Diving

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, half 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

25H of travelling is probably a personal record. I'm currently in my second plane, from Hong Kong to Malaysia
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 :)

Sepilok Nature Park Resort
This is where I spent my first "recover from 25H trip, jetlag and less than 5 hours of sleep" day and night. I ventured in the forest trail a bit, which I knew wasn't extremely smart, especially with shorts, but with tropical humid weather, I was tired of my long pants. After managing not to get lost (my biggest concern), I came back with a few nice insect bites despite the deet insect repellant on my body, and some kind of leech on my leg (no idea how it got there, but the sucker was indeed well attached. Ah, I learned later than the little suckers actually hang from under leaves and wait for unsuspecting warm blodded mamals to walk by so that they can let themselves drop on you. Lovely...)
There was some nice flaura to be seen though, and they have both some big ass ants, and very overgrown fat but somehow flying bees that go between flowers. They also have mighty impressive ants :)
The pictures I took are here

I'll be back there for another day and some tours. I was initially only there for my first night since I had gotten to Sandakan too late for the daily speed boat to Lankayan Island Dive Resort , but not to worry, I got there the next day

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

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)

Current Music: Astral Projection (in the boat, on the way to dive sites)
Current Mood: Pretty good :)

After leaving Lakayan Island, I spent a day in the city of Sandakan, where I got to visit a bit, see a local market, and have a bunch of kids run at me and shake my hand after saying Hello and Good-bye, the English they had learned :)

The afternoon, I went back to Sepilok to see the Orang Outang reserve. That was definitely entertaining, check out the pictures and videos , they're quite entertaining.

The evening, I met the local folks (actually a Philipinian too), and had dinner at a local restaurant: Seafood King . That was an interesting place: I asked for a menu, and they said they had none and asked me what I wanted. In the end, they brought me to the back, where they had all the live fish in big buckets and made me choose what I wanted. 30 minutes later, I had a fried giant shrimp (whatever that was), and some baby ones.
I quite obviously got the tourist price and did not get access to all the food that the locals seemed to be eating around me, but no matter, that what I get for being the fscking tourist :)

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....

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

After doing my last two dives at Kapalai/Sipadan (bringing my dive count to 54, which is more than triple what I had when I started, and on my last but one dive, I actually finally managed to lose my group without being able to find them again: it sounds silly, but there were other groups that passed us, and while turning back from taking a picture, with so-so water visibility, I ended up with another group for long enough to lose mine. When we surfaced, they were way far from me: I could have swam to the Island if it hadn't been for the fact that they would have been looking for me :) )

Anyway, Tawau, I only spent a few hours in the late afternoon/evening there, but I still used them to visit the city what I could, confirmed that Malaysian cities seem to have roaming dogs in search of trash to eat, found out where the smell came from (the sewer system doesn't seem to be underground everywhere, it's sometimes only in a 50cm deep hole that isn't always covered with concrete slabs, watch where you walk...)
Another interesting tidbit, is that taxis don't have meters, they just estimate a fare from what you asked them to drive. The cab I took in Tawau way overcharged me (25 ringits, or 7 dollars, for a quick local trip, but I didn't care, I can spare 7 bucks instead of 3 :) )

I used the rest of the time enjoying local massages since they cost less than the "deductible" I pay at work ($30/hour for a value of about $80/h) before getting up at the ass crack of down again (05:50) for my 3 planes back home

My very few pictures of Tawau are here (those from Sandakan were there )

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:

• Cuttlefish changing color
  
• Clown fish playing/hiding in Anemone
  
• Turtoise Eating
  
• School of Jack Fish
  
• Bottom Feeder, digging very hard
  
• Parrot Fish Fighting
  
• Hard to Find Leopard Shark, deep under water
  
• School of Giant Parrot Fish
  
• Impressive School of Barracuda
  
• Swarm of Barracuda (note that those are about 1 metre long)
  
• A more regular and common shark, but nicely sized
  
• Moray
  
• Another nice shark, sleeping on the ground
  

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. Unfortunately, the weather was very overcast with tops of 1500 feet or less in some places, but the pilots did a good job of trying to give us as much of a scenic flight as possible despite the iffy conditions (they flew some portions of the flight in IFR conditions). It was doubly interesting for me as I was in the first row of seats, right behind the pilots, and got to see the avionics up close, and chat with them, about how it's like to fly cool planes like theirs (a dual turboprop)

You can see other pictures I took from that plane of the great barrier reef

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

• one legged turtle
  
• school of fish
  
• silver fish swirl 1
  
• silver fish swirl 2
  
• shark feed
  

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 :) )

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 :)

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

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.

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.

Labels: diving

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.

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.

Labels: diving