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:

Tucked away on a treasured island

Features – January 13, 2008

An unforgettable holiday in Indonesia needs nothing more than a still volcano, a village disco, internationally recognized tropical reefs and a pack of playing cards. Sarah Porter reports from Pulau Bunaken, North Sulawesi.

The sound of the old boat’s engine churned and groaned, sending gentle vibrations through the bow’s crackling timber planks, where six of us lay like lazy lizards under a sun we hadn’t seen or felt for far too long.

The office and work stresses of Jakarta were moving behind us and our holiday had begun. The slap of the Sulawesi Sea against the boat’s hull was inviting us to disappear.

No one stayed below deck. The view north already held a spectacular promise; yet another of Indonesia’s awesome old volcanoes, Manado Tua, was already in full sight.

For some, the one-hour boat trip to Pulau Bunaken — Bunaken Island — from North Sulawesi’s capital Manado was filled with a mixture of fear and dread, excitement and nerves. This holiday would see us take that plunge and learn to scuba dive.

For others, it was a break to heal pollution-locked Jakartan lungs, to get away from the city’s traffic and noise, and to feel the sun against a bit of naked skin.

A few on board had dived before and would again at Bunaken. Others had no intention of testing potential claustrophobic tendencies and were armed with nothing more than suntan lotion and a book.

The snorkeling and dive base we were headed for, Bunaken Island, is just one of the tropical treasures that make up Bunaken National Marine Park, and is ranked among the world’s top 10 spots to dive. But there would be something for everyone, we had been promised.

The park has an ecosystem and marine life second to none in Indonesia and an underwater world that is allegedly one of the best the earth has to offer.

The official tourism website for North Sulawesi says the park covers a total surface area of 89,065 hectares, 97 percent of which is underwater. The rest is made up of five islands including Siladen, Bunaken, Mantehage, Nain and Manado Tua, the old and apparently haunted volcano.

It also boasts Indonesia’s flagship environmental program. Positive efforts to stop illegal fishing (including the use of bombing and cyanide) and prevent destruction of precious coral reefs are in part thanks to funds from a tourist entrance fee, collected and managed by the North Sulawesi Watersports Association.

The association works with the some 30 villages in the national park, interested parties and government agencies to help fund programs run by the Marine Environmental Education Center on Bunaken Island.

For tourists wanting to know where their national park entrance fee goes, unlike so much of the archipelago’s administration efforts, official reports suggest environmental activities and educational programs are making a difference — because the money is actually being reaching its intended destination.

In 2006, gold mine operators succumbed to pressure from activists and the local community and reversed a decision to dump waste into the sea between the national park and the Lembeh Strait.

North Sulawesi’s children are being educated on the importance of sustaining their coral surrounds, and in 2007, a turtle hatchery was established on a section of the national park’s beach where turtles come ashore to lay their eggs.

Unfortunately, the rubbish that makes its way from Manado to the national park and beyond is nothing less than unforgivable and the regular water shortages where we stayed at Bastianos Dive Resort on the southern side of Bunaken Island were reportedly a reflection of poor water management across the park.

But at the time of our visit, the country was suffering a drought and at least one of the staff at Bastianos told me he had made himself unpopular by insisting on better water management practices across the island — and that his efforts alone were working.

Despite everything there is to read and hear about this far northern tip of Indonesia — brooding volcanoes, untouched hinterlands, white sands and tropically blue waters — our arrival to the shores of Bunaken took us a little by surprise.

Having only ever completed a fun dive in Australia and on the Great Barrier Reef, I immediately wanted to find out how far away from the resort we would travel the next day for our first PADI lesson.

The spot we’d booked didn’t look all that spectacular, the beach was covered in rubbish, the tide was out, the mangroves looked sick and the water murky.

Dogs and campfires were visible only a few kilometers up the beach and kids were running around the not-so-pretty-sand playing with broken fishing nets and old tires.

The dive boats I could see anchored just off the beach were open timber vessels in desperate need of a paint job and I wasn’t the only one looking sideways to see if we had come to the right spot.

This place is famous, though, we said to one another. The Lonely Planet and every other publication we’d referred to couldn’t have it all wrong?

But Bastianos Dive Resort doesn’t advertise itself as a five-star beach holiday destination, and a couple of accommodation spots on the island actually turn away non-divers.

The island is not a tropical getaway to come to laze on the beach, drink cocktails and hope for something other than ridiculously unorganized food and beverage service.

The real surprises — and what we will all go back for — are hidden away and underwater, just like everyone said.

They are to be found climbing up the old volcano, trekking across to the other side of the island and getting lost, invitations to village discos, strange ojek adventures, incredible night sky views, boat trips for hours across to other islands, and wonderful, wonderful nights with a deck of cards, a new game, and some self-sung music.

Complimented of course by a few warm Bintangs.

Apart from our diving adventures and shared stories of resplendent walls of coral, unbelievably alive and with every inch moving — a near fatal sea adventure to seek-out neighboring Siladen Island and its new-ish five-star resort, was a stand-out adventure for us all.

Climbing aboard from Bunaken, cameras in hand, and excited for an adventure, none of us were to know one of the very worn timber boats we’d hired for our Bunaken-Siladen excursion was about to break down, in the middle of the deep dark sea.

But the very fluorescent phosphorous in the water and the view of the old volcano as the sun set itself across a haunting open sea, are scenes and memories difficult to disregard. Even if a few of us will never go to sea again.

Fellow travelers Yousuf Rangoonwal and Timo Thoennissen say they’ll also never forget almost falling off the top of the magnificent Manado Tua.

Their wet ascent one day included coming across wild boars (they think), fresh coconut milk and machete-proof coppice.

Their accidental ojek driver informed and warned them the volcano island was haunted and that by climbing it they would become sacrificial offerings, alive or dead. Both men today say they believe this now to be almost true.

And Australian Sean Stratton and Marco Fischer from Switzerland reportedly received numerous marriage proposals, friendliness to-boot, and palm wine hangovers, after an evening visit to Bunaken’s local village and annual street disco. Their story we’re all quite sure has some missing parts — and their photographs of crowding villagers, untouched beaches and unthinkable snorkeling left us wanting to know more.

But while others were falling off tops of mountains and losing themselves to the locals, beginner divers Sandra Furh, Daniel Schmidt and I completed our PADI open water certificate, passed our exam and saw our very first turtle underwater. I’ve not a clue of the names of all the fish we saw or of how Mother Nature dreamed of creating such an underwater world. Learning to dive for me was more than learning to breathe again, it was being put inside a fairy tail.

The highlights are too many, but our ever-so-patient Norwegian instructor Sean Nordbo said we were lucky to have come so close to a turtle he guessed was more than 100 years old.

The ancient sea-dweller’s shell alone was magnificent, and as I looked up to make sure the others were watching, and could see him, I wondered what he would say to us, if he had the chance.

