2 Octopi at Balinghai!

Mark, Doung and myself went out to Balinghai today on a mission to check out the artificial reefs.
The "reef balls" as they are called were put down March 2005 by the Boracay Scuba association. They are doing very well now with some soft and hard coral growth. Mark spotted a Octopus peeking it head out of one of the reef balls. I Looked inside myself and saw not one but 2 Octopi scrunched up next to each other on the ceiling of the reef ball! Cool!

Getting Wrecked in Boracay!

Day 2, of Serena's WRECK Specialty class on Boracays Camia wreck ! I put down some cave line for our wreck penetration dive just to demonstrate the skills required. Then It was her turn to put into practice the line laying techniques we tried back at the shop. She did great! No snagging the line and not much silting, good job Serena keep practicing! For divers who like wrecks the wreck specialty class Is a great way to develop skills and do 3 awesome wreck dives !-Dustin

Fruitless search for virgins, but it's all good

Now that I have your attention... heh heh... Rob, Joe & I went looking for Virgin Drop, a 20-40 meter site somewhere between the Camia and Friday's Rock. Well, we didn't quite find it until the end, but we had a fun dive none the less. There were lots and lots of nudibranchs today. The highlight, however, was a juvenile hawksbill turtle sleeping under a rock. It couldn't have been more than 1 year or 2 old.

Conditions today were great. The sun is out again and it is warm! We had flat water and light current. We could do with fewer jellyfish in the water, though! Total dive time was 39 minutes, maximum depth was 21.9 meters.

Mabuhay!

Busy week of training

We'd no sooner returned to lovely Boracay from our trip to Puerto Galera when Dave & Blanche arrived, ready to start their open water training. The class was an engagement gift from Dave to Blanche. My hat is off to these two. By the time that they were finished, both of them completed not only their open water certification, but also their advanced open water certification as well! All in about a week! We dove Angol Point, Lobster Rock, Friday's Rock, The Camia, a night dive on Friday's Rock and a rip roaring high voltage Channel Drift dive, just to name a few of the 10 dives (in addition to the training dives). Dave elected to do a photography adventure dive and took some really good pictures. That's a real challenge when you're brand new to the sport.

Along the way, I had some other guests as well: Ingrid from Queens -- we have a common friend in Rickie Cui, the head instructor at Mermaid Divers, one of our favorites shops in Sabang. I also got to know Jim from Oakland. Jim started out in the same open water class as Blanche & Dave, but finished on a different schedule. That's one of the advantages of training at Blue Mango Dive Center, we can custom tailor your dive experience to your individual needs. I also had the pleasure of teaching Tom & Nicole of Switzerland the Enriched Air Nitrox specialty. They learned how to extend their bottom time by using mixed gases. It's a surprisingly easy course to complete during your vacation. You can complete the classroom work in about half a day! Whew, I'm exhausted just writing about it all.

Maybe more later; there's a full-moon party at Red Pirates tonight. Gotta jet!