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Bali Diving Healthy Coral Reef

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 03:33:00 +0000

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!

Please see our other blog Asia Cheapest Flights

Save Nature in Thailand!

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:42:00 +0000

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
Please see our other blog on Bangkok Cheapest Flights

Build A Dive Center from Scratch How Much?

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:49:00 +0000

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.

Please see our other blog Cheap Charlies Hotels Bangkok Cheapest Flights

Bangkok Singapore Cheap Flights

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:44:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 12:57:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 12:34:00 +0000

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

Please see our other blog Cheap Charlies Hotels Bangkok Cheapest Flights

Bali diving

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 03:50:00 +0000

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
Please see our other blog Cheap Charlies Hotels Bangkok Cheapest Flights

Bali Hotels and Internet?

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Sun, 15 May 2011 09:25:00 +0000

I find it hard to believe that Bali Hotels are not raising a huge stink over the really poor internet connections that they are getting from the local Internet providers. I am sure when they do surveys if they even bother, which they might not, that this is a huge disappointment for travelers to Bali Indonesia.

I am equally surprised that a Bali luxury hotel like the BAli Hyatt would actually in this day and age charge their guests for Internet and not just charge them but charge them a premium for Internet service. At Cheap Charlies Hotels we are making a point of letting people know that if they don't say anything to the managements of these Bali hotels that they are going to keep on charging for something that should be free whats next are they going to charge for services like garbage removal and water give me a break.

Speaking of giving a break I got pulled over for a traffic offense that the Bali people do all of the time and the cop was quite happy to trade my time even when I told him that I was going to a hospital to take 700,000 rupia from me so that I could continue on my way to the hospital. That takes real gall and I am happy for the cop that he can find such a good living basically doing a Robin Hood steal from the rich to give to themselves because none of that 700,000 Rupia is going anywhere near poor people here in Bali.

Please see our other blog which has great information on really Bangkok Cheapest Flights

Scuba Diving, Love the Reef to Death

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Thu, 05 May 2011 08:34:00 +0000

I Was in Bali diving yesterdayand had a guy literal swim over me and hit me and the ghost Pipe fish I was looking at with his fins. Now I am sure the guy is a OK guy but he saw this Emperor Wrasse which is quite a big fish and lost it and started chasing it and again kicked me and the Ghost Pipe fish both in the head with his fins.

Diving Bali Tulamben

I have said in other places how much that I agree with the PADI Nation Geographic program on this blog and now I want to suggest that we go even further and make peak performance Buoyancy and Underwater Naturalist a part of the open water course and that we instructors when we are teaching the PADI Underwater Photography and Underwater Videography stress how important it is that we watch where our fins are to prevent the underwater landscape from being needlessly destroyed.

Let me know what you think and what other thoughts that you have on the subject in the comments boxes thanks!
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ADEX Singapore

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 01:45:00 +0000

I was passing through the area and saw that ADEX was in Singapore this year as the event goes between Bangkok and Singapore and decided to make a side trip and take it in and see what they had on display sometimes at the dive shows you can get really cheap dive gear and I have to tell you that I wqs very disappointed as the number of the big vendors like the dive equipment manufactures like Mares Scuba Pro and the dive compressor companies there was only one L&W which they seem like good machines I just have never seen one in the field.

In years past Buaer and Coltri sub would be there showing off all of their wares and you would see lots of smaller dive equipment sales going on. This was very disappointing.

I also expected to see more of the dive operators from around the region notably missing were the dive operators from Thailand Vietnam and Cambodia. PNG which has had good turn outs in the past was sparsely populated. The one country that had a lot of representation was Indonesia but one would expect this as Singapore is a flight hub for Indonesia with tons of flights daily to Jacarta and Bali on the cheaper Indonesian airlines.

NEW Guesthouse budget accommodations

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 05:25:00 +0000

Phnom Penh Guesthouse

We have been toying with the idea of setting up a guesthouse or a budget accommodation and a friend of mine just opened a new guesthouse in Phnom Penh the Velkommen Guesthouse on street 144 really close to the river and the palace and the Big market which is Psaa Thmey and all of the fun stuff to do in Phnom Penh Cambodia.