Then as he slowly turned away, magically moving his flippers as if in flight, incredibly, I’m pretty sure, he gently smiled, and asked us to come back one day.

Finding Nemo, now, has nothing.

As a beginner diver, don’t go anywhere else than Bunaken Island. And do stay at Bastianos. The diving teachers and assistants were all wonderfully patient and absolutely committed to ensuring we learned to dive the right way — without a hangover, safely and with the most respect for our surroundings.

At the time of our holiday, Bastianos Dive Resort, telephone +62 431 853566, was charging US$22 per night accommodation for divers and a little extra for non-divers.

The open water dive course, a PADI certificate, was $350, and they charged $50 for PADI’s manual, which is useful, and helps you avoid drowning.

But send them an email for further up-to-date information and prices: info@bastianos.com.

Flying to Manado is possible from Singapore, the Philippines, Jakarta, Surabaya and Bali. Getting out to Bunaken Island from an overnight stop at Manado involved calling Bastianos and asking for help. They organized the lot.

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.

For you guys who do not know to much about these islands, let me see if I can help you out. They are spread out over more than 800 kilometers in the Bay of Bengal, and looks like the perfect tropical dream. The less than 300.000 inhabitants have 572 islands at their disposal, covered in dense forest and white beaches. The Andman and Nicobar islands are the perfect place to go scuba diving, hiking or camping.

Port Blair is the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar islands. It is the only town of size and has the same atmosphere of any lively Indian market town. Except sniffing the lively atmosphere, you can visit the Cellular Jail. This is a large prison built by the British in the early 1900’s. It still gives a powerful impression of the terrible conditions the prisoners, mostly Indian freedom fighters, were held. It is now a monument to those freedom fighters and had and excellent Sound & Light show, both in Hindi and English. Other sights in Port Blair are the Marine Museum, the Anthropological Museum, and the Chatham Sawmill.

A visit to the Mahatma Ghandi Marine National Park will be an unforgettable experience. You can view the spectacular coral reefs and other life forms through glass bottom boats, SCUBA-diving and snorkelling. The park covers an area of 281.5 square kilometer and encloses open sea filled with coral reefs and as many as 15 islands covered with mangrove creeks and tropical rainforests.

Port Blair can be reached from Calcutta and Chennai in India by air and from Chennai, Calcutta and Vishakhapatnam by sea. Foreigners need a special permit to visit the islands. This can easily be obtained in Port Blair, but only grants access to a limited number of places and islands in the Andaman area.

So there you have it, doesn’t it sound like a perfect paradise on earth? I really do look forward to visit the islands and be able to teach people how to scuba dive in that environment. Accommodation will be extremely basic and I am not sure what to expect food wise, I got a feeling that it will be very basic but hopefully tasty. There will be no Internet for the while I am there and I have been made aware of that the mobile telephone network is very unstable as well. So I will be very isolated with good friends and nice customers. Not a bad set up at all I belive.

It do mean that my site will not be updated until I am back again sadly, I hope my friends and other readers will check out my site from time to time to check when I am back again. I also seriously think about going home to Norway this summer and build up a normal life again. As I get older and the job marked in Norway I should consider going home before it is to late. The good part about me going home is that my site can be updated more often as I will get a stabile and fast Internet connection. So I can finally upload all my photos.

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.

By teaching him how to scuba dive I gained a reliable and fun buddy. So in the middle of 2006 we made plans for our next dive vacation. We ended up with an incredible liveabord tour on Queen Scuba to the Similan Islands with departure from Phuket. After four days on a very luxurious boat with really nice staff and four dives a day with loads of incredible marine life we came back to Phuket with the best feeling ever.

To top last year’s dive vacation was not an easy task, but after a lot of thinking we ended up with a trip to Sipadan Island. It is a island with world renown dive spots located on the Malaysian part of Borneo. Sipadan Island is most famous for their heaps of turtles, barracudas, travally, white tip reef sharks, black tip reef sharks, grey reef sharks and other kinds of oceanic sharks like the hammerhead sharks and so on. Close by Sipadan Island is Mabul Island where you will find all the macro life like pipefishes, seahorses, nudibranches and much more.

For transportation to Sipadan Island we could either go to Kota Kinabalu, the largest Malaysian city on the island and then transfer to another airplane and arrive in the airport in Tawau or fly directly to Tawau from Kuala Lumpur. The choice was not difficult even if it meant we had to use the low cost carrier Air Asia. So we made reservations from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur and then further on to Tawau. On the way back to Bangkok we added a short stopover in Kuala Lumpur to see some of the attractions they have there.

After arriving in Tawau it is a 85 minute trip by bus or car to the coastal city of Semporna. For accommodation and diving we had the choice of staying there and go on daily trips to Sipadan Island or stay closer to the island itself. A good friend of mine had stayed in Samporna and dived with Scubajunkies so we looked into that, and we also looked into the resorts of Seaventures Dive Rig and Sipadan Kapalai Dive Resort. Staying in Semporna would have been cheapest but it would also mean long boat rides every day to the dive spots and it would not be a very exotic stay so we dropped that option very fast. Left with Seaventures Dive Rig and Sipadan Kapalai Dive Resort we choose the last one. The first was cheaper and I had heard several backpackers rave on about them, but the photos from the last one was much more exotic so we accepted the extra costs. Our reservation was done with great help from the online company Save Money Diving. They arranged the resort, pick up from the airport and a good hotel in Semporna, all for the lowest price we could find.

We needed a hotel in Kuala Lumpur for the short stop over so we logged on to Agoda who had the best prices. It is easy to find alternatives and prices on their website and we ended up with Swiss Garden Hotel. It is located close interesting attractions in the capital of Malaysia, so we could walk to Chinatown, Times Square Shopping Mall, Petronas Twin Towers and the KL Tower. The two first attractions is close by the hotel while the last two ones would take us about an hour to walk to.

Everything was planned, reservations was made and payments was done when we checked out of Cozy At Ten Hotel in Bangkok. It is a cozy, small, inexpensive and very centrally located hotel. We left luggage we did not need for this trip in the hotel as we would stay there when we came back. A taxi waited for the ride to the airport and we was there in good time before departure. The flight to Kuala Lumpur went smooth and we landed on time. Our next flight was running late so we had to wait for a couple of hours in the airport but we got in the air eventually. We arrived in Tawau some hour later at 19.00. As we checked out of the hotel in Bangkok at 7.00 it had taken us a total of 12 hours to get from the hotel in Bangkok to the airport in Tawau.

The resort we should stay with had organized pick up for us at the airport in Tawau so when we got our luggage a very nice guy presented himself to us. He took our luggage in a very comfortable minivan and drove us to Semporna. As the resort had already organized a hotel for us as well he dropped us at the Seafest Hotel and told us that he would personally pick us up in the morning. We had not had much to eat all day so we wandered through the town and found a open KFC. Then we headed back to bed after a rather tiring day.

