Marc's Public Blog - Diving

Day 1: Gozo and Camino Island

Malta coastline if of course filled with forts, big and small

After all these years of diving, I finally found Jesus ;)

Camino Island has very cool rocks, caves and holes for sure

it was filled with people indeed, thankfully diving was quite

I got super lucky with water quality on the first day. Outside of caves, we went to see Wrecks like the MV Karwela:

Next was the P31 Wreck, in very clear water:

Last were some nice caves around Camino Island:

Day 2: Gozo via DPV

Eaarly morning ferry to Gozo:

Gozo Island inland sea behind an interesting hole in the rocks:

Blue hole was next and pretty cool:

I surfaced briefly to have a look :)

and back down to see Lewis who was waiting for me

The last dive was back on the main island due to high winds, so we took a ferry back to the main island and there was a great divesite just by the ferry arrival:

entry was a bit rough, but once in the water, it was great

after meeting jesus, I got our lady :)

With the DPVs, we arrived at P29 in no time, and water was clear:

nice machine gun

And that was it, 4 more dives done, and thanks to somewhat better weather and Lewis' expertise, got 8 of the best dives you can get in Malta in 2 days, thanks Lewis.

For week 2 of diving in Fiji (week one was Taveuni), I picked another island and went to Savusavu area and stayed at Savasi Island. The island and resort were both beautiful, but they only had a very small 3rd party dive boat which they did not even make proper reservations for me with, so I missed the first day as the boat left 1h earlier than normal, and without me (while I was there, but told not to go before 08:00 because no one would be there, yet). This was very disappointing to be honest, but as a result I ended up going to the Jeam Michel Cousteau diving center, which was absolutely world class, although it's stuck in a very overpriced family friendly resort where it does not below. As a result, I ended up using a driver to get there and back (30mn each way), daily.

Anyway, while most of the dives were done from JMCDC, and the sea conditions were not great, still saw some cool things:

cleaning shrimp

beautiful Juvenile Dragon Wrasse

great to see them walking around

And then, found this beautiful baby cuttlefish:

My last day, the conditions were poor, so I went to sheltered Natewa Bay with Ocean Ventures, who nicely agreed to a private diving trip. Very cool seafloor and soft corals:

After diving, the last day, got to see a pearl farm and theb snorkling at split rock:

It had been 18 years since I had been in Fiji. Unfortunately all the liveaboards but one, are now gone and the one that was left did not run at useful dates for me. I ended up picking 2 fiji resort that offered diving. I asked Google AI for suggestions, and it offered going to Taveuni and Savusavu.
Paradise Tavenuni is an all inclusive diving resort at the end of the island. Small plane from Nadi to Taveuni, and then 1H+ car ride to the resort at the end of a dirt road :)

The dive center was attached to the resort, which was convenient. Their equipment was good, included nitrox, and their guides were also good. They had one very nice diving boat, and 2 smaller ones that still weren't bad. Diving-wise: they had 2 morning dives daily, unlimited afternoon dives on the house reef that was quite decent, and night dives 2-3 times a week (around 17:45, which thankfully ws before dinner). So basically you could do at least 3 dives a day, 4 when they had night dives
They had a camera/charging room, which was nice.

Accommodations were nice, and the full inclusive meals package was good. The staff was very nice and helpful.

Things to note are:

So, let's look at the diving:

Morning Boat Dives, Rainbow Reef and Others

plenty of scorpionfish

the few octopuses, hid well

my ownly but beautiful manta shrimp

multiple nice sea snakes

lots of firefly looking things, twinkling blue and the size of my nail

healthy population of barracudas

And as a special treat for the last day of diving, Manta Rays showed up at Rainbow Reef's Fish Factory:

Paradise House Reef

Xmas!

leaf scorpionfish

It did have a beautiful eagle ray:

Paradise House Reef Night Dives

nice eel hunting for food

A couple of days later, we went back for a couple of very nice shallow dives around caves and cool relief:

found a few fish :)