So he put me up here and we are brain storming the different things that are important too guest comfort and also important to bottom line profit you see there is a win win here if you can make a comfortable room and keep the cost of operation of the accommodation cheap you do not have to charge more to the customer for the same amenities list.

One of the biggest issues in Asia is going to be the electric bill if you can keep that down you can discount rooms and still make a good profit but if your rooms are wasting allot of energy through improper maintenance then you are just burning cash and customers!

The first issue is buy the best air con unit that you can by that what is the most economical to run as a air con will be in the room for 10 years you can count on the fact that the price of electric is going to go up during that time so it makes a lot of sense to pay extra as much as it hurts to get the most economical unit that you can Eco Friendly is economy friendly as well.

New Scuba Diving site like Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 02:00:00 +0000

Cheapest flight Frankfurt to Bangkok Thailand

EcoSea Dive just signed up for a new dive website that is like a facebook for diving seems to nbe pretty cool and if you have a minuite I would recomend checking it out.

They have where you can find a buddy for diving which is allways a good idea.

this dive site also has it so that you can upload videos and pictures which is all ways a better way to discribe how a new to you dive location or upload local maps if they are available to save you time exploring new dive sites.

I cannot tell you how excited I am that I have a new camera for underwater videos and pictures so far the Canon G12 is shooting outstanding pictures and I cannot wait to get the camera and underwater housing going together soon diving Bali Wrecks in Tulamben and Amed Indonesia.

Please see our other blog Cheap Charlies Asia Cheapest Flights

underwater camera G12

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:01:00 +0000

I have a new Canon G12 and i am looking forward to getting underwater and taking some pictures with it as soon as possible. I saw one in Bali Indonesia diving with some friends and the underwater pictures and the underwater videos were outstanding.

I will be in Bali in 3 weeks but what I might so instead is do some diving in Pattaya Thailand in the gulf of
Thailand.

I also looked at the new Nikon f7000 but was unable to purchase the underwater camera housing from Fantasea. Right when I was getting ready for my flights to Bangkok that they finally let me know that I could get one. I also was considering the extra cost of the underwater housing as the Fatasea UW housing was a bit more expensive with the only benefit that I could see being the ability to go to 60 meters.

On my old Sony I had it as deep as 67.5 meters (man was I narked!) and the case held up just fine. So I am thinking that I will be able to take the new one that deep as well as far as going that deep I don't plan to be down there that often on this trip.

Please see our other blog Asia Cheapest Flights

New Camera Cannon G12

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 22:03:00 +0000

New camera for Asia travel I have a Nikon D90 to big for cheapest flights to Bangkok so I wanted a smaller camera that had a underwater camera housing made for it. The Cannon G12 with Underwater housing cost all together around $650 and it auto focus on HD videos. The new Nikon F7000 with the FP7000 from Fantasea is going to easy run you $1000 biggest benefit for all that extra cash is that you can go to 65 meters instead of 40 meters with the Cannon.

I have been doing research for a while on this and I wanted to go with the new Nikon but Fantasea could not get it delivered for my departure time so I went on Amazon and bought it there.

If you are going to buy on Amazon you really need to read the descriptions. I think that the best deals will be the ones that also come with the memory and a carrying case.

I needed to go out and buy those separately I got 2 8 gig memory cards for under $60. When looking for the SD cards also pay attention to the write speed as this will slow you down when shooting pictures as it "reloads" for the next shot.

For the carry case I ended up buying a Sony case for it but it will ride on my belt on cheap flights so that I can save on the overweight fees.

I can't wait to start getting the Underwater photos and underwater videos on the EcoSea.com site.

Please see our other blog Cheap Charlies Hotels Asia Cheapest Flights

Eco Tour

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 17:38:00 +0000

Eco Tours

I had the pleasure of going to Costa Rica which has a great reputation as a eco destination as I am considering doing another EcoSea project it was a good thing to see what they were doing somewhere other than Asia. I did the 3 in one day tour which had the coffee plantation which was very good the volcano could have been good except for the rain and the peace resort which had basiaclly a zoo and the waterfalls.

The eco tours in Costa Rica have been around for a long time and they seem to be doing OK I was surprised to see that there were a couple of the destination that were activcly upgrading there facilities.

