Bali Diving Healthy Coral Reef

Healthy Coral Reef

Was diving in Bali yesterday on a great dive site called Coral gardens and I spent a real long time looking intently at the corals no I wasn't high I was just looking to see how they grow specifically how does a new coral get started.

As a diver  the idea of creating more corals than you impact is something that I would like to strive to achieve.as a goal.  In Cambodia we tried to do some reef projects but the locals and the goverment were not very supportive mostly becuase of ignorance.

One of the the things that I noticed was that the coral was being smothered by the sand that was getting kicked up.  This site is very close to a area of high diver concentrations and there are a lot of new divers kicking up a lot of sand at the Liberty Wreck in Tulamben.

If you cleaned that sand off how much coral could you save from being negatively impacted?  I wonder if you brought a little nozzle for a LP hose and blew it off gently,  could you have a real impact on the health of the reef in the long term?

I also noticed that the coral was breaking off, I suspect from divers but maybe a natural occurrence as well when the big waves comes it moves a lot of water. Anyway in Thailand they have a project where they are taking corals and transplanting them into concrete and then placing in the sand. As I understand it that project is working to start new coral colonies.

 I wonder if you took that and anchored it in a big rock that would be above sand level and if you planted it in deeper water say 10 meters how likely would it be to survive and thrive?  and I wonder if you placed other rocks in the area that were ready for the corals to colonize could you get a chain reaction going?

The table and apcora corals all seem to have really healthy little nursuries going and the amount of coral there is less that a meter accross.  Something to think about!

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Save Nature in Thailand!

From Phuket Divers Looks like a good Asia Dive event to put on your calander if you are going to be in that area of Thailand
Dear friends and colleagues,
On the 28, 29 and 30 october 2011, a very important event named ‘’ Save the nature @Phuket ” will be organized at Phuket aquarium by Thailand Authorithy of tourism, see details below :
1. The Seminar on the topic of “Tourism of the Andaman Sea in sustainability” which will be held on the first day (29th oct) of the event. The participants will be the diving communities and agency, the government authority, mass media and youth. Facilitator will be the representative from
- TAT Phuket office will give an introduction for the event also the open ceremony
- Phuket Marine Biological Center, Mr. Niphon will present focus to the Natural Marine Conservative and Coral Bleaching.
- Marine National Park, Mr. Vichart will present focus to the rule and regulation for using the natural as the tourism
- TDA Diving Association of Thailand will present focus to the “Dive Safety includes divers and environmental”
The presentation will take time around 2 hours then time for answer and question includes brain storm for develop the capacity and criteria both government side and diving agency side as well.
2. The project of underwater garbage clean up which will be held on the second day (29th oct), the area will be at Chalong pier (Koh Hay?) so TDA will work cooperate with the private diving agency and the Marine Natural Conservation.
3. The exhibition and the promotion booth for the opening season where located at the Phuket Aquarium for 3 days start from 28th – 30th October 2011. So, the idea of these are setting around 50 booths for sell to the tour agency who are interesting to promote their business, the exhibition will be focus on the knowledge of marine animal and plant conservation giving to the people also the show on the stage which will be under TAT and Phuket Marine Biological center supervision.
Attached, you will find the floor plan for this exhibition and the official letter from the TAT invited you to join this event.
The price for the three days booth rental is ridiculous 2,000 baht only and it is a good opportunity to support TAT and promote your scuba diving company.
On the 29 in the morning, a cleanup will be organized probably on coral island, Similan Queen day trip boat from All 4 diving will be here to support the scuba divers who participate for free to clean the underwater spot with hopefully some others  scuba diving companies from Phuket.
If you are interested to participate, fill out the application form attached and send it back.
Actually, for the boat operators you are welcome to join the cleanup  with your boat for this day
I look forward to hearing from you very soon.
Best regards,
Phuket Divers
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Build A Dive Center from Scratch How Much?

How much to build a scuba diving company in Asia? We have been looking at this question and we feel that we have a pretty good idea. For you, you will need to ask yourself some questions to get an idea of what your ideal dive center will look like.

The biggest problem with dive centers is that they are very cash intensive on the front end, especially if you need boats for your dive operation.
* the first question is will you need boats?
* Can you rent boats or seats on boats where you will be diving?

the Next question is how many divers will you be servicing PADI says that you can have 8 divers with one divemaster or instructor. You need to ask yourself what levels of service are you going to offer 8 divers behind a DM or Instructor is not a very good experience in most peoples book. We feel that the ideal number is one for each hand or maybe one couple for each hand any more than that is a gaggle and by the time that the tail of the group gets to the item of interest if it is a fish the fish is gone.

* how many instructors DM will you have on staff? take that number x 4

Once you know that number you can start to figure out what your dive equipment needs are. A SWAG is about $1000 a set of gear for school sets that will include 1 tank. Most dive centers will want a minimum of two tanks per customer on hand.

Compressors you can figure with a brand new compressor that you will get two seasons out of it before you will start to get problems and then you will want to have a 2nd compressor ready to come online. Ideally the compressors will be a matched pair, so that if one goes down, you can cannibalize the 2nd for parts till you can get it running again with the ideal being that you always have two online as your SOP. The compressor is the heart of the dive center no air = no diving..