Next morning started with breakfast before the driver from last night picked us up. He drove a short stretch and delivered us to the office of the resort where our details was taken and passports was copied. Together with a bunch of other new guests we entered a couple of very fast speed boats and drove for what seemed like 45 minutes until we could see Sipadan Island straight ahead of us. Then the boats changed their course a little and we could see the resort. It was unbelievable. The whole resort is built on stilts on top of a large coral reef within minutes reach to Sipadan and Mabul Islands. We entered the resort and was offered food or snacks before we had a short information meeting.

Then we went straight for a orientation dive on the local reef. It is a reef where we could do unlimited diving so it was nice to go down with a divemaster first to get to know it a bit. We saw turtle, great barracuda, frogfish, several pipefish’s and much more on that dive. After the dive we got the key to our bungalow and when we entered it we got completely stunned. It was absolutely beautiful and the view was incredible. We went for lunch and after lunch we had a boat orientation dive just a couple of minutes away from the resort. The dive wasn’t to eventful to start with but it became really good after a while with octopus, stingrays, turtles, barracudas, hunting flamboyant cuttlefish and a beautiful ribbon eel. We had a dive at the local reef again later that day and after dinner we relaxed before we fell asleep.

Next morning started with my brother saying there was some stingrays just below our balcony, and when I got out to take a look at them I saw a eagle ray swimming nicely by and didn’t mind us at all. The depth below our balcony was not much more than a meter so the water was crystal clear. Over the week we stayed there we saw several turtles, stingrays, eagle rays and loads of other fishes.

The days went by with diving, diving and more diving. The personnel at the resort was fantastic and the security was great as some Malaysian troops stay there permanently and use it as a base to provide security for the whole area. We did loads of diving both at Sipadan and Mabul Islands with some diving below the Seaventures Dive Rig as well. I loved the dives and we saw so many turtles and sharks that we didn’t bother in the end, and that was no problem as there was so much more to see that it was incredible. The only thing I was not happy about was the size of the groups and the dive time. Most of the time we was 10 to 12 people in the group, more often than not me and my brother was the two odd people in a group of Asians. They always had two divemasters but they dived as a whole group. When 14 people is diving together it can be a bit cramped. Divetime was always said to be between 40 and 45 minutes, and that was including the safety stop. When I tried to stretch it to 50 minutes on one of the first dives it was not appreciated. On the last two days we had a divemaster named Alex and his Japanese girlfriend who I believe was named Eiko, and they was great. When they took the main group up after 50 minutes they accepted that we dove for another 5 minutes while they got everyone on the boat. Size of group and dive time was as said very annoying in the beginning, but after a day I found out I just had to accept it and then it was not too bad.

On one of the last days when we had lunch we saw no less than 8 eagle rays patrolling over the shallow reef before they headed for a cleaning station that the divemasters said was very close to the local reef we did unlimited diving on. The marine life was so good that even if the dive time was a bit short in my view we saw so much. The visibility was sadly not to good while we was there, but it didn’t matter to much as most marine life came very close. What we lost out on was the bigger stuff in the blue, but I saw a hammerhead shark and several grey reef sharks.

Everything good seems to come to an end after a while, also our fantastic stay at Sipadan Kapalai Dive Resort. We said our goodbyes to the personnel that had done their outmost to make our stay as memorable as possible. It was early morning when we left and when we arrived in Semporna the same guy who picked us up at the airport drove us back to the airport so we could get on our flight to Kuala Lumpur. It went on time and everything was good.

When arriving in Kuala Lumpur we took a low fare taxi from the airport to Swiss Garden Hotel. We could see it was a popular hotel as it took quite a while before we could check in as so many others either wanted to check out or check in. My brother got a smoking room while I was upgraded for some reason and got a non-smoking room. The rooms was very nice with even nicer bathrooms. And the location was perfect as it was within walking distance for a couple of Europeans like us to everything we planned to see.

After unpacking we went to do some shopping at Times Square Shopping Mall. It is a huge shopping mall with just about everything you can wish for. My brother found some really nice clothes and some Star Wars toys for his son, I ended up with a caps and a pair of nice army style shorts. It was evening before we got out of the shopping mall and headed back to the hotel. After some relaxation my brother said he would like to see the Petronas Twin Towers in the evening. So we found a taxi and when we arrived at the twin towers it was a spectacular sight to see them fully lighted up. An hour of photographing was followed by another taxi ride to Chinatown. We was dropped off at Petaling Street and went through most of Chinatown in pursuit of cheap stuff. This as Chinatown is transformed to a huge marked of fake and non-fake stuff in the evening. Every brand you can think of is to be found here with their newest collection at a very low price. A five minute walk at midnight got us back to the hotel where we fell asleep.

We woke up in time to check out from the hotel next morning and left our luggage there to pick it up later. A 45 minute walk from the hotel and we was at the KL Tower. It is apparently the fourth tallest communication tower in the world with an elevator that will bring you up to a height of 280 meter. It was an impressive view from the top of Kuala Lumpur and we seriously considered having a meal at the revolving restaurants one floor up as well, but we dropped it as we really did not have the time nor the money to do it. Some photographs of the city later and we was on our way down for a 10 minute walk over to the Petronas Twin Towers, We had seen them in the evening and would also like to see them in daylight. Took some photographs and visited the huge shopping mall in their basement where we also had a lunch that was not much to write home about.

Everything we had planned to see in Kuala Lumpur had now been seen and we went back to the hotel to fetch our luggage and get to the airport for our final flight to Bangkok. As we had been told by Air Asia in a SMS that the flight was 3 hours delayed we walked very slowly back to the hotel. When we was there it was less than 3 hours before the flight should depart so we got our luggage, arranged a car from the hotel and headed to the airport. It took an hour to get there so we relaxed a bit before I found my passport and tickets and asked if my brother had his passport. He started looking for it and when he could not find it within a minute I saw a kind of desperate look appearing on his face.

He came to the conclusion after some more minutes that he had forgotten his passport and money in the safe in his hotel room. He called the hotel and they asked him to call back in 30 minutes as they needed some time to look for it. Now we had a small dilemma as our flight would depart in less than an hour and there was no way we could get his passport in time for it. So either we both had to go back for it or he had to go back for it while I left for Bangkok alone.

It ended up with me flying to Bangkok as I needed to hold our hotel rooms there while he went back to the hotel again. I arrived at the hotel in Bangkok after midnight and got a phone call from my brother where he said he had his passport and money and that he would fly to Bangkok in the morning. He would sleep in the airport as it was already very late and not to many hours before he hoped to get a new ticket. I went to sleep and when I woke up he had already arrived with a early flight from Kuala Lumpur.

