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You can enter the Philippines visa and quarantine free, regardless of your vaccination status, provided you meet specific requirements. If you’re unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, you’ll need to provide a COVID-19 (RAT) test administered and certified by a health care professional within 24 hours before entry. Children may be exempt from this requirement. Follow the Philippines Department of Tourism for the latest advice. https://visitor.tourism.gov.ph/ You should also confirm the rules for your airline, as it may vary between airlines. Contact us now to book your holiday in paradise: admin@asiadivers.com

Asia Divers 35th Anniversary

It’s hard to believe it, but 5 years ago Asia Divers  celebrated our 30th anniversary with a huge celebration with friends from all over the world. We now mark our 35th anniversary with gratefulness and much happiness that despite the past couple turbulent years we are still rocking in here in Puerto Galera. In the past few months we’ve enjoyed seeing many friends from the past years coming back to visit and welcoming new guests here for the first time to show them the beauty of Puerto Galera. Here are a few  memories from our 30th Anniversary below:

From Russia with love

We are so lucky to have had Igor as part of our Asia Divers/El Galleon family for many years now and we always look forward to seeing him and his group from Russia (Aqua Don) return here.  It’s been a fantastic week….Thank you for your long time support!

Great times with Blue Line Divers

We have had a amazing time with the group from Blue Line Divers  (facebook.com/bluelinediversau ) from Melbourne. It was another one of those bookings that fell through in 2020, so we we’re super excited to see it finally happen. Thanks to Al from Blue Line Divers for being such a great group leader and keeping it all together and to Ian from Allways Dive Expeditions  for making this a smooth and successful trip. Happy hours have been  very busy and the bell has been swinging alot this past week. Congratulations to Jamie, Clinton and Sharon for all doing their 100th dives here too.

A very interesting dive for everyone  as Jamie from our Blue Line Divers group decided to do it in the buff for his 100th dive.  Everyone got to see even more of the wildlife of PG! Congratulations to Jamie, Clinton and Sharon for all doing their 100th dives here.

Fantastic  to have Scott Gutsy Tuason back here with his family. He got his fill of  Mindoro Macro and blackwater diving for sure in the few days that he was around.  Shot with Nikon D5 Nauticam 60mm, Backscatter MF-1 Mini Flash, 60mm FITPro 2600 focus light and Z330 Inon strobes. from Squires Sports. https://squiressports.com/

Taste of the Solomons

Dates:  January 16-23, 2024. The 7 night Taste of the Solomons scuba diving liveaboard itinerary allows up to 22 dives around Honiara, the Florida Islands and the Russell Islands, including the iconic Leru Cut and Mirror Pond.

A typical day diving offers up to 4 dives*; 3 day dives and, where possible, a sunset or night dive.

We have an Early Bird offer of 10% off for everyone who pays the initial deposit of US$ 1,000 before the end of March 2023. On the 1st of April the cabin price indicated  below  will be the price for the trip.

We have at the moment the whole boat with the following 8 Cabins figuration and price.

Classic Twin Cabin: Price per person US$ 4,235 (3)
Premium Twin Cabin: Price per person US$ 4,585 (1)
Premium Twin/Double Cabin: Price per person US$ 4,585 (3)
Superior Double Cabin: Price per person US$ 4,830 (1)

There will be Marine Park and Port Fee’s (US$175) and Fuel Charges (US$15 a night) on top of the cabin price. *On some days the 3rd or 4th dive may be replaced with a village visit.
Contact us at instructors@asiadivers.com if you’re interested to join.

Instructor Development at Asia Divers

Congratulations to all the IDC candidates who worked very hard with Pedro recently.  Over the course of  15 days they spent their time studying physics, theory, standards and all required skills to be an exceptional PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor. They overcame personal challenges and achieved their own goals. The next chapter awaits them as they start to teach their students to become PADI scuba divers in the near future. As the first 5 Star Career Development Center in the Philippines, we have the highest rating awarded to an Instructor Development Center and with Asia Divers’ 30+ years experience in the diving . Contact us at instructors@asiadivers.com for more information to jump start your dive into being a PADI Pro!

