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    Wanted RX100 Housing

    You need to go to Ebay and buy a Meikon / Seafrogs housing. They're usually $125-150 and ship quickly from China. I've used one for 3 years just fine, until I found a deal on a used Nauticam one from Ebay. If you set up the menus properly you don't even miss the back jog wheel....you can use...
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    Sangalaki,Kakaban, Maratua Liveaboard (White Manta) Feedback?

    That seems to be their plan, however, we did dive a few sites directly in the north tip of of Maratua, and went pretty far south to Turtle Traffic. I can't imagine Big Fish country would have been that much farther. Their excuse was it's too dangerous with down-currents :) I don't know...
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    Lembeh - are we doing it wrong?

    This is just sad. I'm sure when there's enough pressure from pushy photo-obsessed clients the guides feel pressured into this. Fortunately Lembeh is critter-rich enough that there's enough good stuff to see.
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    Sangalaki,Kakaban, Maratua Liveaboard (White Manta) Feedback?

    They claim it's dangerous down-currents but who knows. I've seen some reviews on Tripadvisor about the Nabucco resort where a few guests had intense experiences there. I'm not sure I would recommend going out of your way in accomodation selection, just for that one dive site, as barracudas are...
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    Best Diving Season and Recommendation for Sangalaki, Maratua, Kakaban

    Scuba Junkie is good! They're a solid operation and this Derawan location is very small and low key. They don't have nitrox or bigger tanks, which would have come in handy, but from reading descriptions of most dive resorts, seems like few of them have it anyway. I was there for 8 1/2 days and...
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    Lembeh - are we doing it wrong?

    @diveUAE thank you for the update! I had a friend dive with them last year and said they were good, so hopefully it was just a one off mistake. Nice to see they respond to criticism quickly. I hear rumors of this A LOT, not specific to Lembeh but in other muck diving areas. Harlequin shrimp...
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    Lembeh - are we doing it wrong?

    I think you mis-read my original reply, it definitely sounds like a lapse in professionalism. Not necessarily the guide is good or bad at spotting, but the issue needs to be addressed. I've never had a non-local guide in Lembeh, unless one of the dive managers was leading it on very rare...
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    Lembeh - are we doing it wrong?

    Deleted, not wasting more time arguing with this nitwit. Now back to the topic at hand, I would love to hear from OP about how this was resolved.
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    Lembeh - are we doing it wrong?

    I'm looking forward to your review of nad! I made a note to check back in November. Of course, the best test would be for 2 people to go at the same time for about 7-8 days and give the same list of critters to two different shops. Then see how the spotting success differs. Two Fish in the...
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    Lembeh - are we doing it wrong?

    That's making a big assumption that only the one or two expensive resorts automatically have good guides, and the rest are generally bad. I've dived at twofish a number of times over the past 5 years, their guides have always been good at spotting. Often I've had my own guide or just 1 other...
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    Lembeh - are we doing it wrong?

    That is something I never even debated. Either we're looking for an animal that has very restricted range or we just blindly look around for something like hairy frogfish, or octopus/ cuttlefish that don't have a fixed spot. Also, the above is more pertinent to people who are new to muck...
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    Lembeh - are we doing it wrong?

    Back to the topic at hand, diveUA please tell us how you resolved this with the dive shop. If they are refusing to handle it I may need to consider having a talk with their booking office and cancelling.
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    Lembeh - are we doing it wrong?

    See my post above. Lembeh sea dragons are not found randomly every single day. They live around certain needle-like animals (forget the name now) but you can spend hours looking for one even if you know which rocks to look under, and there's still no guarantee. On the other hand, on a...
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    Lembeh - are we doing it wrong?

    The beauty of muck diving is animals hide on specific other animals/features underwater...or they're randomly out in the open, and by now I've done 10 muck diving trips of a week each. I have a pretty darn good idea of where to look for almost anything I want to find. It's true more pairs of...
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    Lembeh - are we doing it wrong?

    Well...I'm not into nudis to be honest. I like fish / crustaceans a lot more. And that's exactly what I said, I need someone to point out the general area to look, not babysit me the whole way and tell me how to set up my camera. In that sense the value of the local guide is in remembering...
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    Best Diving Season and Recommendation for Sangalaki, Maratua, Kakaban

    I was just at SJ in early June. The distance to islands isn't an issue. Boat ride is only 45min so you do normal 3 dives and come back. Sangalaki and Kakaban have no resorts. Maratua has a bunch of them, but they all seem much more expensive than SJ, and have limited info on their prices and...
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    Lembeh - are we doing it wrong?

    Uh oh! Froggies? That's not good to hear as I just paid them deposit for diving a few weeks from now. At least I'll know to bring up this issue on arrival and make sure it doesn't happen. Btw, it appears Two Fish has gotten way overpriced for what they are, so I skipped them. NAD is too...
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    Malapascua vs Sipadan vs Similan

    Well, instead of a guard, now there's a sunken statue of Mary. Seriously. They're using fear of god to scare away fishermen. Gato Island had almost zero fish when I was there in May. Reef was in decent shape though. My dive shop confirmed dynamite fishing is still a problem in surrounding...
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    1 month in Indonesia (open to other Asia suggestions)

    WTF is wrong with them? This is considered high season out there and everyone asks for surcharge. The winds are now from the South-East, so east side of Bangka will be choppy, but the rest should be fine. I did Bangka in August 2 years ago and wind was an issue but it barely rained.
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    How best to book Malapascua, Philippines Trip

    I went with Thresher Shark Divers, they ended up having the best prices for diving if you do multi day and dive at least 10+ times. Same discount for Nitrox (highly recommended). They also are one of the few operators who go to a less crowded part of the shoal. I'm not sure if December is a...
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