We both agreed that our dive vacation had been really great with loads of lasting memories. Everything had worked out perfect with the exception of excessive luggage on Air Asia that became quite expensive and the little hiccup of my brother in Kuala Lumpur. This was overshadowed by the fantastic service of the booking agencies and dive resort.

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.

I met Jez accidentally on Bangla Road, a famous road in Patong on the island of Phuket, when I had a stop there to have some dive equipment serviced. We went for a beer in a Irish bar and shared stories from the last time we saw each other. A couple of days later we headed for Phi Phi Islands. I was supposed to go back to work and Jez would just like to do some diving and visit old friends.

We arrived in the harbor of Phi Phi Islands and found Island Divers, the dive shop we both had worked in. It was different from when I left it for my holiday and Jez also had a bit of a hard time recognizing it after being away from it for so long. Almost all the staff who had worked there when I left had moved on so everyone, except two, was new to me. The island had also changed with the, in my view negative, introduction of an a go go bar and the building of something that looked like a shopping center.

As I actually arrived back to Island Divers almost four weeks later than planned the owner had been forced to replace me with another instructor. It meant that if I started working there again we would be more instructors then good is. So I decided that it was time for me to move on from Phi Phi Islands for a while and see what else the diving world had to show me. A decision that was easy to make as I already had a plan.

When I dived in Indonesia on my holiday I did so with Bastianos Dive Resorts, and the thing is that they offered me a job. I declined it then as I already had a job and I could not let my current boss down by quitting on him. But as the table turned now, with to many instructors in the dive shop on Phi Phi Islands, I sent an e-mail to Bastianos Dive Resorts and told them that I was available if they still needed me. The next day I received an e-mail from them with a positive reply. I was offered the Dive Resort Manager position for their resort on Bunaken Island for a period of six months. A very good position as it include the responsibility for 35 employees, rooms which can accommodate 80 people, a dive center, a spa, a bar, a restaurant and much more.

With a job secured me and Jez had a great week or so on Phi Phi Islands. We went out diving some days with Kenny, the owner of Island Divers and some other guys. The evenings was spent in nice restaurants and good bars. And whatever available time I had was used to pack all my stuff. After a couple of years on the island I was stuck with 60 kilo or more of things, and the challenge was to get the weight down. I tried to sell some of it but ended up with throwing away some and giving away most. In the end I was left with around 40 kilo.

The day came when I left the island together with Jez. He headed up to Bangkok and I went to the airport to catch a Silkair flight to Singapore. I did expect some problems with 40 kilo of luggage, and It was not completely problem free. They accepted 20 kilo of personal luggage and since I was going to Manado they also accepted 15 kilo of dive equipment. I had to pay for the 6 kilos I had extra, and it cost me 4000 Thai Baht in total.

I arrived in Singapore late in the evening and as my airplane departed for Manado in Indonesia early in the morning, I decided to stay on the airport during the night. And Changi Airport in Singapore must surely be best airport you can stay in when you need to make a night go away. I spent time on free Internet, free cinema, watched some television and enjoyed some great food before I fell asleep in a chair and woke up just in time for an almost free shower and then headed to the waiting airplane.

My flight arrived in Manado a little after lunch, and a driver met me and took me to the head office of Bastianos Dive Resorts. They arranged a hotel room for me and I used the rest of the day reading a book, eating and sleeping. Next morning I met up with the owner and had a meeting with her before we went to the harbor and rented a speedboat that took us to the resort. When we arrived at the resort it was already known that I was coming so I got a great welcome from the General Manager, a really nice Indonesian gentleman named Frans.

After a couple of days with many introductions I began to do the real work. Teaching diving, talking with customers, making sure that everything was good in the resort, solving upcoming problems and so on. It was great fun, and the good mixture of teaching diving and managing the resort was a great challenge which I enjoyed very much. After a couple of months where it was a bit like being a fish out of the water with all the new challenges, I felt that I could manage it very well.

The diving was really great as well. Bunaken Island do not have a lot of large pelagic marine life, but there are fantastic corals surrounded by an abundance of marine life and good visibility. We saw on a regular basis green turtles, hawksbill turtles, white tip reef sharks, black tip reef sharks, napoleon wrasses, bumphead parrotfishes, pygmy seahorses, spanish dancers and a lot more of really good stuff. And from time to time special marine life like pilot whales, dolphins, thresher sharks, sea cows, tiger sharks and other stuff showed up. It is not difficult to see why many divers hold Bunaken Island as one of the best places for diving in the world.

After 5 months of hard and rewarding work I was told it would be difficult for Bastianos Dive Resorts to sponsor my work permit longer then the agreed six months. It is quite hard to work legally in Indonesia and it require a great deal of money for permits and so on to do it. This was not a problem at all for me as I felt they had treated me fair and six months was what we had agreed on in the first place. At the same time I got the good news that my old manager and good friend Wayne from Island Divers would come to the resort. Wayne is a great mate from England who hired me to work on Phi Phi Islands, and who I worked for as long as I stayed there. He had left his job as manager with Island Divers just a couple af months ago and was now working full time as videographer.

Wayne came to Bunaken Island on my request to make a underwater DVD for Bastianos Dive Resorts who has a goal to sell it to their customers and use it as a marketing tool. We worked closely together on the project as I went diving with him to point out interesting marine life, we edited the whole movie together and I added some of my still photos to the finished DVD. It took us a full month to make a DVD of both the resort in Bunaken Island and Lembeh Strait that turned out very good. I know we both feel pretty proud of the job we did. It was shown to several customers and the management of Bastianos Dive Resorts, and they was all ecstatic and the customers was interested in buying the DVD even before it was completely done.

When the DVD was done my time as a Dive Resort Manager for a beautiful resort on Bunaken Island was over as well. The time I was there developed me further as a dive instructor, manager and person. To meet so many fantastic customers through my position developed me, and working together with all the dedicated and incredible members of staff was no less than a privilege. As the management of Bastianos Dive Resorts said it; we made a stable platform for the resorts to continue their growth in the future during those six months. It is six month of my life I will always cherish and never forget. I do humbly thank Bastianos Dive Resorts for giving me the chance in the position I got and always believing in me.

Wayne left Manado one day ahead of me and went with Silkair to Singapore where he had to service his video camera. It got some problems while videoing underwater for the DVD we was making, and it had to be looked at by professionals. I went the day after on a flight from Manado to Jakarta with Garuda International. I had a hard time leaving Bunaken Island and all the friends I made there, but when I reached Manado I felt very lucky to have been able to experience what I had experienced the past six months. The detour to Jakarta was made to meet up with some friends I had got on Bunaken Island. I stayed there for 5 days and in between meeting friends I also had time to check out some of the special things Jakarta has to offer and being really sick. When my time was up in Jakarta I took a Jetstar flight to Singapore and headed to my favorite hotel in that small country, Bayview Hotel in Bencoolen Street.