Four years waiting for this trip to Coco’s island in Costa Rica and finally happened. The trip was booked for 2020, but then the shit hit the fan as you all know….. 2 years on we did it! We had  awesome time aboard the Okeanos Aggressor 1 and the shark action did not disappoint for sure. Hammerheads on almost every dive, silkys, Galapagos and whale shark were the highlights along with mobula, manta and marble rays,  BIG tunas, huge schools of jacks, and dolphins swimming along to keep us company on an awesome safety stop. Plus a couple of encounters with Tigers! It’s a 36 hour boat ride out to Coco’s so you’re really out in the middle of nowhere for sure. We did 7 days of diving out there than had to do the long trip back again afterwards. Good thing the boat was well supplied with seasickness meds! What a fun group to join me on this epic adventure. Frank, Catherine, Kim, Erik, Emma, Suzie and Conny along with Tony Exall and his group mostly from the UK. Keep a watch here and in our weekly newsletter for details for our next trip live-aboard in January 2024 to the Solomon Islands.

Gotta love happy hour at the Point Bar…Two for one on these delicious cocktails! Happy Hour runs from 5:30 to 6:30 every evening and is always a favorite to wind down after a busy day.

Look what’s new at El Galleon! Allan has his dream come true with our very own wine fridge. Check out the fine selection of delectable wines from all over the world.

A delicious learning experienced happened by chance this past week when one of our guests, Jean volunteered to teach Toto how to make authentic Pad Thai. Jean is a professional chef who lives in Iceland, specializing in Thai foods and was happy to jump into the kitchen with Toto. Next time your here check out the Pad Thai!

Rotary Club of Subiaco does it again

Thanks so much once again to the Rotary Club of Subiaco in Australia for donating the much appreciated school supplies. Rhuby and Alli made the trip to the Paraway Mangyon elementary school to deliver the supplies and also to bring along 4 sacks of rice from El Galleon to go towards their feeding program for the kids. As always, if anyone one wants to donate to these causes just give us a shout.

Congratulations to Chuck Dreyfus for doing his 3000^th dive. When he moved to Puerto Galera three years ago he had 1749 dives…that’s a lot of dives in just three years to hit this big number. So why the bunny ears?  Well, Chuck likes his numbers and bunnies are great at multiplying! Check out the “3000” hair band too. Rob Jacobs made a video that you can check out on our Facebook page. Nothing like seeing a bunny go scuba diving!

2020 Traveler’s choice

We are very thankful to receive the Tripadvisor Travellers Choice Award for 2020.  Thank you to all of our wonderful guests and especially those that took the time and effort to write reviews. Also, a big thank you to the staff at El Galleon and Asia Divers who made this possible.

We love getting reviews…especially nice ones of course! If you’ve visited us before and enjoyed your stay perhaps you can write a review for us on one of our TripAdvisor sites. During these crazy times every little bit can help:

• El Galleon Beach Resort & Hotel
• Asia Divers
• El Galleon Restaurant

We look forward to seeing you all back soon!

Bring down the nuts!

Thank God the coconuts came down last week! Over the past few months of lockdown they seem to have grown out of control and they were dropping like bombs! Have look at our Facebook page to see the video on how to “Safely drop your nuts” if you want to see how it’s done.

Wild Philippines, a new book by Nigel Hicks

Back in 2018 Nigel Hicks came to stay with us to do some underwater photography for the book he was then working on, about the wildlife of the Philippines, and to be called Wild Philippines. Unfortunately, on that occasion things conspired against him in the form of an ear problem that prevented him from diving, though he was able to do some onshore photography instead.

Wild Philippines was published a few months ago, and you can see some sample photos and pages on his website at https://www.nigelhicks.com/editorial-photography-writing/books/wild-philippines/. It is also available from National Book Stores and from any Amazon site.

