Source: www.on-the-edge.com
Article and Photography by Robert Aston & Lynn Jaye 

Behave yourselves, or the Bugiman will get you! Ever wonder where this childhood threat originated? The Buginese of Sulawesi are well-known for their unique style of sailing schooner, but it was the infamous Bugi pirates who sailed the seas of Indonesia in their magnificent black-sailed galleons and terrorized early European sailors. On board the Seven Seas, a completely restored and modernized Buginese schooner, we planned to explore the remote eastern waters of Indonesia, not for the Bugimen but for the magnificent array of sea life.

 Blog by Eddy (http://www.yellowtangsoftware.com/purpleink/blogs/eddy.html)

 

On Thursday, Dave (the group leader) arranged to do three dives as opposed to the regular one boat dive site, one drop off dive and another boat dive. That day we did 3 boat dives to three different sites in a row. The dive sites were: Calvin's Crack, 40ft Point and Golden Chain. As this was not part of the regular package, we gave the captain and the divemaster a little bit extra tip.

Blog by Eddy (http://www.yellowtangsoftware.com/purpleink/blogs/eddy.html)

This was going to be my last day of dving for this trip. Since I was only planning to do 2 dives today, I decided not use nitrox. I would later regret that decision. Today's group was smaller and all the familiar faces (dive buddies) were back home or about to leave. We sailed on a smaller boat, not the catamaran that we were using all week. Althought this boat was smaller, it could easily fit 15+ divers. The divemasters were different this time as well. There was Jesus and Raymundo who was my nitrox instructor. It's funny that I went out with Raymundo on my first dive in Cozumel and now I'm on my last dive. I was lucky that throught this trip there were no crowds on the boats and the hotel was on a minimal occupancy. I was given one of the best rooms and the best individualized attention. I was told that two groups of 30+ people were arriving on the day I was leaving. I really luck out.

Blog by Eddy (http://www.yellowtangsoftware.com/purpleink/blogs/eddy.html)

Today, Wednesday the group decided to do a shark dive as an additional excursion. This was not included in the package at CocoView. Since I had never done a shark dive I decided go along. Four others in our group were coming too (Cindy, Dina, Craig and Christina), as other people from the resort. The shark dive was run by a separate company: Waikuha Adventure Diving. Their operations were located about 30 mins from CocoView by car. The trip to their location was somewhat painful. We had to carry all our equipment on to the water taxi that takes you inland. That included Nitrox tanks, since they only provide air tanks at the shark dive place. Then we had to take a van to Waikuha, which was located in not-so-well-known and poorly maintained resort, which name escapes my memory. It seemed that the shark diving operation was the thing that kept the place alive. The facilities there were poor, there were no proper bathrooms or even running water for any kind of rinsing.

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You are going on vacation and want to start with scuba diving lessons. You know that you will need to spend sometime in classroom and you do not like that. Sun, see, underwater world and you are in classroom. Well this will not be necessary in future. PADI started to offer eLearning for Open Water Diver Course which you can finish before you go on vacation and only to pratical classes during vacation. Well what to say except really big step.

Big PLUS for PADI.

Source: www.dive-pacific.com
Several years ago during a boat trip to the Poor Knights Islands
I asked a Whangarei local, Warren Farrelly, about good options
for shore diving. He told me about a site, near Whangarei Heads, called Reotahi, where abundant underwater wildlife, big and small could be found. It was easy to locate on the map, at the bottleneck in the harbour about 30 kms by road from the town basin.  The setting is beautiful; sandwiched between the hills of the Whangarei Heads and the harbour

Source: www.dive-pacific.com
The grey-white marble passage finally ends at nearly 160m with another abyssal shaft dropping into the blackness! Rick and Dave alternately push the deeper section of the cave laying 6mm line from an improvised reel; the dives leap frogging to 157m, 160m then finally Rick’s astonishing, record breaking dive to 177 metres.

Source: www.dive-pacific.com 
Her fingers and eyes were as one. She could be a surgeon performing a heart valve replacement. Steady hands and eyes and a specialist’s knowledge of how to carry out such a delicate operation! She knew exactly what she was doing.