Look who’s back in the water! It started with a “mooring check” dive and a couple days later Allan was off to the Canyons with Steve Ford and Troy!
Time to get wet!
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Monthly Archives: August 2015
Tech Asia this past weekend
Over two evenings Tech Asia put on four talks some fascinating explorations and dive projects that are taking place both worldwide and locally.
Steve Cox, one of Tech Asia’s original divers and now senior exploration diver in legendary Woodville Karst Plan Project, spoke about his efforts in Chips Hole, a Florida cave initially explored by the late Sheck Exley – one of diving’s true pioneers. More recently under the WKPP Chips has become the project on which Steve Cox and his buddy Blake Wilson have taken the lead, and have stretched this difficult system to around 16,000 ft or 5,000m of explored passage in their quest to connect it to the nearby and much deeper Leon Sinks System.
Casey Mckinlay, our special guest of the weekend and Project Director of the WKPP, discussed and illustrated his dives in another project in which he participates, the Sian Ka’an Biosphere, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Tulum, Mexico, which is being explored under a special permit issued to the MCEP – Mexico Cave Exploration Project, and also recounted a project several years ago which video documented the wreck of the cruiser USS Atlanta, sunk in 1942 in 130m of water in the Solomon Islands
Lastly we turned to home waters. Steve and Dave Ross delivered a short history of the events and discoveries of our own Asian Karst Exploration Project, operating in Samar, Philippines, where after several years of effort we believe we have discovered some of the most significant underwater caves in all of SE Asia…
All of this was coupled with two days of demo diving available on Suex scooters, for whom Casey is in charge of Global Business development. The fun of using these made the grey rainy weather irrelevant as people toured the Canyons and Verde Island with these tremendous pieces of essential dive gear 😉
Many thanks to Steve Cox for instigating the event, Casey for joining us, Miko Zulueta – our local distributor – for supporting the event, Michael Puz for extra scooters, and everyone that came along and joined in. The team now heads south for more cave exploration in Samar….
Welcome back Gavin!
It was great to have Gavin Murphy and Wayne Prictor diving with us and Tech Asia this past week. Wayne got a chance to complete his 400th dive and celebrated in the Point Bar with a few bevies.
Asia Divers trip of the Year have still 2 spots left (1 cabin) on the Palau Tropical Dancer
Sister-ship to Palau Aggressor ensures it’s a comfortable boat and with the perfect dive deck, diving don’t get easier than on this boat. We will board the boat in the afternoon on November 1 and disembark in the morning of November 8, gives us 5 ½ days of brilliant diving among Sharks and other big pelagic animals. Truly a trip you want to come back to do again and again. This is your chance to do your trip of the year! Contact tommy@asiadivers.com if you’re interested.
Asia Divers new compressor
Asia Divers just got a new compressor and as you can see it takes a lot of manpower just to get it to our place. Once it arrived in Sabang it took all afternoon just to get it to our place…inch by inch….
Our new baby came from the distributors of LW Germany. It’s the Model LW 570ES with the upgraded filtration system and holds the same technical specifications with an air output of 570 Ltr/min. That means if both compressors are running they give a combined output of 1,140 Ltr / mins which equals to filling 10 tanks from 50 bar in 15 mins…WOW!! The unit is fitted with VFD so able to adjust rotation speed output to match the nitrox machine and at same time able to save on electrical power.
Hong Kong happiness!
It’s been a fun week having this gang from Hong Kong diving with us. In this group are families and friends who have known each other for many years. They decided to come here so some can learn to dive, with their friend Bruce Shu who is not only a friend, but also an PADI instructor. Puerto Galera is a much nicer environment to do training dives for sure and the best part is being able to continue on with fun dives after the training. Congratulations to Joanne Leung, Joe Lee, Mandy Lee, Michael Kwan, and Joey Lee for becoming PADI Open Water divers and to Long Long Turner and Joe Lee who did their PADI Advanced course dives here. Besides the fun underwater we sure enjoyed the fun above water and especially a great dinner shared by all. Thanks so much to Adrienne Ng who put it all together!
A very special mention goes to Yvonne Kwan who “let go of the boat!” and was able to enjoy the snorkeling for the first time. Also to Vincent Lee who had a great time here watching all the action.
What the bosses are up to
Allan has been busy going around Australia visiting many dive shops and also fitting in time to see some old friends like Eric Masters.
Tommy has been on tour around Eastern Philippines and visiting some Dive Shops/Centre’s that don’t often get visited by suppliers. Here is Tommy and Vladimir Elazegui from Scuba de Oro in Cagayan de Oro, Northern Mindanao.
Team China!
It’s been a busy time here with many students and divers from China. Andy always seems to have one group going as another is coming in! Water temp is still warm and the sun continues to shine even in August.
Congratulations to Bo Jing from China who lucked out and had both Troy and Charmaine teaching her to dive.
A special diving day By Sue Goodman
“WOW! What fun we had yesterday!! Not one dive, but TWO:-) It just happened that there were NO other divers at Asia Divers, so Alli and I took full advantage of a golden opportunity to go to a couple sites that we love, that aren’t always accessible… went to Odies in the morning. A bit of current pushed us off on the first pass, but Alli made adjustments and nailed it on the second try! Looking for nicer light, we waited until 4pm and went to dry dock, another relatively deep site that normally we couldn’t do late in the day. Kinda spooky and darkish as it had clouded up, but very cool…. TWO frogfish made the dive special, one big one cruising along looking for a new place to perch. “
Tubbataha transition trip 2016 with Asia Divers
Alli is organizing a trip to Tubbataha Reef, this time doing the transition trip which will go from Puerto Princesa to Batangas. Dates are June 10-17, 2016. Contact Alli at Allison@asiadivers.com for more details.