The Scuba Thread 2008

Recreation Sports
1

So, MJB, Tanguero and I went off to Puerto Galera in the Philippines for a week. It’s a short hop from CKS to Manila, taking advantage of Cebu Pacific’s outrageous discounted holiday prices. We got in last Friday evening, had the dive shop (Frontier) send us a van, and we headed out into the mindnumbingly crowded roads of Manila. Took us forever to get out of the city, but once out, the cars stopped being in front of us and we got to the pier in Batangas. From there it was a private boat over to PG. We got situated quickly in our rooms, hit the Big Apple Bar for some fish and chips and then called it a night at about 1AM.

Next morning we had a quick cup of coffee and hit the water at 9AM. We did a wreck dive to get acclimated to the place. There was a lot of coral damage from past dynamite fishing and more recently from a typhoon. Viz was Kentingish.

So we go back, rinse off, and have breakfast. Hit the boat again at 11AM and go to Hole in the wall. Good current here and some bigger fish. But once we swam through the hole, it all ended.

That was it for the first day. Then back to the huts on the top of the hill to look over the bay and chill way out. The relax factor of PG is something else.

Caught a great dinner down on the beach, pork loin, spicy beef stew with fried potatoes. I was going to have LOTS of energy the next day.

And I did. I was up at 7AM, walked the beach, had a coffee or two and toast, and we got psyched for the shark caves dive. There’s a little overhang of a cliff and white tipped reefies hang out there in the AM and sleep. So we putter out there and there are like 7 friggin boats on the surface. :s

Fortunately there are many sites close together, so everyone was not at shark caves. There were 7-8 dives ahead of us though, and I gave MJB the wank signal, as in this is going to blow goats if we have to line up and file through the cave. But, they all left, the guide signaled two sharks, and I got up close to the cave. Tanguero gave me his light and I immediately spotted a large catfish, er shark, looking directly at me. Just a baby. Then to the left there was a big one. I got in a position to see his entire profile. He was about 1.75M and just a magnificent fish. I’ve never been so close to a shark that I didn’t eat, and this was a big treat. My Zen moment, just laying there on my belly looking at this guy, laying there on his belly.

We swam over to part of the fast current canyons to check out the menu. Lots of fish, big ones too. Time to go up and I realized, too late, that I was at 25meters of so with about 40 bar left. Ooops :blush: I ended up sharing air with the guide at the second long safety stop.

MJB and T did one more dive that day and called it a day, then Tanguero and I went on the Sabang wreck night dive. It kicked ass. There are three wrecks out in the bay. I dropped over the side and bit through my mouth guard and was holding it in pace for the whole dive, but it didn’t matter. We saw a very slow, VERY large scrawled (or broom) filefish:

Having that thing swim around in slow motion in the dark was just great. Lots of big lionfish, a pair of ghost pipe fish. Then on to the second wreck and third wrecks. There was stuff there, but I was getting preoccupied with my regulator which was now really irritating. So, I decided to switch to my octopus. It free flowed. I have a snap-off hose on it so I snapped it off, and tried again. Taking my reg out of my mouth, putting in the octopus. Free flow, which is like sticking your head out of the supertrain window with you mouth open. I stuck with the broken reg, but now I had lost a lot of air dicking around. So at 50bar, we headed back.

And the fun began.
A flounder:

Two flying fish, hanging out on the bottom:

And then we saw this guy:

A stargazer. It hides in the sand, except for its eyeballs. Waits for a fish to come by and GULP, swallows them like a frogfish. The guide stuck a finger under his body, he came out, bumped into rocks as we had blinded it with out lights, swam five feet away and dug himself back into the sand.

A truly fantastic encounter!

The next day, we dive a great drift dive at Sinandigan Wall with some Japanese divers. Lots of nudibranches and little aquarium fish. Nice dive. When we came to the surface I did ask Tanguero and MJB what the Japanese word for “bouancy control” was. Apparently there isn’t one.