It was good to be back to civilization after more or less six month on a island when I arrived at my hotel. The day after me and Wayne connected again as he had to extend his stay in order to service his video camera properly. We has around five days together in Singapore. I acted as guide and was able to show Wayne some places he had not seen during his recent visits to Singapore, he had some money burning in his pocket so we did some shopping, had some inexpensive but good food and so on. And on one evening we met up with Bart who is a guy from Poland who worked together with us at Island Divers on Phi Phi Island, and as it turned out to be his birthday there was a big party.

Everything has an end, and the days really fly when you have fun. So the day came when I checked out and headed to the airport for my flight with Tiger Airways to Bangkok, and Wayne went to the Andaman Islands to do some work for our friend Jez. I had already made a reservation in Bangkok for a little favorite hotel of mine named Cozy At Ten. It is a small, but really nice and centrally located, hotel that I often use when I am in Bangkok. So I arrived at the hotel late at night and enjoyed the feeling I often get when I am in the City of Angels. I have been in Bangkok so much since I left Norway that it has almost become home for me in a strange way.

I have now been in Bangkok for ten days in order to wait for my brother who will arrive in two days. The days has been used working on my websites, visiting friends, doing some necessary shopping and enjoying the atmosphere here. When my brother arrives we will have 15 days together to explore Bangkok and hopefully do some diving in Sipadan, Malaysia.

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/

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.

BANGKOK
I had already found a couple of telephone numbers to hotels when I arrived in Bangkok in the early afternoon. The hotels I called was Majestic Suites, Grand Business Inn and Dynasty Inn, and the only one with available rooms was Dynasty Inn so I headed there. The price was 1480 Thai Baht for a room in the new building. I stayed in the old building before and did not like the room at all, so it was a nice surprise to see that the rooms in the new building was much nicer.

My only reason for travelling from Phuket to Bangkok was a digital camera and waterproof casing from Canon. I bought the system in Singapore just two months earlier, and on my fourth dive the waterproof casing got flooded. That resulted in a camera full of sea water so it couldn’t be used again. I suspected the waterproof casing to be faulty as it flooded when I took it on some test dives later without the camera. So I contacted Canon in Thailand and was told that I could send it to them.

I thought that an even idea then sending it to them would be to bring it to them. I went to the offices of Canon in Thailand on a Tuesday and told them that I needed it back by Friday as I had a airline ticket to Singapore that day. Was told by the assistant manager that it would be no problem and even got his cellular number. Friday came and I heard nothing, and after loads of calls from me that went unanswered I had to cancel my airline ticket. Tried to make contact trough the weekend as well but with no luck. On monday I was able to get hold of them, but the assistant manager was not willing to talk to me. I guess he was embarrassed. So I got the manager on the phone and he told me that they had done nothing as they had no instrument test with in Bangkok. I just couldn’t belive it as they could have told me that before I came to Bangkok and visited their offices.

SINGAPORE
After a wasted week in Bangkok I made a reservation on a Air Asia flight to Singapore. I paid 3140 Thai Baht for the ticket. Arrived in Singapore very late on a Tuesday and the hunt for a hotel started immediately. Singapore often got conventions going on so I normally make a reservation for a hotel before I arrive there. The only available option when I arrived without reservation was Carlton Hotel. It is a quite nice hotel, very central location, but also expensive for a person who live in this part of the world with 270 Singapore Dollar per night (+ 21 Singapore Dollar for Internet connection if that is needed per 24 hours).

Went to Canon in Singapore the following day and delivered my digital camera and waterproof casing to them. Got in contact with the assistant manager there as well and he gave me his cellular number so I could contact him directly if needed. He could not promise me an answer before monday as the testing would require some time.

My next stop after Singapore would be Sulawesi in Indonesia where I had planned some amazing diving. And where there is amazing diving a digital camera is needed. I did have a digital camera already, but it was flooded, and I had no idea if I would get it back when it was promised as experience with Canon told me I wouldn’t. So I went to the Scubacam who has lot of knowledge when it comes to digital cameras and waterproof casings. It was them who adviced me to buy my now flooded Canon camera in the first place.

Scubacam adviced me once more to buy the same brand and model that had been flooded as it was the best option for me and the chance for me being unlucky twice was slim. So I went to Sim Lim Square and bought a new Canon G7 with waterproof casing and memory cards. It cost me 1300 Singapore Dollar for the package. My plan was to sell the package that I had delivered to Canon in Singapore if I got it back and it worked.

While I was in Singapore I went to the cinema and saw the movie 300. Not my favorite movie of all times but it was a good movie. The cinema was located in the new Cathay Mall and before the movie started I went to a restaurant named The Indulge on ground floor. A restaurant I can not recommend for anyone. They cheated me for money and the food experience was the poorest I’ve experienced during all my stays in Singapore. The amount of money I was cheated for was not more than around 10 Singapore Dollar but it still should not have happened. I was charged for a dessert I never had and they did not honor my discount coupons they had given me to get me into their restaurant. My food was cold and the only positive thing I have to say about this restaurant is that their apple cider from South Africa was good.

I like Singapore in so my remaining days was spent on several walking trips around the city and some great food at local restaurants. I reserved my ticket to Sulawesi in Indonesia on Friday, and the only available seats for the flight on Monday was business class tickets one way that went for 684 Singapore Dollar.

Monday came and the first thing I tried was to contact Canon in Singapore as they had promised me answers regarding the testing. Well, not unexpected it was impossible to get hold of anyone there that could give me any answers. What is it with Canon and customer service? Was lucky that I had already bought myself a new digital camera and waterproof casing so I would be able to take some photos during my upcoming dive holiday. The airplane departed in the evening and I arrived in Manado on Sulawesi at late night.

INDONESIA
When I arrived in Manado I had to buy a tourist visa for 30 days that set me back 25 U.S. Dollar. I collected my luggage and went to the waiting area. Had been in contact with a resort named Bastianos for weeks and got a really good deal with them. Part of the deal was that they would pick me up and get me to one of their resorts. They have two resorts and as I had made a reservation for a week divided on both of them they would give me all transfers for free.

As soon as I arrived at the waiting area between 5 and 15 guys was on me and asked if I wanted to go to a dive resort. I told them that I had made a reservation already and that it was with Bastianos. They just laughed and pointed me to a really nice guy. He apparently had not been told that I would be there so he was very surprised. The first thing he did was to get on the phone with the owner of Bastianos and was told that a car was on the way and that I had to wait for 10 minutes..

After 10 minutes a car arrived and I slept all the way to the city of Bitung. There a boat from Bastianos Lembeh picked me up and after a boat ride of 10 minutes we arrived at a very nice resort. I was welcomed by a German guy named Sven who was the General Manager there and got to my room. They have both standard and superior rooms there and my standard room was really nice.