Two notes for myself: unfortunately not many fish at those sites, and the water was much colder than I remembered (17C). I definitely needed a bunch of layers not to be cold.

thankfully the water was pretty clear

baby getting milk from mommy

There are many companies that offer tours, and they are not all as good. Having the right guide and a company that gets you there hopefully when all the other boats are not there, does matter.
In my case I was also interested in diving while I was there, so that steered me towards Bird's Underwater and that was a great choice: they were professional, definitely did the best to optimize our experience and in my case, I was lucky enough to be put on a 3rd boat with no one else since the other boats were full. Kudos to Bird's underwater for caring about our experience and not just shoving us onto another full boat to save themselves a bit.

pre-trip briefing

out expert guide

everyone was thrown in the water in groups, it was crowded when we arrived

Time to get in the water. I was a bit worried that the water would be too cold (21C), especially as they only offered a 3mm wetsuit, which I knew was way insufficient for diving, but turns out when swimming a lot back and forth at the surface, I didn't get cold and did not need to put the 2nd wetsuit I had requested just in case (and for the dive, later):

let's go :)

water was not clear unfortunately

The few I saw early were quick and not very clear water:

Most of the time in the water was ok but not great. The manatees were not that interested in interacting (which is normal, they are not here for our amusement :) ), and the water was so murky in places, that if one was by my feet, I could hardly see it. But around the end, the other groups had left, and I got super lucky with a baby that was curious and playful:

hello :)

ok, we're friends now ;)

This was the highlight for sure:

All the fish and very friendly and curious fresh water turtle were all seeded as there was no life there originally. It does make for a cool dive site. The bottom is a dark cave with pretty much nothing except being 30m deep in a dark cave, so my guide took me there, but we didn't stay at the bottom very long:

cute nose :)

Heading to the bottom:

honestly the bottom would only be dangerous if you lost all your lights or totally ran out of air

After a bit of time down there, heading back to where there is more light and more fish:

nice to see fresh water fish I had never seen before

And after just about 1h, it was time to get out as the site was closing at 17:00 and we had to get out :)

I mean beginners should be allowed to dive, but Dive Kauai sucks at handing them along with non beginners, which makes them a very poor choice for advanced divers. Of course they failed to admit that when I called and explicitely enquired about it, being happier to take my money at the expensive of a near guaranteed bad experience, but just for harboring Nick, the passive aggressive lying boat driver, that's a definitely a reason not to go with them as long as he works there.

Day1: 2 Boat Dives and 4 shore dives (downgraded to 2) with Dive Kauai

cleaning station for turtles, there were 6 or 7 sleeping there

Afternoon was supposed to have 2 shore dives and 2 night dives, but the complete beginners I was paired with ruined the first dive, and then the guide said he didn't think night dives would be so good due to silt (that, he may have been correct on). Diving from the jetty was not super easy, kind of rocky and not easy to navigate, but the turtles were happy to come up for a rest:

Day2: 2 Boat Dives with Dive Kauai

Oh yeah, now I remember that the dive guide seemed a bit green and got anxious when I got just a bit ahead of him or went to check a small hole within easy reach of him, when he only had 2 divers to keep track of. Sigh... But that confirms what I was saying that Dive Kauai is definitely not for advanced divers.

Day3: 2 DPV Shore Dives

Despite all the crap and bad feelings from Nick, the DPV dives were lots of fun, even if the DPVs themselves had worrisome failure modes, including no maser shutoff of wrist deadman switch. I was even told that sometimes they get stuck on, that's not good... Thankfully they did not for me and they were definitely fun.

Before the dives, a dive Kauai manager/coordinator also came to meet me that morning to apologize about the mess created the previous day, which was nice of him and honestly I was ok enough walking away after that and burrying the hatchet, except passive agressive backstabbing Nick felt it would be good to call the next company I was going with to badmouth me and try to convince them not to dive with me, oh nice... So yeah, after that Nick made sure I let everyone know on every medium available to avoid him and Dive Kauai. I hope he gets fired....