Then we did canyons. Twice in the same day. Why? Fishes. BIG fishes and lots of them. Giant trevally ,blue trevally, schools of unicorn fish, emperors, enormous sweetlips, red toothed trigger fish like you wouldn’t believe, groupers, and some tuna as well. And this was on a day that the current was moderate.

I came up and stood on the boat with a huge smile and told Tanguero, “I cannot believe that THIS is my hobby.”

The last dive day for MJB and I, the three of us went to Verde drop off. It’s a day trip, two dives and bbq on the beach. The coral was great, no signs of bombing. The nudibraches were numerous and varied. An excellent long dive, and the last one with Tanguero for a while as he is leaving Taiwan for the next chapter in his life. Lunch on the beach.

There were lots of little things that we saw, but it’s hard to write up an entire dive. Finer moments were seeing the stargazer bury itself in the sand, watching the reef sharks up close, a swim by of a hundred unicorn fish, a big ass snake, a frogfish in a pod like sea sponge with his lure out, giant nudibraches with it’s “feet” out walking along the reef, giant trevally darting in and out of the current, sweetlips eating other fish…

There are more I’m sure, but it’s kind of a blur now.

A great trip and a great start to the new year.

A special nod to Tanguero, a great diver, and a truly class act. :notworthy:

2

Sounds like such a great trip. I haven’t been diving for a while, and haven’t been reading the dive threads, but clearly I’ve been missing something.

If someone is heading out to PI, Micronesia or Borneo this year for some diving and open to a new dive buddy I’m good for lots of tabs at the bar!

Prev I was a full-time diver for ~18 months as part of a Hawaii tourist operation. I’ve also dove quite a bit in Bali, Chuuk (awesome wreck diving), Palau, Pohnapei and Guam.

PI and Borneo are of high interest. Never, never can get enough of Micronesia: Palau, Yap, Chuuk, Pohnapei …

3

Sounds like a fun trip, cheers for the write up.

4

[quote=“Opihiman”]Sounds like such a great trip. I haven’t been diving for a while, and haven’t been reading the dive threads, but clearly I’ve been missing something.

If someone is heading out to PI, Micronesia or Borneo this year for some diving and open to a new dive buddy I’m good for lots of tabs at the bar!

Prev I was a full-time diver for ~18 months as part of a Hawaii tourist operation. I’ve also dove quite a bit in Bali, Chuuk (awesome wreck diving), Palau, Pohnapei and Guam.

PI and Borneo are of high interest. Never, never can get enough of Micronesia: Palau, Yap, Chuuk, Pohnapei …[/quote]

Well, as soon as MJB gets in here, you’ll have lots to talk about concerning Palau. :laughing:

I am sure that someone will come in with information on the Green Island hammerhead dives around CNY. That’s a world class advanced dive. Very exciting.

Welcome aboard Opihiman.

back to the PG dive. There were tons of nudibranchs on Sinandigan Wall. I spotted three of these guys:

Ruffled nudibranch…although, that’s not what we called it on the boat. :smiley:

Lots of these guys:

I also saw a kind of starfish that looked like a free floating fern. It was wild, because it really looked like a plant, but it was swimming in very non plantish manner! Maybe Tangeuro will clear up the name if he manages to pay us a visit.

5

The trip was really about saying goodbye to a really good friend to whom a few of us were lucky enough to spend some quality time with.

I had a great trip, my little hut at the very top of the resort commanded a terrific view of the bay. The diving wasn’t bad either, stark contrast to my previous Philippines trip, where in the distance, the sound of dynamite blasting accompanied us on every dive. Puerto Galera’s Marine park status has paid off with the return of a number of Pelagics including Jacks, Tuna, Giant Trevally (and I mean giant) white-tips, etc. The soupy 15-20meter water was pleasant at 26c, and filled with nutrients. There are more criniods on a hundred square meter of the place than on any dive site I’ve ever seen by a factor of a hundred or more. I can only speculate that the extensive dynamite fishing in the distant past has altered the balance of filter feeders in the water column for decades to come.

The return of healthy fish stocks is a welcoming trend, and shows that despite extensive reef destruction, reef fishes can and will repopulate damaged reef systems if simply given time to do so.

