It was a wonderful time at the Barrel Bar to celebrate the birthday of Jim Morten. Jim put on a roasted pig with all the trimmings and of course quite a few bevies for the night. We’re glad that we were here to celebrate with you!
Thilo, Natalie and Celine have successfully completed their Open Water course and were lucky to see a turtle during open water training. In a business meeting half a year ago, Thilo asked Andreas to teach them how to dive – and what better place to do this other than Puerto Galera. Celines husband Yannick who is already a certified diver stayed with the group during the first day to get a quick refresher after having a few years without diving. It was a perfect week with a great group of students, perfect weather, great visibility and lots of diving. Especially memorable was the French wine and cheese that Yannick carried all the way from France.
It’s been wonderful to have Mike Palmer, from American Dive Zone, Grand Rapids MI back with us again. The group of 14 have had a great week of pretty awesome weather, fabulous diving, some fine food and good times in the bar!
Team Taiwan!
We always enjoy having Phil Hsieh from Scuba SHOP Taipei here. Phil has been coming to Asia Divers for many years and has also done some teaching at Tech Asia. This time he had a group of 17 divers in for 3 days of diving. The shop was very full, but everything ran smooth and the diving conditions kept everyone very happy.
Allan and Dave Ross have been at Oztech in Australia this week. Congratulations to our good friend Richard Evens, who received an award for his dedication towards diver safety and industry standards at the Oztech gala awards.
The Kingston and Elmbridge BSAC group had a great week of diving and left with big smiles on their faces! 
This Hugy Cup group decided to get behind the lens long enough for Alli to snap this photo of them; Jan Steenkiste , Robert Bonje , Ilse Bonje , Peter Vanthuyne , Stijn Boussemaere and Dirk Crutelle .
More participants arrived and are enjoying very nice reef dives and surprising muck dives at Asia Divers. A super hairy roughsnout ghostpipefish is wondering around at giant clams.
Seamoths, fingered dragonets, flying gurnards are found on the sandy mucksites.
On the reefs colourful surprises like blueringed octopus, coleman shrimps and a lot of nudi’s.Everything goes smooth around here with many smiling faces ! The whole Asia Divers crew is giving us a lot of support and everything is well organized at the divecenter. A pleasure! In the picture this week: the resident ‘giant’ turtle of Sabang Bay by Dirkje Roodenburg
Danny Van Belle
Organizer HUGYCUP
We now have 2 spaces free (1 cabin) for Palau Nov.1-8 this year. This is on Tropical Dancer (sister ship to Palau Aggressor). Price is US$ 2,885. Email tommy@asiadivers.com if you’re interested.
Congratulations to Katy Boardman for completing her Advanced course here with Alli. It was great for her to finally get to see the Alma Jane and also be with her dad, Dave, for his 1111th dive which happened to be perfectly timed to be in the Canyons.
Congratulations to Janne Bjork for his 900th dive. He actually did it at Tech Asia, but as he has done so many of his dives here with us we felt he really earned this t shirt.
Here is a nice photo of the DAA visiting the school at Verde Island and leaving lots of wonderful school supplies with Madam Riza. After visiting the school everyone enjoyed a BBQ and some beach time. The folks at the school were very happy that we left some materials for them to build their new canteen along with some cash to help with the expenses.
We had a wonderful send off on the platform for the group which included dinner on the platform, dancers from Puerto Galera high school, a great band, fireworks and fire dancers.
Slowly on I’m starting to know some dive sites around here. Crinoid infested reefs resembling flower gardens with, in between all these featherstars, colonies of blueish tunicates. Lots of thick, fingersize, Nembrotha nudibranchs crawling around in these gardens of eden. But close by we also dived on algae covered sand bottoms with rare critters and seldom seen nudi’s, masters of mimicry. On 5 dive sites we found bargibanti pygmy seahorses all of them hiding in the Muricella seafans, a few of them pregnant and marble size!! The water is slowly warming up and visibility is getting better every day.
The competitors are working hard and amazing pictures are coming in. For all info on the hugycup competition have a look at www.hugycup.com
A Hippocampus bargibanti seahorse from the dive site : Coral Cove at only 12m of depth.
Danny Van Belle, Organizer HUGYCUP
It’s not so easy to get the photographers in front of a lens! HUGYCUP participants Gino Symus
Harry Klerus, Harvey Buyst with Danny Van Belle Organizer of the HUGYCUP and Troy as they head out to the Giant Clams.