Looking good in their scuba kit are Renaud & Ilan Gabay. Dad and Lad started off with the PADI Advanced Open Water, and then moved on to Deep Specialty combined with a Nitrox course. That kept them busy for a few days. Well done guys!

Father and son, Arne and Storm Strauss decided to learn to dive and do the PADI Open Water diver course together and what a great location to do it in. Congratulations!!

Congratulations to Peter Zheng’s group of eight from China for completing their PADI OW and AOW courses here.  We’re looking forward to having Peter back with us again in July with even more folks!

PADI Dive Master Anne Astorga and Sami Lindroos have been enjoying some much needed fun dives.  Anne works on the Live-aboard Discovery Palawan which Tommy has just been on and Sami works for a travel agent in Finland. They were both especially happy with all the great diving in Puerto Galera and very excited when they did a muck dive to the boat yard and found a Hairy frog Fish.

With the sun shining and the water temperature at a very comfortable 29c- 30c it’s been another fantastic week at Asia Divers & El Galleon Beach Resort. We have several divers, students and group of eight students from China keeping up the excitement around the dive shop.

Allison was guiding the way for Peter Zheng a PADI Instructor from China who brought in a group of 8 to complete the Open Water and Advanced open water course. As you can see from the photo it was a fun time with a few highs and a few lows. Congratulations to all the new divers.

Andy and Jamie teamed up with this group of students from China. Xu Juejue, Zhang Dan –aow; Fu Hai Liang, Yu Shi Mou, Zhang Zi Han, Lei Jing Ling, Cfang Fang, Yao Qiong, Youcheng—ow. Congratulations!

Thanks to Phil Hsieh from Scuba Shop Taipei for sending us this very fun group of divers, “Forte Scuba Diving Club”. Though they only had three days of diving they maximized their time and did lots of amazing dives.

What a week it’s been for Blue Ringed octopus sightings. Within the past 5 days there have been 6 different ones spotted at different dive sites. You have to realize how special this is. Normally for many of us who dive every day we might be lucky to see one, once or twice a year! To see this amount in such a short time is astounding. The great thing is that it’s not just the dive guides who have been seeing them, it’s the divers. Lucky Elizabeth Annand from Vision Divers managed to see three in her last two days of diving with us.  We don’t really understand why we are seeing so many right now.  We do know that the water temperature has warmed up in the past 10 days and we just had a full moon. Perhaps this might have something to do with it?  Maybe it’s a mating season so they are coming out to find a mate and lay eggs?

According to Wikipedia: Blue-ringed octopus females lay only one clutch of about 50 eggs in their lifetimes towards the end of autumn. Eggs are laid then incubated underneath the female’s arms for about six months, and during this process she does not eat. After the eggs hatch, the female dies, and the new offspring will reach maturity and be able to mate by the next year.

Puerto Galera is still in the Northern Hemisphere, but in the Southern Hemisphere it’s autumn now so they are there breeding now. Maybe they think they are in the Sothern hemisphere??

Read more about Blue Ringed Octopus here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-ringed_octopus

It’s been wonderful to have Peter and Deb Webster from Vision Divers return with some familiar and new folks. What a great week it’s been with amazing diving conditions. The sun has been shining, the water has been warm and the beer has been cold! What more can you ask for?!

It’s been an absolute pleasure to have hosted Ken Knezick and his group of 36 friends here at El Galleon & Asia Divers recently. Ken has been coming here for several years now and we thank him for his continued support. Besides running Island Dreams Travel he is also an enthusiastic diver and underwater photographer. Here are a few of his awesome photos that he recently took here.

All photos Copyright of Ken Knezick – www.divetrip.com