I had a great time…But will miss my dive buddy of the last couple of years. He’s moved on to bigger and brighter things, the temperate cold waters of my youth will be his underwater world for the present. Enjoy California my friend…A clear day in the kelp beds with the sun streaking through is something to behold…Keep your drysuit zipper waxed and your bladder empty :sunglasses:

JD had the most simple and eloquent statement of the entire trip after his first shark encounter…“I can’t believe that “this” is my hobby”

I was suprised by both the quality fish life and how easy it was to fall off the boat into the dive sites.
The reeftops were covered in Anthias, the sponges contained giant frogfish. Soft corals of every hue graced the dive sites. Pelagics lurked in the distance, often hanging at the edge of visibility, but sometimes sneaking in for a quick peak providing you played within their comfort zone. One of the giant Trevally was literally right next to Tanguero and was able to show me clearly it’s 5 feet of raw power. Schools of large Jacks were present at depth, as well as snappers and others too numerous to mention.

Thanks once more to both JD and Tanguero56…I had a fantastic time. :notworthy:

6

I’d agree with this completely. PG is an enigma. It’s got a tangible sleaze factor with the go-go bars and such, but damn man, the diving is honestly 10 minutes from the dive shop! And the sites are full of life, sweet coral, nudies and beeg fishies. That’s hard to beat. Additionally, the huts at the Steps and Garden Resort, while simple, were well placed to see the bay and catch a cool breeze every night. The food in most of the places we ate was good if not great, and the BIg Apple Bar deserves a special nod.

I had a fandamntastic time there and it’s hard to say I wouldn’t go back.

7

Tanguero56 relaxing after a Verde Island hard coral reef drift dive:

New Years eve was pretty spectacular as well. Well oiled by several bottles of Tanduay, I could easily squint in my woozy state and imagine the place was being attacked from seaward, such was the intensity and noise of the fireworks display.

8

youtube.com/watch?v=hNw11bMY … re=related

That’s the one we saw. :slight_smile:

AWESOME! This is the nudibranch I saw with the black feet! sweeet.
youtube.com/watch?v=QY2V6NLlJIE

9

Gentleman,

Thanks. I had a great time and treasure that you each chose to join me for my victory lap through Puerto Galera on my way out of Asia.

You would not believe the great time I had in Subic Bay at the end of my trip taking the TDI Advanced Wreck Diving course. Four dives of eighty minutes each on nitrox doing skills based on keeping cool and working together with your buddy to survive what can happen during wreck penetration dives. Among other things I had experience of a complete 100 percent siltout during which I thought my dive light died if it was more than four inches from my mask. Then four planned decompression dives for experience in wrecks. I still cannot myself believe the tight spaces into which I have now been with twin cylinders on my back and 100 percent oxygen decompression gas staged outside at the bottom of the fixed descent line. And you would not believe Rick, he is like the Yoda of wreck divers moving by single finger touch without any kicking motion and never disturbing the silt which I and my fellow student seemed to churn by our mere existence in the same general proximity. We made three dives on and deep into USS New York which is an armored cruiser launched in mid 1890’s and scuttled in early 1940’s to prevent the 13-inch guns from falling into enemy hands.

Note to everyone: Never, ever, ever enter overhead environment without proper training and equipment. Period. No exceptions. Exclamation point.

Peace.

Tanguero

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[quote=“Tanguero”]
Thanks. I had a great time and treasure that you each chose to join me for my victory lap through Puerto Galera on my way out of Asia.

We made three dives on and deep into USS New York which is an armored cruiser launched in mid 1890’s and scuttled in early 1940’s to prevent the 13-inch guns from falling into enemy hands.
Tanguero[/quote]

Too cool…

11

Glad you made it out alive T!