Day4: 6 Dives with Fathom Five

the guide was good and gave us a good briefing on what we could see

not hard to find turtles, they are literally everywhere

I finally found where the lobsters were hiding in Sheraton Caves, took me a while to find the spot again

For the dusk/night dives, we were 4 divers, plus the guide:

Then, I found this beautiful Stary Night Octopus, but that also ended the dive as it got a bit too friendly with us:

Day #2, we went to Gonzo via ferry, cool trip:

I was supposed to get more dives in Gonzo but conditions were not good, so it was 2 dives only.

Video:

Day #3 was on the west side and thankfully allowed 4 dives:

Videos:

Day #4 was south of the island for the first 2 dives:

Finding a location for the 3rd dive was tricky, eventually did muck shipwreck diving at X127:

Video:

Thanks to the Dawn Diving crew!

it was a nice boat, bigger than Aggressor

nice welcome :)

One of our dive guides liked costumes, she was well equipped :)

Here is our trip:

The diving was ok but didn't quite compare with the Pacific. Still got to see some nice things:

great slipper lobster

plenty of big lobsters

some amount of sharks too

found one octopus

my dive buddy, Arturo

this fish doesn't fly but it extends it wings to look bigger

baby puffer was very cute :)

night dives were often better than day dives, and found one squid

a good amount of crabs at night

of all kinds

Outside of a few sharks and one dive site that was a nurse shark nursery, we had one dophin visit us and I was also able to see one eagle ray. Neither were interested in divers and went away quickly

I was the only one who spotted it, it came and went quickly

G-Spot had plenty of nurse sharks, I love them, they look cute and cuddly to me :)

the texture on them, is wonderful

the baby nurse shark was even cuter, learning to hunt from its mother

they like to sleep under rocks

and they don't seem to care if they don't entirely fit and stick out a lot ;)

And that was it for diving, 6 days, 27 dives, did every dive except one that I had to abort early due to a bad cold that blocked my ear pretty badly. Diving at the end was non trivial as I was barely able to equalize. Thankfully I had enough drugs to open things up barely enough to equalize.

The boat was nice, TCE was bigger than aggressor, and the room was spacious enough. There was a shread of cell service during the last 4.5 days, but enough to sent an urgent Email or text, nothing more than that. We got lucky and got multiple nice sunsets:

Thanks to the crew for taking care of us during the week and helping us find the local critters.

Nice boat:

Here is our trip:

The views from the boat, from islands to sunsets, were spectacular, of course:

We went to land a couple of times, and one was unscheduled. Unfortunately Thailand has some amount of restrictions on when we were able to dive or which beaches we could set foot, on. The first stop was going back to port after an electrical problem prevented the compressors from working, making diving hard if you can't refill tanks. We missed one dive that day, but to the boat's credit, they got people lined up at night to come on the boat and fix the issue within hours of our arrival. During that time, we went to celebrate halloween in local bars on land, so it wasn't so bad :)

by random luck, I had my LED outfit with me, I don't normally bring it on dive boats :)

The second stop was Similan National Park, a nice 1.5H stop:

yeah, it was hard to carry that rock up there and balance it just right :)

Nice wildlife:

rare colorful pigeon

probably a water monitor

Anyway, we were there for divng :) Unfortunately this season was a bit unusual, and the amount of bigger critters was much lower than normal. We didn't get to see a single manta, shark, or more elusive whaleshark unfortunately. That said, there were still things to see:

plenty of small fishes

nice banded sea snake

nice manta shrimp, so colorful as always

cool fish :)

clown triggerfish are always fun :)

what a beautie

another unusual fish

the only sharks I saw, but they were cute and sleeping in a hole

fantastic camouflage

several cool caves

One really weird thing I saw on a safety stop, was this thing, with a small fish still alive, swimming inside its stomach:

The soft corals were pretty:

More pictures:

We had a 4 dives a day, including a daily dusk or night dive. I was able to use my new video light which had a cool blue/ultraviolet mode:

My favorite videos;

Dive Log:

Thanks to the crew for their hard work, and I hope to be able to come back in the future (apparently April would have higher odds of nice critters):