Next day was my first day of diving. It was only me and a guy from Singapore who went out with a local divemaster named Bobby. The only guests on the resort was me, the Singaporean guy and a Swedish guy. I did 3 great dives that day and had a really nice time on the resort with amazing food. The day after the two others left and I was the only guest there so I got lot of attention from the staff.

Sven was a great host and I had all my meals together with him. So my days was divided between 3 amazing dives, food with Sven and relaxation in my room. After a couple of days I was told by Sven that the owner would arrive at late evening with some friends. So while we had our dinner they arrived and was ready for a good time as they had brought a guitar and some nice drinks.

I was invited to joined them and had the best time ever. Candy was the owner and she had brought with her Allan, Riska, Nadine, Ingrid, Kiki and Glenn. I became friends with them and the next two days was magic with lots of fun. Really feel lucky to have met them there and privileged to call most of them good friends now.

A total of 14 dives was done at Bastianos Lembeh and they was all great. The first 2 was with Bobby as divemaster and the 12 last was with a really nice guy named Winston as divemaster. I saw frogfishes of all kinds, scorpionfishes of all kinds, mimic octopus, several pygme seahorses, huge cobias, the largest Jenkins Stingray I have ever seen, electric clam, flamboyant cuttlefish, reef cuttlefish, pipefishes of all kinds and lots more. Never seen so much cool marine life at one spot before.

Next stop for me was Bastianos Bunaken. I went from Bitung with Candy and Ingrid and arrived in Manado a while later. There I was allowed to use Internet at the main office of the two resorts before I was transferred to the harbor. From the harbor it was a 40 minute boat ride to Bastianos Bunaken.

As Bastianos Lembeh is brand new and Bastianos Bunaken is a bit older there is some difference between them. But what Bastianos Bunaken lack in new buildings they have in a nicer beach. I had a bungalow on the beach that had been renovated just a month earlier. My neighbors was Kurt and Julie, a couple from Canada. I hung out with them most of the time and I did 6 dives in total with Kurt.

All my dives was done with a local divemaster named Steven. Lembeh and Bunaken dive wise is very different. In Lembeh there are very little corals and it is mostly shallow muck diving. Bunaken got huge areas of shallow coral gardens that turns into amazing wall dives where the walls are incredible deep. I saw turtles, two different kinds of sharks, pygmee seahorses, bluespotted stingrays, nudibranches, different kind of pipefishes, garden eels, moray eels and much more.

Next stop was Manado where I would stay a couple of days and wait for my flight to Davao in Philippines. I was picked up by Candy and she set me up at Gran Central Hotel where I paid 340.000 Indonesian Rupiah per night. This was a really nice hotel with free broadband Internet. First night I was invited to eat dinner with Allan, Candy, Ingrid and a couple of their friends. Allan picked me up and took me to a new and really nice restaurant. To my surprise Sven was there as well as he had a meeting in Manado earlier that day. After dinner Candy had to go home to her family and Ingrid headed of as well. The rest of us went to a disco and had a really cool night out. One of us got so drunk that a wheelchair had to be used to get him out, so a bit of alcohol was consumed. A friend of Candy had been told by her to get me home safe and well, so she drove me back to my hotel. I couldn’t belive how caring my newly found friends was.

The day after I was offered to go to the countryside with Allan, but I declined as I was rather tired. So I slept most of the day away and in the evening Allan picked me up and took me to a new and nice restaurant that a friend owned. There was Candy, Ingrid and a couple of more friends as well. Went home early that night as I had to be on the airport at 7 A.M.

Allan came to my hotel at 6 A.M. to wake me up and we had some breakfast at the hotel, before he drove me to the airport. I had to buy my ticket to Davao in Philippines there and he fixed it all for me. The ticket was pretty expensive at 130 U.S. Dollar with a flight time of just about 50 minutes or so.

Said good bye for now to Allan and thanked him for the amazing time he and his friends had created for me while I was in Indonesia. It is hard to find good friend these days, but I really feel that Candy, Allan, Riska, Ingrid and Nadine are good friends. Will see some of them on a dive convention in Bangkok in the end of April and really looking forward to that.

PHILIPPINES
Sat beside a young Swedish man who did a visa run on the airplane to Davao. He had married a Indonesian girl and invested 400 million Indonesian Rupiah in a fishing boat on Sulawesi and made a good living out of it. We had a good chat before the airplane arrived on the new airport in Davao. Tried to find a regular taxi but there was none so I had to go with a guy who owned the oldest car I’ve seen in years. He wanted 400 Philippine Pesos to take me to the city of Davao. Included was a detour to a ATM machine as there was none on the airport, and to be able to pay him I needed some money.

Took a while to find a ATM that accepted VISA cards, but after it was found I was taken to The Royal Mandaya Hotel. It was very centrally located in the city of Davao and they charged me 2200 Philippine Peso per night. My room was basic and not to nice, but good enough to sleep in. The City of Davao is one of the largest in the world if you look at the land area, but the city center itself is not that large. So I never used a taxi for the two days I was there, but enjoyed walking around.

Planned to do some diving while I was in Davao as they have some dive spots not to far from the city. But after talking to some western people who live there I didn’t bother as they said the marine life and visibility at the time was not so good. I spent my days getting used to the city life in Philippines and had some really good food.

The best restaurant I’ve visited so far during my trip was without doubt De Bonte Koe. It has a central location in the city center. The owner is a very helpful man from Holland who also own a great Spanish restaurant next door. You should not miss these restaurants if you ever visit Davao, I know for sure I will eat there next time I get there.

A couple of days goes by very fast so it was time for me to get to Cebu. I made a reservation with Cebu Pacific Airlines to Cebu the night before at the cost of 2321 Philippine Peso. The only available flight had departure at 7 A.M. so I had to be at the airport very early. Boarded a Airbus 319 with ampble space, and was served a pineapple juice to drink during the trip. And around 1 hour later I arrived at the airport in Cebu.

At the information counter a helpful guy made a reservation for me in a deluxe room at Richmond Plaza Hotel for the price of 1800 Philippine Peso per night. My plan was to get to Malapasqua and stay there some days to do world class diving. But when I arrived in Cebu and called the resort they told me that there was no rooms available. Tried to tell them that I had made a confirmed reservation several weeks before but was told that it didn’t matter as they were fully booked.

So I only got one day of diving at Malapasqua as I did a two day trip, but did not see the thrasher shark that I had come to see. Did spot a lone hammerhead shark in a distance and a lot of nice marine life.

The rest of the days in Cebu was spent as a tourist visiting all the regular spots, eating at some nice local restaurants and checking out some nice malls. Also met a couple of really nice people there that took pride in showing me their city.

Had to change hotel after a couple of days, and got a room at Golden Prince Suites for 1550 Philippine Peso per night. In my last hotel I had a deluxe room and in this one I got a standard room, but this was much nicer then the first one. Internet was also available in all rooms for 60 Philippine Peso per hour or 500 Philippine Peso per day.