12

I started the CNY clean yesterday and pulled out all of my gear and found out that I have almost 4 sets, 3 BCD’s and 3 masks … :frowning: bummer … actually 3.5 sets then …
Everything looked pretty good except one of my dive computers has no power (empty battery perhaps) and my dive watch is also without power … than my dive gear backpack has jammed on corroded zipper pulls and I would like to know if that’s fixable (put new zippers in) as the bag is still in very good condition … all of my first stages look ok as they have been sealed all the time and my second stages look ok but maybe I should have them serviced … the BCD’s hold their air and the release valves work perfectly … my suits look still wearable … :slight_smile: fins look fine although a little mangled from the time spent in the bags … straps look good … the gear has no or limited rubber-rot … the silicone masks have some color change, from clear white to yellowish …

Lastly, I found a whole bunch (30-50 pcs) of dive magazines from around 2000 and before … anyone interested? Free if you pick’m up …

I hope I can go diving again this year, all depends on the finances and the work I might find soon … if it’s the B&B then there is little chance I can go in the weekends … but water doesn’t take a day off and weekdays are fine as long as the weather cooperates …

That’s it folks … keep it wet!

13

I got 2 dive watches for Xmas. But I want to sell them both as I like my old watch.

200m Wenger (the swiss knife people) is $4000nt
300m Citizen Eco drive (no battery, solar powered) is $6000.

I have them at the dive shop but will take some pictures and post urls later. I will ship in Taiwan for free. If you have ideas how to sell them let me know.
Thanks
Kip

14

Soak the zippers with boiling hot water and vinegar…And give it some time to break down the crystallized salt particles. You can usually save a bag this way.

I was so sick of the cold and damp that yesterday at 2pm took off for Kenting. Just got home about 30minutes ago. 4 hours and 10minutes door to door.

Did one clean up dive at the bay next to the nuclear power outlet. Water was about 15meters in decent vis and 25c, which was a hell of a nice change from up here. Besides collecting a huge bag full of garbage, I spotted a frogfish, dense schools of coral chomping parrotfish, a school of squid, and a full size cuttle fish. The resident school of yellowfin barracuda was also there, and it was actually a surprisingly nice dive.

Feels so nice to get out of this muck we call Northern Taiwan winter…Yuck.

15

This thread seems to have gone light. Did not one of you do any diving for Chinese New Year? What about the hammerheads at Green? I know at least one of you saw more than a handful. What? I leave and you pretty much stop diving? C’mon! I miss you too, but I ain’t staying out of the water entirely over it.

Hey, how about the longer story of Advanced Wreck training in Subic Bay? Maybe this story can get some flow going. A few of you that have dived with me often have already read this, for the rest who may be interested, then read on:

Subic Bay was awesome. You know I had TDI Advanced Nitrox (to 100% O2) and TDI Decompression Procedures with Rick of Frontier Scuba in Puerto Galera in October 2006. I am qualified and experienced at planned decompression dives and accelerated decompression schedules. This time we did TDI Advanced Wreck Diving with decompression.

The first course Rick did in Subic before I got there was Advanced Wreck without decompression for recreational divers. He had those guys in Puerto Galera for three days of introduction to Tech diving which is diving twin cylinders including sharing air, valve shutdowns, and all that without decompression.

The second course which I was in was for technical divers with the full blown decompression planning. We started of course with a couple of hours of academics and knowledge review, then did two dives per day. The first two days were in El Capitain wreck running safety line, leading, following, recovering safety line, and dealing with surprises as Rick signaled them. Regulator blowouts that we deal with by closing the manifold between the cylinders to minimize air loss, identifying the faulty regulator, shutting it down, opening the manifold to maximize the available air, and of course calling the dive at which point we ended the drill and continued to the next surprise. We did air sharing exit all the way to the surface, air sharing exit blind, all the skills of technical diving in the cramped confines of a wreck.

Rick briefed us for a total siltout and directed me to run the line to a wall and up the wall. His plan was for us to be down in the silt from which he could pluck us up into clearer water if any us us started freaking out in the near-total blackout. Unfortunately, I found a passage under what was supposed to be the wall and led the guys into it. Rick got pretty anxious but we actually kept our cool in the total siltout conditions we created by crawling through the silt on the bottom of that passage. Seriously, I thought my light had died. It was 100% siltout.

