I had the pleasure of meeting Sarah Porter, who is a journalist for The Jakarta Post, when I worked as Dive Resort Manager for Bastianos Dive Resorts in Indonesia. She arrived at the dive resort with two friends who decided to do their PADI Open Water Diver course with me, while Sarah tagged along on our training dives.

We had lots of fun during the course and saw loads of exciting marine life. They left as a happy bunch after their course was done and I went on with my work. A while later I discovered that I was mentioned in The Jakarta Post, as Sarah had written an article about the experience! So here it is:

Tags: Bastianos,Bunaken,Diving,Indonesia,Scuba,Sean Nordbo,Sulawesi
Categories: My Diary
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The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are a breathtaking archipelago located east of India. It is also my next exotic destination as I will work as a scuba diving instructor there for a while. As mentioned in my diary in earlier posts I have a friend there who own a part of a diveshop on the beach that was voted the best beach in Asia in 2004 by Time magasine. When I was offered to come and work at Barefoot Scuba and meet up with the owner Jeremy Zay Blake (Jez) and my friend Wayne Blairs who work there as a videographer I accepted right away. I had several other offers for work over most of the world, also some management positions, but I have always had a small dream of diving in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and to meet up with my friends again.

Tags: Andaman Islands,Diving,Ghandi,India,Port Blair
Categories: My Diary
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Scuba diving is a social sport as it is both safer and nicer to dive with a buddy. My buddy is my brother who’s scuba diving teacher I was on his vacation to Phuket in 2005 where he came down to visit me who at the time worked for Scandinavian Divers. The course was probably more comprehensive and time consuming than he had in mind when I suggested it for him, but after four days he was the proud owner of a PADI Open Water Diver license. As he during the course got the same love for scuba diving as I have he went straight to the next level which is PADI Advanced Open Water Diver.

Tags: Diving,Fantastic,Shark,Sipadan,Turtle
Categories: My Diary
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After my recent holiday that included some great diving in Indonesia I eventually came back to Phi Phi Islands in Thailand. The island where I had been working for a long time and was really looking forward to come back to. This time I came back with a old colleague of mine from Island Divers, he is a great guy from England who is nicknamed Jez. He is building up his own dive shop in the Andaman Islands in India (check out his website), and took a trip down memory lane by going back to Phuket and Phi Phi Islands when the season was over for him in India.

Tags: Bastianos Dive Resort,Bunaken Island,Diving,Working
Categories: My Diary
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Asia Dive Expo (ADEX) is Asia’s largest and longest running trade and consumer exhibition for the dive industry and related businesses. ADEX is firmly established as THE superior platform for business and networking for the dive industry in Asia. Returning once again to Bangkok, ADEX brings together the very best for trade and consumer under one roof in its 13th edition in 2007.

I will participate on ADEX these dates:

April 27 PADI IDC Staff Instructor Update.
April 28 Emergency Instructor Trainer Course.
April 29 Relax and check out all the exhibitors.

Link to ADEX 2007 website: http://www.asiadiveexpo.com/

Tags: ADEX,Asia,Bangkok,Diving
Categories: Odds And Ends
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I’ve been on my holiday for five solid weeks now so I guess it is time to update my diary. Not everything has worked out as planned during my leave from work, but I have been to new places and met some really amazing people along the way.

My journey started from Phi Phi Islands in the beginning of March. I left the on the morning ferry and went straight from the harbor to the airport in Phuket. As I had no ticket when I arrived I looked trough the options with the different companies. Tickets from Phuket to Bangkok can be found for as low as 1700 Thai Baht, but I had to pay 2975 Thai Baht as the only flight available with reasonable waiting time was with Thai Airways.

Tags: Diving,Friends,Indonesia,Lembeh Strait
Categories: My Diary
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I love unusual rocks and will travel around the world to see famous ones. I’ve visited Ayer’s Rock in Australia and the spires of stone in Greece’s Meteora area. Perhaps one day I’ll even see El Capitan in Yosemite Park. I’m also quite fond of diving, so it’s no wonder that my favourite dives in Komodo National Park are an underwater rock and a nearby rocky point.

Tags: Adventure,Diving,Indonesia,Komodo
Categories: Odds And Ends
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Pattaya - Reputed to be the two best dive destinations in the area are a pair of shipwrecks: the Hardeep and the Bremen. But the Hardeep is numero uno. It sunk in 1942. This 40 metre long freighter from Indonesia now rusts in peace some 25 metres below the surface, between the isles of Samaesan and Chuang. For divers who enjoy a heady dose of fear along with adrenalin, you can now explore inside the hulk. Best of all, wrecks attract an abundance of fish and coral. The two aforementioned islands are also wealthy in hard and soft corals. For beginners Koh Kruk is the prime spot, and for middleweights its Koh Rin, replete with boulder-strewn swim-throughs.

Tags: Diving,Koh Tao,Pattaya,Phi Phi Islands,Similan Islands,Thailand
Categories: Thailand
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With the majority of the world’s surface covered with water, and more known about the moon’s surface than the ocean’s bottom, and man’s tireless efforts to explore it all, the sport of scuba diving allows anyone of average fitness to experience the briny blue and its watery wonders. A relatively new sport born from research by the US Navy, scuba diving is an increasingly popular recreational activity for holiday-makers and the adventure hungry. Southeast Asia, and in particular Thailand, offers worldclass training and diving with some of the region’s bst dive sites accessible from its shores.

Tags: Diving,Pattaya,Scuba,Thailand
Categories: Odds And Ends
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