Cebu was a nice place, but I was very disappointed that my plans to dive there for a full week did not work out. So after some days I made a reservation for a ticket with Cebu Pacific to Manila for the price of 2814 Philippine Peso.

Same kind of airplane as from Davao to Cebu, but on this one my seat was so damaged that it was very uncomfortable to sit in. My complaints was not heard as the airplane was full and there was no available seats. So I arrived in Manila with cramp in my legs and a back that had seen better days.

I bought myself a SIM card with a telephone number in Cebu for 99 Philippine Peso, so I called up Best Western Hotel La Corona when I arrived at the airport. They had available standard rooms with breakfast for 2600 Philippine Peso per night. The queue to metered taxis was so long that I took a limousine from the airport to the hotel for 530 Philippine Pesos. Arrived at the hotel after 30 minutes and liked it immediate as it had great staff. There was free wireless Internet at the lobby (that seldom worked), the room had all amenities that could be asked for and some sort of breakfast was included.

My only reason for travelling to Manila was to get tourist visas to India and Thailand. I needed one to India as my friends Wayne and Sian was there to visit our friend Jez who own a dive shop in the Andaman Islands. But when I got to the Embassy of India I was told that it would take a full week to process my application. Therefor I could just forget about a trip to India at that point as I needed to be in Thailand just two weeks later.

My next stop was the Embassy of Thailand to apply for a tourist visa there. The processing would take one working day so that was nice. But when I arrived there they wanted bank account statements, proof that I had a job or studied back home in Norway and lots of other stuff I’ve never had to add to the application before.

So even if I know it can be hard to get a tourist visa for me at the Embassy of Thailand in Singapore I will take my chances there. The reason why it can be hard for me to get it in Singapore is that I have been to Thailand very often the past years and they do not like that for some reason. But at least all they need there to process my application is one passport photo and it is free of charge.

I made a reservation for a one way ticket to Singapore with Cebu Pacific Airline for the price of 6800 Philippine Peso. Departure date should be April 14, but by a mistake somewhere my ticket said April 12. When I tried to call Cebu Pacific Airline to get it corrected I was told that I had to pay a fee of 3000 Philippine Peso. In addition to that I had to pay 6500 Philippine Peso extra for the ticket on April 14 as they had no cheap tickets left. So it would cost me 9500 Philippine Peso to do the re-booking after an error had happened. I got irritated and cancelled it for a fee of 3000 Philippine Peso and made a reservation for a one way ticket with Singapore Airlines for 9000 Philippine Peso instead.

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.

Return to Komodo
It had been several years since I had dived the Komodo area. The opportunity to do a checkout trip with liveaboard SMY Ondina in preparation for a charter in Raya Ampat arrived rather suddenly. Within twelve days my dive buddy and I had made out travel arrangements, flown to Bali, connected to Bima and were sailing into the prolific waters of Komodo, Rinca and the Komodo National Park.

Lucky that we keep our gear packed for such occasions! Two of my favourite dive sites in the area are Cannibal Rock and Torpedo Point. Both sites are hidden in a deep bay on the southern end of Rinca Island and are further sheltered by Nusa Kode, which sits in the middle of the bay. As with many great sites, strong currents often prevail. Fortunately, these sites are somewhat protected, so it only takes a bit of effort to coordinate dives for slack tide.

Cannibal Rock
Cannibal Rock just breaks the surface at low tide. Its barren appearance is deceiving, as below the water is some of the most concentrated marine life in the world. The nutrient-rich upwellings produced by the meeting of the cool Indian Ocean and the warm Flores Sea bring in food for scores of invertebrates and fish. The rock is blanketed with corals, gorgonians, black corals and crinoids in an endless variety of colour. The sheer density of life is mind-boggling.

Red, purple and yellow sea apples, a type of rare sea cucumber, are quite common here. For me, they are reason enough to make the trip. At night and when the current are running, these fascinating creatures extend their bright yellow and white tentacles to filter plankton from the water. We found plenty of other interesting animals – lionfish, angelfish, fire urchins (sometimes with Coleman shrimp!), lobsters and decorator crabs among the cracks and crevices of Cannibal Rock. At one large coral, we looked on as surgeonfish stopped for a spa treatment at the cleaner wrasse station.

When there was current, fish were more active. I watched as a golden trumpetfish tensed, then released like a golden arrow set loose from an aquatic archer’s bow into a closely packed target of silversides. Small schools of snapper, surgeonfish and other species swarmed around Cannibal Rock, making every dive frenetic and enthralling.

Torpedo Point
As photographers, my buddy Tony and I were quite happy to dive Torpedo Point and look for macro life as often as possible. Other passengers more keen on big fish, sharks and rays went to a different site on the southern end of the bay. The first subject to catch our attention here was an upside-down jellyfish that scooted across the sand atop a decorator crab that had adopted the jellyfish as camouflage. When I tried to take a photo, the crab buried itself in the sand, leaving only its eyes and the jellyfish exposed.

Moments after leaving the crab we encountered a 25-centinmetre long Armina nudibranch, which feeds on sea pens. As soon as I photographed one creature, we’d find another, and another and then another. We spent one shallow dive playing hopscotch across the rocks finding various species of colourful nudibranchs, pretty urchins and loads of juvenile fish. At night creatures such as squid, octopus, cat sharks, lobsters, crabs and Spanish dancers ruled the area. Patches of seemingly barren sand in the day became dotted with beautifully coloured sea pens rising out of the sea floor. Tiny crabs, shrimp or gobies lived on most of the sea pens, as well as on soft and wire corals deeper down. Torpedo rays, which stun their prey with an electrical charge, were prevalent in the sandy shallows.

With our night-time vision confined to the beam of or dive torch, we discovered three frogfish, one yellow, one grey and one a brilliant red-orange all nestled among the rocks, and all of which we probably overlooked on previous dives. We explored the area for two days, then sailed off in search of other interesting adventures and discoveries among the rocks of Komodo.

An apple a day
The strikingly coloured red and purple sea apple is a sea cucumber belonging to the genus Pseudocolochirus. This filter feeder uses rows of tube feet to attach itself to rocks or corals in an area of high current, then exposes its feeding tentacles to the passing water in order to collect and consume tiny plankton particles. Sea apple tentacles are covered with mucus. Once a tentacle accumulates food, it’s brought to the sea apple’s mouth, sucked clean and recoated with mucus.

Sea apples can inflate or deflate their bodies to ride the current or undulate their bodies and “run” away. When seriously disturbed, they will eject extremely sticky threads, called “Cuvierian Tabules” from their rear ends, which then stick all over a potential predator. One thing most divers don’t know is that sea cucumbers breathe through their butts. Most people assume the front end of the sea cucumbers do the breathing, but it’s actually the anus which opens and closes as the animal inhales and exhales!