The parks if there was a negitive did not have as much to see that was live as I had expected but they did do a OK job on showing the habitat and the preserved specis. The butterfly place only had 4 or 5 butterflys that you could see alive and they were all over the place inside the inclosure. The frogs also was a little bit of a disappointment that we did not see more of the specis that they hads displayed on the walls. What was interesting was that they had these cutouts of where the frogs were and you look and you look and no frogs. The hummingbirds were cool and there were 4 or 5 specis there.

The crater was I am sure a great view but we did not see it but the trails there were awesome as we were in some of the densest jungle I have ever seen and I have seen a few from Cambodia Malaysia Australia and Hawaii.

Please see our other blog Cheap Charlies Hotels Asia Cheapest Flights

Business Plans for a Eco Dive Resort Hotel

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:10:00 +0000

Resort Charirty Event in Asia

I recently had the pleasure of traveling to a foriegn country outside of Asia and I was amazaed at the cost differences. It got me thinking about how the business plan can point you at value and how that is so important to a successfull hotel resort. The one thing universally everyone can aggree on is that they hate being taking advantage of and when you sell something that is not what you are advertising then you are going against travelrs expectations.

Many resorts are sold as eco friendly but then when you get there they are dilivering on that promise. At a Eco resort I want to see things like energy and water reduction policies and infrastructure. Some things are very easy to do and yet they are not being done like insation and solar water heaters. the thing about being green is that it also should in the long run reduce the cost of running the resort so a resort that is well built will go up in value over time while still being comfortable.

Fruit trees what a great way to add value and real green carbon trapping is to have fruit trees on your property and then give the fruit away to your guests and staff and then if there is too much give it to the locals.

Part of being Eco is teaching others and if you can help the locals to plant fruit trees that too will bring you some real value in the long run as the community will see you as a asset to them and that will be reflected back through the additional good will that the Locals will push in your direction.

Please see our other blog Cheap Charlies Hotels Asia Cheapest Flights

New Asia Dive Center Strats with a Business Plan!

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 14:22:00 +0000

One of the things that I recommend to anyone that is serious about starting a business is to do a business plan. So many times people say that they know their industry well enough that they don't need to do one and I say you are wrong.

A business plan works for you as it keeps you focused and it makes you create benchmarks and targets. It can also help you to get out of your business at the end of the day if you are looking for a short time to be in the business, that it is not going to be for the rest of your life.

Financials are very important and if you plug in realist numbers, the business plan should let you know if you are going to be in the black or the red, and how long you might expect to be in the red. Financials also are important if you are looking to get financing, even if it is from family and friends if they see that you have a business plan they know that you have done the research.

Please see our other blog Cheap Charlies Hotels Asia Cheapest Flights

What is the Dive Center Focus?

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:34:00 +0000

eager students want to learn and teach!

What will be the focus of th dive center for me it is allways going to be about protecting the enviroment. People want to be educated, PADI had a whole presentation at ADEX on contiuing eduacaton. When people are on vacation many of them want to learn something new, they condier that as a intragal part of the travel exprience, and as a Dive center owner we have pople that are very interested in learning new stuff about the ocean and the communities that we set our dive centers up in.

You can do more as what the US milatary calls the Green Berets, Force mulipliers by setting as good of an example as possible and then teaching others about the enviroment. More than just underwater photography or HiDef video, taking the education to the next step and offer some interactive activitires with the locals and hands on training doing things like fish counts, beach and reef cleans, and activites that enrich the locals like free english classes taught by the visitors.

For me at the end of the day when you can find win win situations that promote learning and teaching that is going to keep you and your staff in a good space and it is going to give your clients a good reason to come back to your dive center.

Please see our other blog Cheap Charlies Hotels Asia Cheapest Flights

Turtles Interesting Fact

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 17:33:00 +0000

I drive Aspen Limousines in the off season for diving and I run into some very interesting people On my way from Aspen to Denver International Airport I had a long discussion about a interesting turtle project that was done in the Caribian basically what they tried to do was take turtle eggs from one island and plant them on another island and see if the hatching turtles would return to that beach Brialliant simple but appartently did not work.

