WATER TEMP & NEOPRENE: I have always sworn by the SeaTemperature website for accurate water temp. It let me down in a huge way this time around. The website kept saying 81+, but the actual water temp was anywhere from 76 to 80, and more often it was 78. I got caught up in a school of fish (large mouth mackeral?) while taking video and somehow got close enough to share their water and it was a toasty 80 degrees. I was ready to go to Japan with them if I could just stay warm!!
I get chilly easily, so I was wearing a full 3mil, a 2.5mil jacket and a 3/5 bibbed hood. I was mostly ok but got chilled at the end of some dives. The water salinity is lower there than other places. Normally I carry 6 pounds wearing rash guards in Cozumel. I was carrying 6 pounds in all that neoprene in PG.
I did 3 dives a day. The boat takes you back to shore after each dive – and I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing (for me). Once back at shore I’d get relaxed, have a cup of coffee and chit-chat, and then we’d be getting back on the boat. Sometimes I sort of wished we’d just stayed out there. Dives were roughly 8:30, 11:00 and 2:30. We had the opportunity to do night dives every night but I think the group only did two. I didn’t do any. I didn’t hear any stories of amazing things so figured it was ok to stay warm!
BLACKWATER DIVE: This deserved its own mention. I DID the blackwater dive!! At Scandi they do the dive untethered. They set up the boat with a rope hanging with one light pointing down at 15ft and another – on the same rope - pointing up at 30ft. The diver’s job is to stay between the 15 and 30ft lights and find critters while you’re hanging out over 10,000ft of water. I would not recommend this dive to a newer diver as it’s a lot of task loading – at least for me. I had to keep track of my dive buddy (where are they? Are they seeing what I’m seeing? Are they seeing something I should be seeing? Oh no, they’re 20 feet below me!); keep track of my depth (chased a critter to 45ft and realized it when I heard the dive guide dinging his bell and looked up to see him flashing his light at me); have to hold a focus light in my left hand while trying to focus and take pictures with my camera in my right hand; I had NO idea what settings to use on my TG6 so I was winging it (mostly stayed in microscope mode and did mediocre); there were times I floated away from the boat as I chased critters and then had to swim hard to get back to the lights. I’d do it again – I’m proud of myself for having done it – but it was stressful (and now a 20-30ft night dive will feel like a walk in the park).
GEAR STORAGE AND STAGING FOR DIVES: The area where you gear up has several large tables to sit and and chat before/between dives. Each person is assigned a large crate (2.5ft by 1.5ft?), but mostly what went in ours was our towel (provided at the front desk), room key, t-shirt and odds and ends. You will be issued a plastic card to redeem for a dry towel. You can exchange your wet towel throughout the day as many times as you want. You do NOT need to bring a travel towel. Once you turn over your gear to the crew they take good care of it. Roger is VERY picky about his gear and I didn’t hear him complain about how they handled his gear. The guy who is in charge of all the neoprene (Armand) is amazing. If you can’t find something he probably knows EXACTLY where it is.
Odd story: Roger got up one morning and went looking for his wetsuit and it was GONE. He knows his wetsuit because he had to patch a spot on his butt (he took a spill on a boat and snagged a hole on a bolt – had a nice bruise too) – there’s no mistaking his suit for someone else’s. Yet someone else had put on his 3mil Pinnacle, which was still truly 3mil as it hadn’t been used very much, and left behind their old, ratty 3mil that felt more like a 1mil. I guess Armand straightened it out when the guy came back – and provided Roger a loaner for the dive. Roger tried to make a joke out of it and asked the guy “Hey, you didn’t pee in my wetsuit did you?!”. The guy just said “no, I didn’t pee in your wetsuit”. No apology. No, ‘hey I’ll buy you a beer later’. Oy.
Near the same area they do the dive briefings, they have two hoses for forced air to dry off your camera rigs. I thought this was genius. They also have a dedicated, air-conditioned camera room.
On the sidewalk side, near the tanks for wetsuits, there is a hot shower. It’s adequate for showering off salt water before lunch but I wouldn’t plan on a whole shower like on the deck of a liveaboard.
