CCR supported locations throughout the Indo-Pacific

[Jheard89]

Hi,

I'm going to be starting a PhD towards the end of this year and I will be studying coral reef fishes on mesophotic reefs (30 - 150 m). I will probably end up limiting my research to about 80m. I have a few locations in mind for my field work, but I was wondering if members here could recommend any others?

Things I need to consider for selecting my locations are as follows:

• Well supported for CCR divers (have guides capable of diving with CCRs, have helium + sorb etc).
• Price
• Local dive conditions (having more or less year round diving is a big plus)
• Steep walls dives are preferable as it helps to make better comparisons between locations and sites if all data are collected from similar habitats.
• I dive using a Poseidon Se7en, so if the dive shop also has Poseidon's then this is an added bonus in case of needing to change parts for whatever reason during a research trip.

Places I already have in mind:

• Indonesia - Amed/Tulamben, Gillis, Bunaken (Indonesia is my ideal destination but it's notoriously difficult for obtaining research permits and exporting specimens).
• Philippines - PG, Cebu and maybe Malapascua? - not overly familiar with the Philippines to be honest, but from what I can see it's relatively very cheap.
• French Polynesia (perhaps a little too pricey and doesn't seem to have much support for CCR?).
• Palau (kinda pricey).
• Okinawa - might be difficult due to typhoon season, and generally less than ideal dive conditions a lot of the year.

Any suggestions would be greatly welcomed. I'm particularly interested in hearing more about the Philippines, as this ticks quite a few of my boxes.

Cheers

 

[moose_grunt]

Hawaii, if that’s not too far east for you.

I didn’t think Okinawa had less than ideal dive conditions, and I was there for a few years. It’s probably gonna be pricey, though, as the yen is pretty strong and the Japanese are used to paying $150 for a day of boat diving.

Guam has CCR support at MDA. Not sure of the prices. There’s nothing in the CNMI if you’re not mounting your own expedition.

Palau wasn’t too pricey, all things considered. Sams has a couple of biologists on staff (Paul and Matt are the ones I know, they might have more) who are both experienced CCR divers/instructors/guides (Paul does a lot of videography for BBC/NatGeo type documentaries).

I think ALL of the locations are going to have the same risks during typhoon season, with eastern Micronesia being less typhoon prone and western Micronesia/PI/Japan being generally more typhoon prone.

Not sure of your institution, but it might be worth reaching out to the Bishop Museum and University of Hawaii. They both do a lot of deep reef fish research. Brian Greene (Brian D. Greene on Facebook) in particular has done a lot of similar research throughout Micronesia, Polynesia, and Melanesia.

Just some random thoughts.

Jim

 

[Jheard89]

Thanks Jim.

Hawaii is probably a little too far east for me. Also, I'm mainly looking for areas where little research has been done before, whereas Hawaii is probably one of the most extensively studied locations for MCE research.

I had some good dives in Okinawa while I was there, but the people I dived with told me that I was lucky to have come during some of the best conditions they had had all year. A couple of the students there also told me that they'd pretty much been unable to do any of their field work for most of the year. Surprisingly though, I managed to find a CCR shop there that's pretty cheap. About $150 per 100m dive all in (guide fee, boat fee, guide's gas) excluding bailout rental, which is cheaper than a lot of places I've seen even in south east Asia.

Hadn't considered Guam. I'll look into that thanks.

Yea I've heard Sams is pretty popular with tech divers. I had just imagined it would be pretty expensive as I remember paying roughly $130 for a double recreational dive when I was there. I'll look into tech pricing.

True, I guess if I want year round diving I need to go somewhere like Indo or the Philippines. Having been working in Taiwan for the past 18 months I'm just sick to death of not being able to dive when and where I want for most of the year.

I would have loved to have worked with Brian or Rich as they're the ones that originally inspired me to start diving closed-circuit, but I found it hard to get my foot in the door in Hawaii.

Thanks again for your suggestions.

 

[moose_grunt]

Admittedly, it's been 7 years since I left Okinawa, and I know the dive scene has changed. When I was there, Kondo-san was just getting set up with OIST, and only had limited interactions outside of that institution. Torii's fill station was shut down, so nobody was pumping trimix or oxygen. Since then, it seems like there's at least one shop (Dauntless Divers) that's sprung up that caters to tech diving. Doug at Reef Encounters had the desire to get his shop more set up for tech charters, but that never came to fruition when I was in Oki.

Something else worth reiterating is that we tend to take emergency services and chambers for granted. Palau has a chamber, Guam has one, Saipan/CNMI does not. I'm not sure about the rest of Micronesia. I'm sure you've already considered it, but there's always the balance of assumption of risk. Not just just personal risk, but also what risk your institution is willing to allow (there was some research out here recently that was a bit bridled by their university due to the lack of a chamber on-island).