A decent compressor like a Coltri Sub MCH 16 will cost under 7,000 USD, a similar Bauer will cost over 10,000 USD. Just like buying dive equipment you want to be able to get repair parts locally so that should drive your decision for most logical thinkers.

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Bangkok Singapore Cheap Flights

Man it is rough trying to find a cheap flight to Bangkok or Singapore. Using all of the tools that I am aware of you are still looking at $1000 min from any west coast location like LAX, SFO or SEA .  You might find a air ticket for less but then when you go to buy it the air fare either disappears or then they tell you the tax and surcharges.

The last flight that I booked with United was $964 and then add the taxes and extras and you are at $1600. USD.  There is still China Air and Eva air to get the rates down and the fares are less but the rewards packages are as well and you have to put up with many times with really long layovers and if you have never done one in Chang Kai Shrek I know that is miss speeled but you will feel like you were violated by a moster. you really should count yourself as lucky if you have never have exprienced.

The best thing that you can do right now is max your frequent flyer miles. I recently re sign up with Chase United Miles on what they are calling a explorer card by signing up using the card and getting a friend to sign up when all is said and done I will have

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Florida Scuba Diving

I will be traveling to Floridia and I am interested in doing some PADI scuba diving in FL.  I think it is Pensacola where the Aristiny was purpose sunk this  wreck dive is suppose to be a tech dive as it is so deep. while doing the research on the trip I found Saint Augustine was on the way my dear old Dad use to go there every year so I need to poke my head in and see what the excitement was all about for him.  I am guessing it had to do something with the History but they probbably had cheap beer as well!

taken from Post-Card Hotels  Although St. Augustine is filled with history and a wealth of shopping and dining diversions, don't forget to bring your towel and sunscreen. Although you'll find the surf a little rougher on the east coast of Florida than on the Gulf of Mexico side, there is plenty to do beachside. You can sail, scuba, kayak, wind sail, swim, jet ski or take a pleasure cruise up and down the coast. Or, when you dry off you may want to try one of several world class golf courses in the area.

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Bali Scuba Diving

Bali Scuba Diving

I love Bali Scuba diving and what is there not to like you have wreck you have drift dives that literally go for miles and Tulamben wreck diving is some of the best reef in the world. I have talked in the past about Bali scuba diving because it is cheap and good at the same time and there are not that many places where you have such an abundance of fun things to do when you are not diving with great food and some of the prettiest scenery besides Hawaii I can't think of no other place that I would want to spend a lot of time on.

If you are new to Bali diving there are 2 main areas with a bunch of lesser areas the biggest concentration is on the north shore in Tulamben and Amed.  There you will find two wrecks and some great wall dives in addition you have tons of muck diving with all sorts of very cool and interesting things to see.

Then the next biggest area would be the island off the coast Nusa Penita and Nusa Lembongan where you have some of the healthiest reef in the world where you can drift and let the water do all of the work for you.  There is also Manta point here which besides the night dive in Kona is a almost guaranteed sighting of the Oceanic Manta Rays some of the most graceful animals that you will ever see.

Mola Mola or Sun fish are also here in season basically from July to October you can see them mostly at Crystal bay but be sure to bring your long Johns as this is a very cold dive site.

For some of the best deals on Bali Scuba contact Ricardo 





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Bali diving

I left less than a week ago and I al ready miss it I haven't missed a place like this since I left Hawaii.  Bali ocean like Hawaii is super clean and as a added bonus in most places also very warm so no need to freeze your ass off to go diving.  the other thing that is simalar to Hawaii Great diving Bali has a few places with outstanding shore diving with the best of course the Tulamben Wreck and all the dive spots around it.  Rickardo the oner of Ocean Sun Tulamben, who we have been diving with for 3 years now, says that he wishes sometimes that the wreck wasn't there as it brings too many divers for just this famous wreck and most of them are unaware of all the great diving that is all around it.

Something we have talked a bit about is that the Tulamben wreck gets all of these divers who drive up for the day from Sanur beach, Kuta Legion Seminyak and Nusa Dua and they miss all of the other great diving and they get on the wreck with 100 other divers at the same time why?  If you are going to be diving Bali go there to Tulamben and stay for a few days and really get to know the wreck when ther is no one on it and when the fish aren't spooked and hiding!

You can stay at Safty stop for $30 a night very comfortable.  Ricardo has rooms for $10 that are simple but large airy and comfortable or you can stay at Soria Resort for a few dollars and get 5 star accommodations at 3 star rates. 

I met a couple from St. Augustine Florida and they were doing exacally as I suggested for under $100 a day for the two of them they were enjoying great food a nice budget accommodation with lots of hotel amenities and really cheap dives as they were leading themselves and just paying for tanks and portage. 

This couple from St Augustine were underwater photographers and they could go as fast or slow as they liked and became experts on the reefs and the wreck and also had Ricardo organize trips to other places like the great drift dives of Nusa Penita and all of the Amed dives including the JAva Wreck in Amed and
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