ALL INCLUSIVE HELPFUL HINTS: you can get coffee, juice or tea for breakfast and it’s included. If you want a second cup of coffee they will charge you for it (and I’m fairly sure it’s instant). You CAN order coffee from a fancy machine – not sure what the upcharge is for that. You can get coffee, tea or a soft drink at lunch and dinner. But if you order a soft drink after a dive (not at lunch or dinner) they will charge you for it. You could go the entire trip without ever having ordered a soft drink at a meal, and if you order one outside of meal-time you’ll get charged for it. Alcohol is not included in the AI package. These things aren't expensive, it’s just helpful to know when you hold your coffee cup up for a refill there will be a charge (they tell you, btw - but now you'll be able to say 'yep - that's fine' instead of 'seriously?'!).
If you get a massage make sure you pay for it at the desk. Tip the masseuse separately. The spa is NOT owned by Scandi, so we thought we should pay the masseuse for everything. Nope. Had to get that fixed – but it was no problem.
WILL WE GO BACK? MISCELLANEOUS: If/when we return I will take a look at the calendar to avoid new/full moons and also will avoid any major holidays. We were there for Holy Week – a huge deal for Filipinos. The only down-side for us was that there more non-diving families at the resort and there were kids in the pool that is usually only used for training purposes. It interrupted our afternoon siesta!
Not sure what I’m forgetting. I don’t know if I’ll get around to posting pictures here – it’s never easy for me to figure it out on SB. However, if you want to see my pictures shoot me a message and I’ll share my FB page. I have a ‘Diving’ subgroup that is just for people who I have been diving with or who want to see my pictures. You know how it is. People look at a picture of a nudi and have no idea if it’s a foot long or millimeters, so I just don’t post them on my regular FB account.
We bought muck sticks MOSTLY to get the feather stars off our neoprene! Those things really like to hitch-hike! I found the muck stick helpful to point out things and for size comparison. They sell them at Scandi for $20US and they have centimeter measurements etched into them. I found mine helpful to move algae out of the way on occasion. I was very careful to avoid sticking them in the sand - there are star gazers (and who knows what else) buried in there.
Special kudos to Paragon Divers and Steve Backerman. He assembled a really great group of folks for this trip. I know it’s a crap shoot when you put together a group, but we had no drama, nice people, good divers and everyone meshed really well.
I really try to hit all the points that I wish I had known before traveling, and what I learned that I think will help for better planning. If I missed something you're curious about let me know. I may not have the answer but I do have access to a group that might know the answer.
I get chilly easily, so I was wearing a full 3mil, a 2.5mil jacket and a 3/5 bibbed hood. I was mostly ok but got chilled at the end of some dives. The water salinity is lower there than other places. Normally I carry 6 pounds wearing rash guards in Cozumel. I was carrying 6 pounds in all that neoprene in PG.
I did 3 dives a day. The boat takes you back to shore after each dive – and I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing (for me). Once back at shore I’d get relaxed, have a cup of coffee and chit-chat, and then we’d be getting back on the boat. Sometimes I sort of wished we’d just stayed out there. Dives were roughly 8:30, 11:00 and 2:30. We had the opportunity to do night dives every night but I think the group only did two. I didn’t do any. I didn’t hear any stories of amazing things so figured it was ok to stay warm!
BLACKWATER DIVE: This deserved its own mention. I DID the blackwater dive!! At Scandi they do the dive untethered. They set up the boat with a rope hanging with one light pointing down at 15ft and another – on the same rope - pointing up at 30ft. The diver’s job is to stay between the 15 and 30ft lights and find critters while you’re hanging out over 10,000ft of water. I would not recommend this dive to a newer diver as it’s a lot of task loading – at least for me. I had to keep track of my dive buddy (where are they? Are they seeing what I’m seeing? Are they seeing something I should be seeing? Oh no, they’re 20 feet below me!); keep track of my depth (chased a critter to 45ft and realized it when I heard the dive guide dinging his bell and looked up to see him flashing his light at me); have to hold a focus light in my left hand while trying to focus and take pictures with my camera in my right hand; I had NO idea what settings to use on my TG6 so I was winging it (mostly stayed in microscope mode and did mediocre); there were times I floated away from the boat as I chased critters and then had to swim hard to get back to the lights. I’d do it again – I’m proud of myself for having done it – but it was stressful (and now a 20-30ft night dive will feel like a walk in the park).
