Articles from this Category
21 November 2025
My dive operator “83 Palau Dive Center”, picked me up at 0810. The staff were largely mainland Chinese even thought the boss appeared Taiwanese. We picked up a few more guests before going out to the boat. Our first site Ulong Wall was a longish ride out. Here the coral was gorgeous. We saw giant […]
12 November 2024
Above: Chained birds near Maafushi’s port area. I had booked to dive with Arena Dive Club who offered the best rates of USD40 per dive and USD10 for all equipment per dive, plus a discount of at least 10%. (The discount turned out to be 20% when I returned to pay that night). They were […]
9 December 2023
Choosing a dive centre While in Koh Lipe, I did two dives with Forra Diving, located at the beach end of the Walking Street. I chose to dive with them for a few reasons: Azri (Malaysian) whom I had enquired with, was super helpful in explaining the various sites, in particular that much of diving […]
29 June 2023
I got picked up by Hangout Divers before the appointed time of 0800 and got to the large dive boat shortly after. I had booked online through their website that had a couple of English pages. English-speaking dive centres are hard to find in Ishigaki. My driver and divemaster, Natsuki Yanagisako turned out to be […]
7 April 2023
While based on the island of Gulhi, I did three dives with the Ayala Bubbles Dive Centre. It was a spotless outfit with nice new equipment. Being situated across the alley from my accommodation, it was a very easy experience. They didn’t require any checks of my dive card or previous dives. They only wanted […]
13 June 2022
Getting ready Breakfast at the Impian Inn started at 0730 which was perfect for my dive meet-up at 0830. I turned up at Tioman Dive Buddy a little earlier to do the paperwork and pay. But the divemasters didn’t know about me but the managed to fit me in for the 0900 dive which had […]
16 December 2021
Above: The jetty at Uncle Chang’s. It was my last dive day this trip, starting with a 0445 wake-up again. I hadn’t bought anything for a quick brekkie and took a couple of biscuits with my coffee. I reported to Scuba Gen before 0600 and got picked up by boat, this time, around 0620. I […]
15 December 2021
I set the alarm for 0445 for my 0600 report at Scuba Gen a couple of minutes walk away. I stuffed down a coffee and muffin before heading there ten minutes ahead of the report time. Rather than a boat pickup from the dive centre’s private jetty, I was collected by car for a short […]
13 December 2021
Today I started my dives, with all three done at Mataking Island. My fun dives were meant to be tomorrow, with today being a spare day in case of flight disruptions. But brought it forward to today as I could join a group as a favour to the dive centre, Scuba Gen. They had been […]
27 October 2019
Today is my second day of diving with Desert Rose Diving, going to Ras Mohammed. I was picked up at 0830 but one diver was five minutes late. Then he had forgotten to bring his passport along. Going back to get it, he found that his card had stopped working. We left the hotel 25 […]