I would be. In the two weeks I was in Ibiza I got both my open water and advanced open water certs.
Quite frankly, I didn't learn anything additional for my open water cert since I had already done the stuff. I just paid 500 euros for the privilege of getting the said cert (quite a scam considering that the dive shop was already paid for the dives were were doing).
Then, I did a few extra dive specialties (which really weren't specialties outside of the deep dive), picture taking is a joke, peak buoyancy was nothing more than the current buoyancy in open water, and swimming a square with a compass isn't exactly hard. Another 300 euros later, I got my advanced open water cert, of which only the deep dive certification was really useful (It is only later that I did night diving and nitrox).
As you can tell, I'm saying PADI is running a scam where you are technically not allowed to go diving past 18m, even if you get checked out for 30m or deeper, as long as you don't pay for the full advanced class and other specialties that you may not care about.

But eh, while I still hate padi for it, I caved in and paid the 800 euros (almost $1000 at the time) for the privilege of having their certification, even though I had most of the skills already before I started.

As for pictures, this was the last time that I used film for my under water pictures, and had to get them developed, and put on CD ($40+ for 3 rolls and a single CD, what a rip-off).

another octopus attack :)

more Training

there is a fish in there

See more images for Getting Certified in Ibiza & PADI is mostly a scam

Diving in Adelaide, Australia

2004-01-17T16:00:00Z

While Adelaide wasn't as much of a prime diving location as Rottnest Island (starting with colder water), I made it a point to go diving somewhere while I was there
First, I wanted to go to a nice site with a reef by the beach, the local dive shop couldn't get me there because they didn't have a divemaster who was allowed to take a non certified diver. Bummer!
I then contacted a somewhat nearby dive shop who basically had to check me out again in a swimming pool since I had no real certification. After going through that, I was however allowed to go for their dives that day, and while it was more expensive and not necessarily as good but oh well...

boating from the harbour to the dive site

See more images for Diving in Adelaide, Australia

Learning to Dive in Ibiza

2003-07-30T15:00:00Z

6 months after my first dive in Autralia, I went to Ibiza to go clubbing and went diving during the day.
Unfortunately, I didn't get my shit together and didn't know that my dives weren't counting against any certification and were just fun dives even though I was learning the necesary skills.
While the dives were enjoyable, I was a bit pissed that after 6 dives, I had nothing to show for it, but a discover scuba diving certificate which is worth about nothing. Oh well, the experience was still worth something, even if I had nothing to show for it.

learning what to do when you lose your regulator

our divemaster breaking the dont mess with wildlife rule with a small octopus

See more images for Learning to Dive in Ibiza

First Dive in Perth, Australia @ Rottnest Island

2003-01-21T16:00:00Z

This was my 3rd year in Australia, and I had never dived in my live before. I felt silly about being in prime dive country for the 3rd time, and not taking advantage of it. So, I spent the day at Rottnest Island where I went snorkling and did my first scuba tank dive.
It was funny how I basically got a 5mn primer on how to use the equipment while boating to the site, and we were in the ocean right after that. I guess I survived (although it also helps that it was at low depths, 10m or less) :)
Needless to say that I liked it and made plans to do it again :)

See more images for First Dive in Perth, Australia @ Rottnest Island