As we speak, we have 15 teenagers here from the British International School in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam doing diving courses with us. Fourteen of them are doing the OW and one is doing AOW. We are so excitied to have them all here this week and it’s all thanks to Richard Dyer for getting this organsied and set up. We are looking forward to some great diving experiences, a project with a local school, a sunset cruise and some good fun!
A great little Christmas gift was found by Mazi this week….a black hairy frogfish!
We’ve decked the resort with all the Christmas trimmings and are getting into the holiday spirit. Rhuby did a fine job of making the tree look beautiful as usual, and now we’re all eagerly awaiting everyone to arrive for the festive time. Time to eat, drink and be merry!!
January 25-30, 2014 at El Galleon/Asia Divers
Join us for The Essential Underwater Photography Workshop with Mike Bartick. It’s for any camera, Dslr, or compact. This is what will be covered on a daily schedule: 1st morning is orientation and each day after: 7:00am is a photo review session before the eight a.m. dive. ten-thirty dive, Lunch, SI break, photo seminar and discussions, presentations aprx. 45 minutes, 16:00 dive, 18:00 night dive, dinner, evening – Photo slide show, discussion and critique one on one or natural history talk.
The Essential Underwater Photography Workshop includes:
Contact Allison@asiadivers.com if you’re interested.
It’s been a fun few days having the group here from Scubaguam (Manami Iijima, Nobuko Iijima, Sprute Zachary, Pete Peterson, William Marhoffer, Jimmy Roland, Frank and Clara Robison, Laurel Levy, Alice Leliukas, Stephen, Merry-Jane and Rosalie Wolborsky) Though it’s been only a short trip this time we hope to see Pete Peterson back again soon with more divers from Guam. We made sure to get them to Verde Island, the Canyons and of course some of the muck diving sites along with the usual beautiful reef dives.
Scubaguam.com is a website that is almost totally focused on diving on the island of Guam and throughout the western Pacific. It features the history of diving on Guam, over 75 divers sites with complete information on how to get there and what to do, and many related articles.
Scubaguam.com was created in 2008 by Pete Peterson, retired owner of a large dive on Guam. Pete is known throughout the western Pacific region both as a dive business owner and a diving television show producer.
Over the past four years the website, along with its associated Facebook page with the same name, has specialized and dive travel throughout Micronesia with main emphasis on the Philippines and Malaysia.
Thanks to Pete for choosing Asia Divers/El Galleon!
British school boy William Gordon age 10 ½ from Burgess Hill, Sussex has collected GBP600 (almost US$1,000) for Malapascua. Horrified by the televised events shown on UK TV, William bucked the trend at his school last week during the annual Children in Need charity event.
Unlike everyone else who went to school dressed in pyjamas, William was determined to raise money for the Philippines (which of course includes thousands of children) by himself. Not knowing the best way to send the money he rang his Great Auntie – Ali Pockett, frequent visitor to Asia Divers and well versed in Philippine etiquette. Ali P obviously contacted AD and was directed to the plight of Malapascua – an island she has dived together with her partner – IDAP Course Director Kenneth and friends Johan and Maria Lyrevik. Continue reading
Thank you to everyone that has supported the grass-roots campaign of PG Dive Centers to support the relief effort. We have been working with other dives centers in our area and have had tremendous support. Rick Kirkham went to Malapascua and should be back online by the end of the week with photos of the relief effort. He will also be visiting DAANBANTAYAN in northern Cebu which has yet to be even accessed by the Red Cross. The rumor is of 14000 families homeless.
The money has poured in and there are vans with food and construction supplies being bought in Cebu and winging their way up to the island. Last Wednesday several tons of supplies from Springboard Foundation were being shipped for free by LBC foundation from Manila.
Come next week more food will be needed. This is a disaster that will continue to need help for months to come. If you would like to donate please contact Alli at instructors@asiadivers.com.
A very special thank-you to our partners Cressi, Waterproof, and LW Compressors for their generous support.
Tommy and Alli went to the DEMA show in Orlando recently. It’s the world’s only international trade-only event for the diving industry. It was a great opportunity to do meet up with all of our wholesalers in the U.S. do some business, learn a few new things, and to see some friends of course. Thanks to two of our 25th Anniversary photo competition winners for coming out to visit us at DEMA, Alex Suh and Beth Watson.
Last year Asia Divers launched “Movember” with Pete, Jamie Troy, Brad, Mazi sporting bushy staches to raise awareness and some money for men’s health. This Movember the guys have started to sprout for awareness yet again, but are combining the awareness with raising money for the Malapascua typhoon relief. A few nights ago the guys decided that “Mohawks” might be a good way to introduce the “Mo-ness” of “Movember” and to raise some money for Malapascua. The guys got their Mohawks and raised almost p20,000 in one night up in the bar! If you would like to donate to this cause please email Alli at instructors@asiadivers.com. We’ll keep you up to date on where your money is going.
Here’s some great news for all you folks in the U.K. and even Europe. Philippine Airlines will fly to and from London starting November 4, 2013 and will operate direct, non-stop flights, providing the fastest travel to Manila from London (average 13 hours). The five-times-a-week service to Manila from London will use PAL’s Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.
Check out this link for some good prices on PAL
http://www1.philippineairlines.com/special-offers/fly-london/
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