A very scary spooktacular night at Asia Divers

Halloween Night at The Point oooooooo

The All-Saints Day long weekend in the Philippines started off on the tail of yet another typhoon, but luckily the weather changed quickly into an amazingly hot and sunny weekend. Some folks missed the grand event on Saturday night, but we're glad they pulled through and came down on Saturday. The Halloween party at the Point was filled with the usual sorts of spooky characters and very bewitching staff members. Face painting was once again was a big hit for the many kids and even the bigger kids. Thanks to all those who participated and turned up for a bloody ghoulish night!

ABYSS SCUBA GROUP APRIL 2010

Great news, Abyss Scuba Group will be joining us in April 2010. Its going to be our pleasure to show the Abyss divers some great sites around Puerto Galera. We will of course be sure to show them the Canyons and Verdi Island drop off, two of our premier dive sites with great canyon walls and drop offs, full of soft and hard corals, loads of small critters such as countless kinds of nundibranches, stone and scorpion fish, frog fish, electric clam, all kinds of eels and much more. These sites also have great fish life with schooling jacks to large schools of Banner fish, sweet lips, Barracuda, jacks, Bumphead Parrott fish and a good chance to see turtles and a lot more. The Verdi island, back side, will feature a champagne bottom with bubbles being pushed up from the bottom of the sea floor, due to volcanic action below. For those who like the macro, we have some of the best in the world. The giant clams (not so giant yet) site provides opportunity for ghost pipefish, different seahorses, scorpion leaf fish, ribbon eels, Flamboyant cuttlefish, octopus and lots more. Fore more information on our dive sites, check out this link, www.asiadivers.com/asiadivers/divesitelist.php or just follow the link at www.asiadivers.com to check out Asia divers and El Galleon resort.












With our ease of being able to offer over 30 dive sites within 15min of the dive center will allow Abyss divers to do as many as four day dives with ease. Our dive guides are always ready to assist you and with the number of boats we have its generally not a problem to put you on a boat to a site you want to go. Night dives are on request and can be done any night. Nitrox is available and generally its a 32 mix, but we can blend whatever you need, so keep that in mind you guys and girls from Abyss Scuba. We all at El Galleon Resort, and our resident dive center Asia Divers, wish you well and look forward to meeting with you in April 2010, see you soon!!

Sha Tin College Week 2nd year in a row!!

Asia Divers/El Galleon has been running on full charge as we had a group of 48 students, and 4 teachers from Sha Tin College, Hong Kong here. Even with the weather not being as nice as we all would have liked, they had a fantastic time doing their diving courses and various activities in the local area. Besides the day time stuff, we also had a very fun night at Waimea, where pretty much all of the kids, teachers and instructors landed up in the pool. The grand finale was the Philippine Fiesta night, which included a cultural show, live band and a fireworks display. It's been a great time for all and we hope to see everyone back again next year for the third year in a row. A big thanks to Alan Dickson for organising this event with us once again.

Sha Tin Photos here

Reef Check event at El Galleon Resort

It was a great honor to have had Gregor Hodgson executive director of Reef Check (www.ReefCheck.org) and his group sponsored by Malibu Rum for their orientation to the Reef Check program. The group arrived Tuesday and without delay started the program with an orientation to the course and Puerto Galera. There were a few that need snorkeling lessons (given by Divemaster, Richard George) and after their practice session were out for their first look at the reefs of Puerto Galera. Everyone was blown away with the life they encountered and the coral reefs they found over their three-day event. There were five people so excited they continued with a discover scuba and all vowed to carry on with an Open Water course as soon as they arrived back in the US. The party’s continued into the night with Malibu paraphernalia covering the Point bar and lots of fun with cocktail competitions sponsored by Malibu rum. Some of the cocktails invented over the time they were here would be most welcome in any self respecting cocktail bar, anywhere in the world and yes, you can try one or two of them the next time your here at the Point. Many thanks to Reef Check, the wonderful people from Malibu, (Lisa, Jeffery, Pamela & Avil) Malibu Rum and all the participants, we all had a great time. Stand by for the next Reef Check course to be held here by Gregor Hodgson, October 11th to 18th. If you have any interest in knowing how you can help preserve the reefs and participate in the philosophies behind Reef Check, conservation, research and education, don’t miss this opportunity to meet Gregor and do something for our environment. Gregor holds a PhD in marine science and has a wealth of information that can only help us all understand what we can do to be proactive in preserving our coral reefs around the world.