GEAR STORAGE AND STAGING FOR DIVES: The area where you gear up has several large tables to sit and and chat before/between dives. Each person is assigned a large crate (2.5ft by 1.5ft?), but mostly what went in ours was our towel (provided at the front desk), room key, t-shirt and odds and ends. You will be issued a plastic card to redeem for a dry towel. You can exchange your wet towel throughout the day as many times as you want. You do NOT need to bring a travel towel. Once you turn over your gear to the crew they take good care of it. Roger is VERY picky about his gear and I didn’t hear him complain about how they handled his gear. The guy who is in charge of all the neoprene (Armand) is amazing. If you can’t find something he probably knows EXACTLY where it is.
Odd story: Roger got up one morning and went looking for his wetsuit and it was GONE. He knows his wetsuit because he had to patch a spot on his butt (he took a spill on a boat and snagged a hole on a bolt – had a nice bruise too) – there’s no mistaking his suit for someone else’s. Yet someone else had put on his 3mil Pinnacle, which was still truly 3mil as it hadn’t been used very much, and left behind their old, ratty 3mil that felt more like a 1mil. I guess Armand straightened it out when the guy came back – and provided Roger a loaner for the dive. Roger tried to make a joke out of it and asked the guy “Hey, you didn’t pee in my wetsuit did you?!”. The guy just said “no, I didn’t pee in your wetsuit”. No apology. No, ‘hey I’ll buy you a beer later’. Oy.
Near the same area they do the dive briefings, they have two hoses for forced air to dry off your camera rigs. I thought this was genius. They also have a dedicated, air-conditioned camera room.
On the sidewalk side, near the tanks for wetsuits, there is a hot shower. It’s adequate for showering off salt water before lunch but I wouldn’t plan on a whole shower like on the deck of a liveaboard.
ALL INCLUSIVE HELPFUL HINTS: you can get coffee, juice or tea for breakfast and it’s included. If you want a second cup of coffee they will charge you for it (and I’m fairly sure it’s instant). You CAN order coffee from a fancy machine – not sure what the upcharge is for that. You can get coffee, tea or a soft drink at lunch and dinner. But if you order a soft drink after a dive (not at lunch or dinner) they will charge you for it. You could go the entire trip without ever having ordered a soft drink at a meal, and if you order one outside of meal-time you’ll get charged for it. Alcohol is not included in the AI package. These things aren't expensive, it’s just helpful to know when you hold your coffee cup up for a refill there will be a charge (they tell you, btw - but now you'll be able to say 'yep - that's fine' instead of 'seriously?'!).
If you get a massage make sure you pay for it at the desk. Tip the masseuse separately. The spa is NOT owned by Scandi, so we thought we should pay the masseuse for everything. Nope. Had to get that fixed – but it was no problem.
WILL WE GO BACK? MISCELLANEOUS: If/when we return I will take a look at the calendar to avoid new/full moons and also will avoid any major holidays. We were there for Holy Week – a huge deal for Filipinos. The only down-side for us was that there more non-diving families at the resort and there were kids in the pool that is usually only used for training purposes. It interrupted our afternoon siesta!
Not sure what I’m forgetting. I don’t know if I’ll get around to posting pictures here – it’s never easy for me to figure it out on SB. However, if you want to see my pictures shoot me a message and I’ll share my FB page. I have a ‘Diving’ subgroup that is just for people who I have been diving with or who want to see my pictures. You know how it is. People look at a picture of a nudi and have no idea if it’s a foot long or millimeters, so I just don’t post them on my regular FB account.
We bought muck sticks MOSTLY to get the feather stars off our neoprene! Those things really like to hitch-hike! I found the muck stick helpful to point out things and for size comparison. They sell them at Scandi for $20US and they have centimeter measurements etched into them. I found mine helpful to move algae out of the way on occasion. I was very careful to avoid sticking them in the sand - there are star gazers (and who knows what else) buried in there.
Special kudos to Paragon Divers and Steve Backerman. He assembled a really great group of folks for this trip. I know it’s a crap shoot when you put together a group, but we had no drama, nice people, good divers and everyone meshed really well.
I really try to hit all the points that I wish I had known before traveling, and what I learned that I think will help for better planning. If I missed something you're curious about let me know. I may not have the answer but I do have access to a group that might know the answer.