Rick had been following behind us stirring up siltball bombs, then found himself a little freaked out that he could find scant evidence of the three of us except the bottom half of a pair of legs where the three of us were jammed into this tight passage I had found. Later he told us he was seriously worried that he was not coming back with as many divers as he had gone in with. We actually kept our cools but I admit that might just be that we were too dumb to realize how bad a situation we were in. I kept looking for the wall and got to a point where there was a piece of equipment I was trying to figure which way to go around. Actually, I was relieved when I felt myself being pulled back that I did not have to figure out how the heck to proceed around that thing. I am not proud that I led the team down that passage, but later during the trip when we were going for the experience dives there was nothing Rick led us into which was tighter or more menacing then where I had already been.

Our fifth through eighth dive were strictly for experience in the good dive sites where Rick did not hit us with skills tests to avoid fouling the site from our struggles. Fifth dive was in LST through which I led us and laid the line. We went through the berthing rooms beside the parking area then up the stairs to the main deck where we tied off. We swam into the parking deck then went back and recovered the line. Going down the stairs and making the 180 degree turn at the bottom was awkward at best.

Sixth through eighth dive were on USS New York. Sixth dive we followed a permanent line through a god awful convoluted path through which no sane person would lead a dive. We went through pipe and cable trunk passages outside the engine room. It was strictly a one way dive as our passage stirred the silt too much to go back the other way recovering safety line had we been laying our own. We also visited the main guns which at 13-inch bore were awesome to behold.

Seventh dive was led by my buddy through the galley sections from the starboard stern forward some 60 meters before we switched back for another 20 meters. Then we reversed direction recovering the safety line. We also took the easier path to the engine room, went through, checked that we could each fit the tightest passage of “tunnel of love”.

Sixth and seventh dive we scouted this one very tight passage from each direction. A large pipe elbow kind of blocks most of a square passage. On the eighth and final dive we made the move through the square passage again following the permanent line but branching in the other direction from how we had followed the first time through on the sixth dive. We had to first get our shoulders past the elbow, then twist to get the tanks into the square in the corner, finally square up to be ready for the transition into the tunnel of love, and progress with finger pulls to avoid stirring the silt with fin kicks. That is the interior way to the engine room. Rick was much better at that than either of us students. The engine room was pretty awesome. The engines are there and the boilers are off their stops piled atop each other.

Subic was a great place. Not Sabang with all its joys and pleasures besides the diving, but a great place for wreck diving. El Capitain was the farthest wreck site at around 20 minutes from where we got on the dive boat. LST was around 15 minutes. USS New York was around 5 minutes. The dives were either shallow and very long at around 80 minutes or planned decompression dives. We did surface intervals in excess of three hours to better offgas nitrogen between dives. Subic was way easier to get to than either Coron Bay in Philippines or Chuuk. The divers were pretty much only technical divers on twin cylinders with decompression stage cylinders. We did the ‘Boldly Goes…’ kind of diving which was very satisfying.

MJB, thanks for the tale of the cleanup dive by the outfall in Kenting. Sounds like you saw enough things to cause me envy, and you did some great for the environment while you were at it!

C’mon, what are the rest of you guys and gals doing there in Taiwan? Not diving? Sheesh! Next time I write into this thread, it is going to be to recount my tale of altitude diving certification check out dives with mention of driving through a snowstorm to get there. Don’t tell me it is too cold there for diving. The only time one can’t dive in Taiwan is when you all get back-to-back-to-back typhoons; and that should only keep one out of the water for a week or so after the last one passes.

MJB, that rant does not apply to you. You grew up diving the cold waters of California coast for years and years. Now that I have had experience diving cold (wait for my next story, those of you interested) I understand how cold water diving can leave one feeling like they may never ever be warm again as long as they live. But the others of you who have only dived subtropical and tropical (between Taiwan and Northern Australia for the geographically challenged like most of us Americans) are spoiled, spoiled, spoiled; get out there and earn it!

Peace.