The whole Reef Check group enjoying their final night at Allan’s place before heading off to tuck into curry night at El Galleon

Some of the Reef Check group got giddy about taking the plunge and “Discovering Scuba”. Congratulations Lisa Mccann, Avril Nuinez, Andrew Philips, Diana Vilibert, and Bryan Abras who all enjoyed their “down” time.

It’s not everyday that someone gets a shirt from us with 1000 dives on it. Congratulations to Nigel Barker who hit the magic number here this week with Josh and Sue folks

Willy's Bauters 500th Dive was celebrated in fine style with Josh,Tony Vermeulen, Evelyne Vanoverberghe, and Frederique Desle

Isabelle Strauss did her Open Water course with Kjell and she did a fantastic job. She was like a fish to water and made teaching a pleasure for her instructor. On her final dive she removed, replaced and cleared her mask while hovering, and that is not easy to do. We look forward to see her back her soon for her Advanced course. Well done Isabelle.

One member from the Reef Check group, William Keith, found out while he was snorkelling that the reef was so interesting he decided to do a Discover Scuba Dive. William and Kjell went to Monkey Beach and had a very nice dive. At one point he scared Kjell when he started to chase after a Titan Trigger fish, instead of swimming away from it. Maybe he didn’t know that he should stay away from them this time of year as it is mating season and Titan Trigger fish enjoy chasing divers once in a while. They made it safely back to Asia Divers and The Point Bar for a well earned celebration beer!

British School Manila gets wet!

It’s been an action packed week for all of us here as we had a group of 13 students, and 2 teachers from British School Manila on the grounds learning to dive. Alli straight back from Hong Kong spent a day with the gang in Manila doing their OW theory. The next day the whole group came down to do the fun part. This kept all the instructors very busy and the kids very happy. It’s been a fun week for all…a very big congratulations to goes out to everyone who all worked very hard to get their PADI Open Water certifications. Thanks to Liz Shipp and Paul Doran from the British School who organised this event. We hope to see you all back again soon!

Asia Divers Instructor team celebrates with the British School Manila’s newly certified divers: Elizabeth Shipp, Alexander Mathew Date, Matthew David Que, Harry Bewlay, Alessandra Oledan Rodriguez, Paul Doran, Tamara Gibb, Joanna Ko, Victoria Beckett, Jamie Giron, Yojiro Matsuda, Sachin Patel, Martin Litonjua, Greory Valkovic, and James Robertson

Tubbataha 2009

Allison is back with fantastic tales of Tubbataha. Alli, Lee Hung-ta, Andrew Sharkey, Anne Lim, Sabine Henkel, Alison Pockett, Judy Banning, Kenneth Svennerlind, Suzi Denton, Annelie Thelander, Per Eriksson, spent four days on the Stella Maris, exploring the beautiful Philippine Reefs of Tubbataha, which is a World Heritage site. The journey started out with a quick flight to Puerto Princessa and then and a brief stop at the local supermarket to stock up on the necessities…such as junk food and booze. Once on the boat, the group chilled out and slept through the night as we travelled 14 hours out to sea to the reef. Waking up bright and early we started the daily pattern of dive, eat, and sleep for the four to five dives a day. The walls are stunning and full of heaps of colourful fishes, many sharks, turtles, schooling jacks, eagle rays, barracuda, a very cosy display of marble rays and one very playful manta who teased us all with summersaults in front of us. To top it all off was the 25-30 meter vis and the 30-degree temperature. The group shot was taken at the ranger station, which houses a group of 10 men who live there for 3 months a year at a time. You can walk around this tiny spit of sand in less than 10 minutes. Believe me, this place is really out in the middle of no-where. Can you imagine having to travel 14 hours to the next piece of land! All in all a great trip was had by everyone.

Dubai American Academy gets wet... again!

Welcome back to the Dubai American Academy for the 2^nd year in a row. It’s been a fantastic time for everyone and all went home with big smiles on their faces for completing their courses, having some great diving and food experiences and enjoying their time in the Philippines. There were a few early mornings and a couple late nights, but in the end we were thrilled that everyone went home with an amazing aquatic experience and a new certification card. Josh, Kjell, Warren and Jaime looked after the Open Water gang of 20. Alli kept out of too much trouble with five Advanced students, and Pete got lots of smiles with the three Digital Underwater Photography students. All managed to finish their courses off in time so they could end the trip with a jeepney tour to the waterfalls, and visit a Mangyon village to deliver some food to them. A very big thanks to Suellen Taylor for organising all of this from Dubai and to Mohamad Hovrani and Daniel Summer for leading the tour along with Sue. We hope to see you all back again next year for the third time...

The happy divers accepting their certifications