With over 300 photos and 50,000 words, Wild Philippines is major work, offering both the public and conservationists working in this field a valuable snapshot of the state of conservation in the Philippines at this time. Published to mark the 20th anniversary of The National Parks and Other Wild Places of the Philippines, Nigel’s first book about the country, and the first ever to look at its natural environment, Wild Philippines now brings an overview of our knowledge about Philippine wildlife right up to date.

X-Ray Magazine contribution by Beth Watson

Check out the latest edition of X-Ray Magazine. Lots of great dive and travel information. Including Beth’s contribution to this issue, located under the “My Favorite Wide Angle Dive” section. You download your free copy today: https://xray-mag.com/magazines/99

It’s been a week to remember for sure with this fun gang from Diveline Aus. Superb conditions, lots of sun and tremendous amounts of fun for all. The grand finale included a lovely BCD float in the Verde island Passage.

This was a perfect day for a Verde adventure with Diveline Aus! Thanks to Paul Sorensen for bringing  Adrian Marshall, Julie Wrighton, Peter Wrighton, Ian Hulett, Christine Reynonds, Paul McGrath, John Timms, Stewart Andrews, Matthew Grahams, Kenneth Mills and Jennifer Mcgrath to our happy home!

What’s happening here

Kenneth Mills  and Matthew Graham did their PADI DPV courses with Jamie and had two super dives , than Alli took all of them plus Rene on a “Magical Mystery Tour” to West Escarcio, Canyons, Atol, Kilima, Sinandigan, and Coral cove. They finished in an area that Rene and Jamie had never even seen before!

We’ve also enjoyed the company of this very experienced group of underwater photographers (Choi Yee Shing, Yiu Hei (Alex) Cheung, Wu Wei Keung, and Li Yat (Ken) Hung) this week. They were a pleasure to dive with. Many highlights including two Blackwater dives too.

Matt Hutchinson is well immersed into his Instructor internship now after passing the Instructor exams. Matt will spend the next month with us gaining lots of experience in teaching all PADI courses and also helping out on guiding. For everyone who does their IDC with us we offer this internship program for no extra charge. If you’re interested in becoming a PADI pro and living the dream, please have a look at our website for more information: https://asiadivers.com/gopro/

Ruben and Matt are teaching Greg Tirrell PADI Advanced course right now, getting him experienced in several different types of dives.

Huong Ly has been enjoying her stay with us doing DSD and follow-up dives.

Mid Autumn Day and National Day holiday in China means lots and lots of folks from China around this week. Our Chinese instructor team is busy busy and soon we’ll have a bunch of certified PADI divers to celebrate with.

Homies! First time for Kjell to meet up with someone from his hometown here at El Gal. Daniel Haworth is from Arboga, Sweden and Jimmy Strand is from the next town over. Small world stuff for sure!

Blackwater Magic

We took advantage of the perfect conditions for Blackwater diving this week and went out for two nights back to back.  Check out what Arthur Nash shot with the Olympus TG-3 and no strobe. Join us for some more of this really cool diving: https://asiadivers.com/blackwater-diving-puerto-galera/

Larval paper Nautilus

Juvenile rabbitfish

Juvenile flying fish

Congratulations to Jos for doing his 600^th dive with us with 90% of those dives having been done with Asia Divers. Jos lived in the Philippines for nine years, but now he lives in Norway and we don’t get to see him too much, except on Facebook! Welcome back Jos, it was wonderful to see you back.

It’s always nice to see our old friends come back to visit. Mike and Elfriede Gould have been long time Asia Divers customers, in fact for more than 20 years! It was wonderful to see them back again and hope it won’t be another eight years before we see you again.

This week we welcomed Dolphin Scuba all the way from Australia Perth. The guys at Dolphin Scuba heard about Asia Divers a couple of years ago when they met Allan and Tommy on their tour around Australia, so they decided to come over and find out what all the fuss was about. It’s been a fantastic week with great weather and even better diving with sightings of Hairy Frog Fish, Soft Coral Crabs and Pygmy Seahorse, not to mention the great drift dives at the Canyons and Verde Island. Special thanks to Emma and Ben for putting the trip together.