It was very special for us to have PADI’s Richard Evans at El Galleon Resort Puerto Galera this past week. We always enjoy his visits and getting some very interesting information about the dive industry. Above photo shows him studying hard in preparation for his PADI DPV course. The second photo shows him and Troy out on one of their scooter dives, having a great time of course. Congrats Richard!
A big welcome to this wonderful group from China. Xiao Long Tan and Elaine started the Beijing Divers Club decades ago, maybe even the first dive club in China. Tan was Tech Asia’s point of contact with the National Museum of China’s Archaeological Dept, which kept tech Asia quite busy with over sixty technical courses when they trained their teams up to Trimix and Wreck Diver. Sam took them all to Florida for Cave Courses. Oliver (Jie Ao) was also one of that group. Last time we saw them was in 2014 when they flew Sam and Dave Ross up to Guilin to help with a cave project. Diving with us on this trip were: Ao Jie, Fei Lui, Xinyi Zhang, Xiao (Tan) Long, Yi (Elaine) Chen, and Sun Yanna
What a great week it was with the group from the British International School Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. This is the 4th year in a row that they have joined us and we sure appreciate all the work that Lauren Binnington has done to keep this yearly event going strong. Six of the group did their full Open Water courses, two earned their AOW and we even had one who got their EFR/Rescue. Everyone worked very hard and should be very proud for what they have accomplished. They also had a great time visiting one of our local schools with some engaging activities to educate the children and joined in on an underwater clean-up dive.
Morgan Ditty, Mia Heath Dyer, Anna-Lien Juelsbak, Tue Minh Nguyen, Soo Kyoung Park, Juliette Robineau proudly showing off their PADI OW certs with Troy.
Congratulations to the winners of the 2016 Ocean Art Underwater Photo Competition.!
Ocean Art is one of the most prestigious nature photo contests in the world, and the winning images represent some of the best underwater photographs of the year. Photographers from over 60 countries entered images, and over $75,000 in sponsor prizes have been awarded, making the Ocean Art prize value among the highest in the world.
Winners were asked to rank their prize choices and were awarded 1 prize based on totaling points from all their winning photos.
El Galleon/Asia divers was a proud sponsor of this event and congratulates Pier Mane who won our prize, a 7 night dive package!
Pier Mane, racked up placements in 4 different categories. Here are a couple of his winning shots:
3rd Place-mirrorless-macro
4th Place Reefscape
I also want to congratulate Gyno Symus who has been diving with us several times before, for getting a 1st and 3rd place in the completion. Gino was also one of the Hugycup winners a few years ago here. We’re always happy to see our good friends win some of these photo competitions!
1st Place Marine Life Behavior
3rd Place Reefscape
See more of the winning photos here:
http://www.uwphotographyguide.com/2016-ocean-art-contest-winners#winnernames
We hope you celebrated and enjoyed the night as much as we all did here. It was a wonderful time spent with family and good friends, and a night of fine dining at El Galleon. As usual everyone migrated to Point and the Platform to ring in the New Year with an amazing fireworks display put on by EL Gal and in the perfect position to witness all the other fireworks up and down the whole beach. Oh what a view! Things are off to a fine start and we look forward to seeing everyone here this year!
Always a fun time with Trevor and the gang spending the holidays here!
Always a fun time with Trevor and the gang spending the holidays here!
A first New Years Eve for Chuck in PG!
We ring in 2017 with this stunningly snooted photo by Mat Watts. According to Mat, this nudibranch took up most of his dive at the Boatyard in Puerto Galera, as he attempted to get the snoot in just the right position. For all you in the “camera know”: Taken on a Canon 5D Mk3 with Sea and Sea Housing, Canon 100mm 2.8L Macro IS lens, Subsee +5 diopter and Reefnet Snoot. 1/200 sec at f/22, ISO160. If you would like to subscribe to Asia Divers weekly newsletter to keep up to date on all news here please send an email to instructors@asiadivers.com
Everyone has been having a fine time celebrating the season. We kicked off the festivities with our staff party on the 19th and than Santa and his elves arrived at El Galleon on the 24rd and delivered heaps of toys to the local kids for the 26th year in a row! Christmas dinner at El Galleon was a delicious feast by Antoine and the crew. We also did our annual underwater treasure hunt. Wishing everyone a very healthy, happy and prosperous 2017…and hope to see you here soon!
The games are the best part of our staff Christmas party and couple that with alcohol and everyone is in for a very fun time.
“El Galleon – Nice enough rooms / resort, clean and comfortable. “More than adequate” and all staff were exceedingly helpful. Dive Centre was a slick operation & very professional, with well-structured diving. Easy to do 4 dives / day with dive sites only 10 mins away from the resort, it was great to be able to go back to your room between dives. Exceedingly good corals & an abundance of fish life, all very colourful. Many shoals of fish, but no big stuff seen. Lovely canyon dives, some had healthy currents. “Hole in the wall” dive site was great.”
Thanks for your help with the guests. Jem kemp, Director, Luxus Pacific Diving
Email: jem.kemp@luxuspacificdiving.com
Website: www.luxuspacificdiving.com
Alli and Chen (pictured with Ocean, Conny and Sharon from PADI) spent a couple days in Manila to attend the PADI Chinese focused Business Academy. We learned all about the latest trends in Chinese marketing and social media and even had a fun time with #MannequinChallenge. Why present on social media and viral video marketing when we can partake in it? Check this out: https://www.facebook.com/PADIProsSouthEastAsia/
Congrats to Chuck Dreyfus!!! 1700th dive:-)We sure don’t hand out too many of those t-shirts!
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