Good luck, and let us know where you decide!

Jim

 

[GF99/99]

There are plenty of CCR friendly dive centers in Asia but I really like the diving in Indonesia.

For Indonesia I would recommend Gili's out of the three locations you listed. They have three main dive centers on Gili T that support CCRs, all the sofnolime, He, and O2 you could ever need but the deep vertical walls are why I would recommend it. They have lots and lots of beautiful un-touched completely vertical walls that start at about 40m and drop to 300m+. All the masses of rec divers are never brought to these sites so they remain un-touched and beautiful!! The amazing water viability, lack of current, and warm water make for perfect year round diving. Even at 100m its amazing how much life is still down there (last time I was at 100 I did not even have a light the visibility is that good). Most of these deep dive sites are 10-30min boat ride from the island making them all very easy to access. There is also a very very big CCR dive community there so you will have all the support you could ever need.

There is also a huge potential for new dive sites to be discovered. There is constantly new amazing sited being discovered all the time. Lombok being the best new and upcoming area however there is a lack of CCR diving resources there but has very high potential.

Lastly from a safety standpoint all 3 of the dive centers are very strict about following rules and regs, they all dive very very responsibility and do not cut any corners, all have emergency O2 on all their boats and all of them always have extra emergency deco gas on their boats. There is a chamber in Lombok about a 15min speed boat ride away from Gili T and worst case you can get to Bali about 2hr boat ride away.

 

[Jheard89]

Admittedly, it's been 7 years since I left Okinawa, and I know the dive scene has changed. When I was there, Kondo-san was just getting set up with OIST, and only had limited interactions outside of that institution. Torii's fill station was shut down, so nobody was pumping trimix or oxygen. Since then, it seems like there's at least one shop (Dauntless Divers) that's sprung up that caters to tech diving. Doug at Reef Encounters had the desire to get his shop more set up for tech charters, but that never came to fruition when I was in Oki.

Something else worth reiterating is that we tend to take emergency services and chambers for granted. Palau has a chamber, Guam has one, Saipan/CNMI does not. I'm not sure about the rest of Micronesia. I'm sure you've already considered it, but there's always the balance of assumption of risk. Not just just personal risk, but also what risk your institution is willing to allow (there was some research out here recently that was a bit bridled by their university due to the lack of a chamber on-island).

Good luck, and let us know where you decide!

Jim

Yea the pricing I mentioned for tech diving in Okinawa was for Dauntless Divers. Apparently there are some decent deep spots to dive near Cape Zanpa. Would also love to dive deeper at Cape Hedo as well having only been to about 40m when I was last there.

Very true. My university is pretty relaxed when it comes to dive safety standards, but it's definitely something I'm going to be considering for my own safety.

Thank you, I'll let you know.

 

[Jheard89]

There are plenty of CCR friendly dive centers in Asia but I really like the diving in Indonesia.

For Indonesia I would recommend Gili's out of the three locations you listed. They have three main dive centers on Gili T that support CCRs, all the sofnolime, He, and O2 you could ever need but the deep vertical walls are why I would recommend it. They have lots and lots of beautiful un-touched completely vertical walls that start at about 40m and drop to 300m+. All the masses of rec divers are never brought to these sites so they remain un-touched and beautiful!! The amazing water viability, lack of current, and warm water make for perfect year round diving. Even at 100m its amazing how much life is still down there (last time I was at 100 I did not even have a light the visibility is that good). Most of these deep dive sites are 10-30min boat ride from the island making them all very easy to access. There is also a very very big CCR dive community there so you will have all the support you could ever need.

There is also a huge potential for new dive sites to be discovered. There is constantly new amazing sited being discovered all the time. Lombok being the best new and upcoming area however there is a lack of CCR diving resources there but has very high potential.

Lastly from a safety standpoint all 3 of the dive centers are very strict about following rules and regs, they all dive very very responsibility and do not cut any corners, all have emergency O2 on all their boats and all of them always have extra emergency deco gas on their boats. There is a chamber in Lombok about a 15min speed boat ride away from Gili T and worst case you can get to Bali about 2hr boat ride away.

Yea I really love diving in Indonesia as well. It has always been top of my list for where I want to conduct my research, it's just a shame that their research permit application process is so ridiculous.