So having lots of time to think about these things I wondered what if you hijacked the turtle before it laid the eggs and made her deposit the eggs on the beach if that would cuase the turtle hatchlings to go to the new island. Failing that i wonder if the turtles were tagged and wait for them to come back to the island and re hijack them to the new island kind of convoulted but probbaly worth a try.

Hey if you run into any interesting facts please post them on the blog or send them to me at ecoseaATgmail.com and I will post them.

Soon to come more on starting a dive center in Asia

Please see our other blog Cheap Charlies Hotels Asia Cheapest Flights

Start a Dive Center

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 01:08:00 +0000

Asia Dive

Lucky me it will be my 2nd Asia dive center the first that I started is still in operation in Cambodia and seems to be fine.

Having done a third world dive company in Asia before I have some ideas that will make the next one better, I hope, in allot of ways. They say that wisdom is the accumulation of mistakes that you learn from so I must have generated a fair bit of wisdom by now.

So what will be for me is figuring out the first concrete step. is answering these first simple questions?
Where
When
What
Who
and the most important why

Lets start with that Why. The true path to wealth for most people is owning your own business and then spending less that your income. In the book the millionaire next door they said that the previous statement applied over a period of time is going to work for the majority of people that aren't going to start Facebook. The biggest thing is to get to a point where your money is working for you.

Now I certainly don't think that I will become the nest Bill Gates but having enough at the end of the day when you hang up your fins is a noble goal I feel because if you do it right others that walk the path with you will also prosper.

The real reason though is for the satisfaction of helping other people reach their goals. one of the biggest highlights from the first dive center was coming back to visit is Sihanouk ville and having my long time maid come up to me and have a conversation in English. This is life changing for her as she is now able to get much more money if she ever decides to work some where else; when I told her that her English was excellent, the smile that she gave me back was worth a million bucks easy.

The other why is ever since I was a little kid I wanted to do things to help the environment I would on cold winters nights in Wisconsin take the family dog Snowball for walks and just listen to the quiet in the woods and like Thoreau find a inner peace. Pprotecting and becoming a force multiplier by teaching others to respect and protect the enviroment is another noble reason why to start another scuba diving outfit in Asia.

Please see our other blog Cheap Charlies Hotels Asia Cheapest Flights

Travel writers needed?

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 09:59:00 +0000

Needed Free Lance Dive Writers paid per article accepted with pictures. We control several websites including Cheap Charlies Hotels, Asia Cheapest Flights. We need articles that appeal to divers and self directed travelers. We will pay $10 USD for articles that are 400 to 600 words long, that are grammatically and spell checked, that includes 3 pictures plus a picture of the business card that is being written about. Pictures need to be 600 x 400 at 72 DPI to 1000 x 750 at 72 DPI

Articles can be on diving, Dive accommodation, dive equipment and side trips from dive areas. All must be original and we get exclusive right to articles and pictures after payment made.

This is a great way for you to prove your chops as a travel writer and we will include your name as the author and will provide references for writers that have more than 5 articles published by us.

Please see our other blog Cheap Charlies Hotels Asia Cheapest Flights

Cheap Lawyers & Credit Card Bail Bondsman!

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 08:31:00 +0000

What you look like to Local Cops outside USA!

Cheap Lawyers in Asia are like cheap lawyers in the USA they really don't exist. Now this website normally deals with cheap air tickets and Asia scuba diving but this is really good information for you if you are new to travel in Asia. It is almost a given regardless of how careful you are if you are parting hard & having fun you are going to run into police.

The best advise anyone can give you, and all the old hands will tell you this, is that your best chance of getting off lightly is to deal with legal problems on the spot. if you can avoid getting into the legal system you are going to be better off.

in most third world countries the police and the judicial system are going to take as much money from you as they can. The lower down in the food chain that you are the cheaper legal problems are for instance you get stopped at a check point and they figure out that you are drunk driving with their population they might charge them a little bit and let them go with you they are going to charge a bunch more and hey if you are smart you are going to pay as much as you have too so that the thing doesn't get written down because if it does you are in deep dodo.

You might have to to a ATM and use your credit card like a California bail bondsman to keep yourself out of jail, but that is going to be way better than if you get put into the system where you hire a lawyer, find out he is cousins with the judge and the prosecutor, and they get you into a whipsaw and clean you out with the threat and very real possibility of you going into a local jail for a while. Guss what, you call the embassy and they are going to have a local tell you that you should not break the foreign countries laws and we will get a message to your people so that they can start sending lots of money to get you out!