Tanguero

16

[quote=“Tanguero”]Rick briefed us for a total siltout and directed me to run the line to a wall and up the wall. His plan was for us to be down in the silt from which he could pluck us up into clearer water if any us us started freaking out in the near-total blackout. Unfortunately, I found a passage under what was supposed to be the wall and led the guys into it. Rick got pretty anxious but we actually kept our cool in the total siltout conditions we created by crawling through the silt on the bottom of that passage. Seriously, I thought my light had died. It was 100% siltout.

Rick had been following behind us stirring up siltball bombs, then found himself a little freaked out that he could find scant evidence of the three of us except the bottom half of a pair of legs where the three of us were jammed into this tight passage I had found. Later he told us he was seriously worried that he was not coming back with as many divers as he had gone in with. We actually kept our cools but I admit that might just be that we were too dumb to realize how bad a situation we were in. I kept looking for the wall and got to a point where there was a piece of equipment I was trying to figure which way to go around. Actually, I was relieved when I felt myself being pulled back that I did not have to figure out how the heck to proceed around that thing. I am not proud that I led the team down that passage, but later during the trip when we were going for the experience dives there was nothing Rick led us into which was tighter or more menacing then where I had already been.[/quote]
That sounds terrifying! :noway: I would get no joy out of a dive like that.

17

Gaaaah! That shit is what made me give up diving. Spent two summers diving demolition/scrap recovery in the Orkney islands. Cold, zero viz, rusty boats… never again.

18

When I get the c-card, you might want to reconsider.

I would imagine that siltout is something you can choose not to dive in, if you don’t go for the advanced courses?

19

…

20

Hi guys,

Sounds like you had a lot of fun in the PI I wish I could have joined you but I had a family thing happening back in the UK. My first Xmas there for 20 years! It was a blast. I am certainly going to miss Tanguero as my dive buddy and hope that we will be able to hook up for some diving mid way someday.

I was over on Green Island at CNY once again to dive with the hammerheads. Unfortunately the weather really sucked, strong cool NE wind blowing on most days and a bit rainy which put the dive site at Gun Swei Bi out of bounds. Then one day the weather suddenly cleared, the boat went out and we saw a half dozen of the big guys! Their splendid insouciance was a sight for sore eyes. :sunglasses: :bravo:
Despite the weather I shore dived every day, in fact the water was the place to be as the water temp was 25C and the air temp 18 to 20! I also did one two tank boat dive on the two artificial reefs they have installed there. The vis was excellent on all the dives about 20 to 25m. One of the dives was fish feeding and although I disagree with this, it was a vicarious thrill to see dozens of massive 12 to 18 inch Batfish greedily shouldering each other aside over several loaves of sliced bread! The feeders literally disappeared in a large cloud of hungry fish. There is outstanding shore diving at Green Island and the off shore waters were very clear with healthy corals and lots of fish. It was certainly a fun trip apart from the miserable weather. Fortunately there was a delicious goat meat hotpot restaurant, with huge portions [enough for my two dogs as well] next to the dive shop to stave off the chills after diving. The journey over from Kaohsiung and back was done in normal time 3hrs from Kaohsiung to Taitung, at CNY this is a very good time! We were also blessed with calm seas for the ferry journey both ways something of a record in my experience… On the way back we picked up a couple of boxes of delicious ‘pineapple’ Buddha Head fruit, yummy.

Would anyone like to go over to Orchid Island at Tomb Sweeping Festival in April? I am thinking about putting together a group to do this excellent diving once again, we will visit the wreck, and the long wall by the blue hole. Please PM asap if you are. Also I will be arranging the once yearly trip out to Seven Stars sometime in April or May. Once again PM me if you are interested in this trip, it will be fun. Usually about 40M vis and lots to see.

BTW here is a link to a UK based online scuba magazine. You have to sign up for it [it’s free] but they usually have some really good stuff on there. Check it out scubatravel.co.uk/ then click on Scuba News and sign up.

If any of you northern divers are planning to go to Kenting for the weekend do be sure to let me know, if I am not teaching a class we could hook up for some fun dives or a couple of beers and dinner after. Dive safe.

Cheers.