Pinsi dive ships
Several liveaboards offering Komodo itineraries use traditional “Pinisi” style ships. These wooden ships are made by hand, following time-honoured methods used by the tribes of South Sulawesi for many generations. SMY Ondina, our floating home in Komodo, was built in South Sulawesi on the famous shipbuilding peninsula of Bira. Construction of the hull took one-and-a-half years, all by wooden mallet and chisel. Shipbuilders first assembled the hull, held together by wooden dowel pins, then slowly pulled it into the sea. The standing rigging was then erected using a carefully selected three for the mast. Delicate sanding and polishing by hand was required before the ship sailed to Makassar, where modern conveniences were added.

Factfile
Getting there: There are many liveaboards plying the waters of Komodo and Rinca. Trips usually originate in Bima or Bali. There are also land-based dive operators in Labuanbajo which are less expensive but require long boat rides to reach most of the dive sites. Many major airlines fly into Bali from Singapore, Hong Kong and other Asian hubs. From Bali there are daily flights to Bima (Sumbawa) or Labuanbajo (Flores).

Dive season and climate:
Tropical climate, with diving possible year round. The preferred season falls between May and November. Although the water temperature is generally warm, it can become chilly. A 3mm to 5mm exposure suit should suffice.

Documents and taxes:
For most countries, visas are issued on arrival at Denpasar airport. The fee is currently US$25. There is also a departure tax, payable only in local currency and currently costs Rupiah 100,000 for international departures and Rupiah 20,000 for domestic.

Communication:
Most, if not all liveaboards have satellite phones for guest use, as well as USB and VHF radio communications. Mobile phone coverage generally not available once ships leave port.

Electricity: 220-240V, 50Hz. Some liveaboards may supply 110V.

Currency: Indonesian Rupiah. US$ also accepted in some situations.

Tipping: Variable on liveaboards. General range of about 10% of the trip price is recommended, but check with the boat operator.

Health and safety: Malaria is endemic in many parts of Indonesia. Although mosquitoes are not common on liveaboards, a prophylaxis is recommended for land visits.

Time zone: GMT + 8 hours.

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.

Koh Tao – Within 45 minutes from turtle island are about 20 decent dive sites, ranging from sandy-bottomed beaches, to swim-throughs, soft coral gardens, and deep-water pinnacles. Sightings of pelagics, like whale sharks (the world’s biggest fish), are a common marvel. Many of the boats from Samui and Pangan visit the same places. Thanks to the ease of diving these reefs, washed by gentle currents, this is the premiere place in Southeast Asia for neophytes to get their fins wet.

Phuket – If you’re coming down here to dive chances are you’ll end up water-logging some time at the two most popular sites for daytripping divers: Shark Point and Anemone Reef. The former reef earned the moniker for its largesse of leopard sharks. Only two-meters long, they laze around on the sand, and are used to the divers approaching; but you should resist the urge to pet them, for fear they might be injured or infected. Also sure to spellbind is the slew of soft corals in pink and purple. Nearby is Anemone Reef, which teems with marine life. Alas, neither of these sites should be attempted by rookies; the currents can be swift and unpredictable, and visibility is often not that good.

Phi Phi Islands – There’s a sea of possibilites for aquanauts in this area of towering limestone crags. Koh Bida Nok, a sliver of an island, sees an awful lot of divers, enraptured by her plethora of staghorn corals and anemone fish, green moray eels and octobi. Also scoring high-water marks for marine diversity is Laem Tong, or Golden Point, near Koh Yoong. Trips here may include a plunge down to explore the pinnacle of Hin Jom – home to innocuous leopard sharks and stingrays. Schools of fusiliers, barracuda and jacks are repeat visitors, too.

The Similans – The reputation of these nine islands has made international waves, as they are one of the earth’s greatest living treasures for the amphibiously inclined. Situated around 100 kilometres northwest of Phuket, you’ll most likely have to book a liveaboard to navigate these pristine waters. Some of the more legendary sites here are Elephant Head, off island #8, which is renowned for its scenic swimthroughs and plethora of lionfish, coral trout, yellow goatfish, and on occation, the hawksbill or Ridley’s Turtle. Off the same island is Fantasy Reef, home to an array of clown and trigger fish and great swooping rays. But these sites are just rippling the surface – another 15-plus are waiting for you – varying in difficulty from intermediate to advanced.

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.

Although a relatively safe recreational sport, it is necessary to become a certified diver before venturing below. There are several certification bodies (BSAC, SSI, PADI, CMAS) which offer entry-level certification and train would-be Cousteaus in dive safety and academic and practical skills. The PADI open-water course takes three to four days and successful completion of four open-water dives, confined sessions and academics to become certified.

All courses require a reasonable degree of fitness and health as a basic prerequisite before embarking on the practical training, as well as sound knowledge of dive theory and physics gaines through training videos, manuals and written tests. Diving isn’t for everyone and those who suffer from claustrophobia, a fear of hights, or panic-attacks may find it more challenging than others.

After an introductory training video and equipment review the first underwater breath is in confined water, i.e. a swimming pool or similar area used to complete underwater skill sets with your instrucor. This is designed to introduce a person to the unnatural feeling of breathing underwater in a safe and controlled environment and complete skills necessary for safe diving such as communication, regulator recovery, mask flooding and development of safe.dive habits. After the confined sessions you are ready to practise your skills in an open-water environment and experience the adventure of scuba diving.

The initial thrill of breathing underwater is soon replaced with a feeling of freedom and wonder at the prospect of exploring the marine environment. Your senses are challenged with the feeling of weightlessness, the adrenalin and the unique sights and sounds. The sensations experienced are due to the physical difference of being underwater and their effect on the body and senses. Most notable is the pressure which can be felt as you descend to greater depths, as well as changes in sight and sound which make for a truly underworldly experience.

In addition to the practical and academic aspects of diving, it is also important to appreciate the limits imposed by the underwater environment, and to respect marine ecology. Diving is fun, and once you become comfortable in your abilities the marine life offers a realm of discovery. Thailand’s seas contain an amazing array of marine life from sea snakes to whale sharks. Your instructor will teach you good diving practises which limit interaction and damage to marine life, yet ensure the experience is both complete and unforgettable.

After completion of the entry level PADI open-water scuba dive course you are now qualified to dive independently and plan, conduct, and log no-decimpression dives when accompanied by a buddy, to a maximum depth of 18 meters.

The adventure does not stop there, and a sea of possibilities opens up for those wishing to continue their diving education. For some scuba diving provides such a rewarding experience they make it a career, and progress up the training ladder to become divemasters, instructors, or technical-diving specialists. For others the pure joy and satisfaction, of being a certified diver is enough to keep the imagination alive and the dive holidays regular, whether you’re into sharks or ship wrecks or simply enjoy blowing bubbles.