Please see our other blog Cheap Charlies Hotels Bangkok Cheapest Flights

Philippines Scuba Diving

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 06:26:00 +0000

Philippines Scuba Diving Moal Boal

Cheap Scuba Diving

One of the things that I have always wanted to see is a whale shark here in Moal Boal which is on the island of Cebu in Southern Philippines Divers have sighting twice in the last two weeks. This is a pretty good thing that they have that many sightings making it a good place for scuba diving if one of your trip goals is too see a Whale shark.

I have over 1000 dives and I have not the best of luck with these magnificent gentle plankton eating creatures. I have been close a couple of times once in Hawaii Diving Hounanua which is called by some locals 2 step as the entrance is two natural steps formed by the reef. A great dive site for training where I did parts of my training for open water diver PADI Card, advanced open water, PADI rescue diver and even some of my dive master course. One time after I had all ready been a PADI Divemaster I was diving with my PADI instructor and we had done two tanks and had run them out of air and we were putting the dive gear away and a group of student divers from the University of Hawaii Hilo came out of the water and were asking us if we saw the Whale Shark? No and abject dismal feeling that student divers would see and we did not.

The second time was when I was on my EcoSea 1 boat and I was on the roof and I am fairly certain that I saw one from the surface but we were going in the wrong direction so I was not sure. now that I am writing this there was a third time I was in 40 meters of water being circled by what we thought were grey sharks only to be told later that they were actually bull sharks still don't believe that but all fo the other divers that were in the water at shallower depths off Koh Toa in Thailand A major scuba diving teaching island.

So I am going to end this blog and go jump in the water and see if I can spot me a whale shark. Of course if I do it will make perfect sense as my underwater camera is broke!
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Asia Cheap Travel Buses

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 04:53:00 +0000

Asia Cheap Travel

We love to dive in Asia but we do not have lots of money, so instead of going without what we try to do instead is find ways to save money on and use cheap travel in Asia; of course are favorite way is cheap flights, followed by overnight trains and then the real budget stretcher is buses.

In some Asian Countries like Thailand Malaysia and Singapore there are some really good services like the overnight buses from Bangkok to Singapore, Manila,to Luzon island and KL. You can find real VIP buses that are full sized buses but that only have 3 seats to a row and the number of rows might be like 11, so you get chaise lounge like seats that fully recline so you can actually sleep on them. they also give you blankets and pillows as well as a little meal usually a biscuit bread and water or maybe a fruit drink.

In China, Cambodia and Vietnam you have some first class services that will have a bathroom on board and they too might give you some sort of drink and bread package. All of the first class buses are air con.
In China and Vietnam I would expect that soon that you will be able to find VIP buses as things are always changing and as soon one bus company puts one on all the rest will follow quickly.

In Laos and most of the countries above they still have allot of 2nd class buses if you are lucky they will be air con but most of them are not if you are going on any kind of a long trip you really need to quiz them closely to find out what the bus type is the least desirable buses have touts and they bold face lie to you to get you on board they will tell you they have what ever you ask for they don't care as after they sell you the ticket they get paid and disappear.

So you need to do some research, a good thing if you have the time is if they have a schedule posted wait at the bus station till the bus that you will be taking in the future returns, and get a eye ball on it and maybe ask the people getting off what there experience was like? It can go either way some buses I though were going to be dogs actually while not perfect did what you needed I have been on other buses that looked real good that were real trips from hell so the personal recommendations are important.

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Eagle Ray Indonesia Livaboards.MPG

noreply@blogger.com (Fred) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 03:26:00 +0000

One of my favorite all time best dives in Asia Indonesia at castle rock was a fish soup as everything in the water was moving in the fast current then at the end of this all readdy totally fantastic dive this Eagle Ray goes past and I am the only one in position to get a good picture and I got this great video.
this dive had sharks, huge wrasse, real clown fish , tunas, and thousands and thousands offish everywhere. as good as it gets for diving for me.
Where is you favorite Asia Diving spot or Asia dive liveaboard?

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