Interesting. I haven't done any diving in the Gilis myself but I follow a couple of the tech schools there on social media. The price seems pretty reasonable and I've heard a bit about people starting to explore Lombok, and it sounds great. Could you tell me more about what there is to see at depth around there please? Is there much coral cover? I know the shallow sites have been completely trashed around there so I had assumed that there wouldn't be a great deal to see, but what you're saying about the deeper sites being out of reach makes sense. How about in terms of fishes? Many schools of big fishes, any large predators etc?

 

[Evan Davies]

Yea I really love diving in Indonesia as well. It has always been top of my list for where I want to conduct my research, it's just a shame that their research permit application process is so ridiculous.

Interesting. I haven't done any diving in the Gilis myself but I follow a couple of the tech schools there on social media. The price seems pretty reasonable and I've heard a bit about people starting to explore Lombok, and it sounds great. Could you tell me more about what there is to see at depth around there please? Is there much coral cover? I know the shallow sites have been completely trashed around there so I had assumed that there wouldn't be a great deal to see, but what you're saying about the deeper sites being out of reach makes sense. How about in terms of fishes? Many schools of big fishes, any large predators etc?

What @marsh9077 said is correct. I just came back from three weeks of CCR diving with Manta Dive on Gili T.
The shallow sites aren't much fun for tech/CCR, but the new walls they just discovered during the autumn are amazing. Same quality I'd expect on Brothers Island, Elphinestone and Daedelus Reef in Egypt.
Coral has pretty much no bleaching down there, the site starts around 42-43, and one can easily spend 20-30 hours chilling just on top of the drop-off at 45-55.
Scalloped Hammers, Grey Reef Sharks, Marbled Rays, Eagle Rays, occasionally Oceanic Blacktips too, and of course turtles everywhere.

On this site there was a huge school of Surgeons (Most likely thousands, hard to tell.) that would essentially block out the light at times it was so big. Philip Christoff shows a lot of it on his instagram.

The community out there for CCRs is great. Manta (Philip Christoff) runs mainly the SF2, but works with Poseidon and is one of their ambassadors if I remember correctly, so if you need parts they could be ordered there if you are staying for a bit to make things easier.
The two other main tech shops, Trawangan Dive Center (Headed by Samuel Mason) and Blue Marlin (Theresia Gollner and Måns Olsson) run mainly JJ.
Philip, Samuel and Måns are the ones who have been spearheading most of the exploration and the latter two frequently get people coming from all over the world specifically with JJs going 100m+ there.

You'll find all the He, 02 and lime you'll ever need. Also plenty of good food, beer and great atmosphere.

Downside as always with Indonesia is two things; Helium isn't cheap and research permits are a bitch.
I don't know if being associated with a dive shop would be helpful or not, but I know all three of the aforementioned shops have people come in as "interns" for coral research and marine biology etc.
So my advice would be to contact them and see if they could help out from their end, might make it easier and they might know the procedures/who to talk to!

Good luck with it!

 

[silent running]

Hi,

I'm going to be starting a PhD towards the end of this year and I will be studying coral reef fishes on mesophotic reefs (30 - 150 m). I will probably end up limiting my research to about 80m. I have a few locations in mind for my field work, but I was wondering if members here could recommend any others?

Things I need to consider for selecting my locations are as follows:

• Well supported for CCR divers (have guides capable of diving with CCRs, have helium + sorb etc).
• Price
• Local dive conditions (having more or less year round diving is a big plus)
• Steep walls dives are preferable as it helps to make better comparisons between locations and sites if all data are collected from similar habitats.
• I dive using a Poseidon Se7en, so if the dive shop also has Poseidon's then this is an added bonus in case of needing to change parts for whatever reason during a research trip.

Places I already have in mind:

• Indonesia - Amed/Tulamben, Gillis, Bunaken (Indonesia is my ideal destination but it's notoriously difficult for obtaining research permits and exporting specimens).
• Philippines - PG, Cebu and maybe Malapascua? - not overly familiar with the Philippines to be honest, but from what I can see it's relatively very cheap.
• French Polynesia (perhaps a little too pricey and doesn't seem to have much support for CCR?).
• Palau (kinda pricey).
• Okinawa - might be difficult due to typhoon season, and generally less than ideal dive conditions a lot of the year.

Any suggestions would be greatly welcomed. I'm particularly interested in hearing more about the Philippines, as this ticks quite a few of my boxes.

Cheers

Hello jheard89, I have some recommendations for places I’ve been as follows:

Solomon Islands: best by liveaboard, MV Taka is CCR friendly has sorb boosted O2, pretty sure they have He now. My post from RBW about my trip there:

“I just returned from CCR diving in the Solomon Islands, did three days with Dive Tulagi and a 10 day trip on Taka. Good to know about Cathay, I haven't flown with them yet, but now I will make sure not to. The Indian restaurant across the street from Dive Tulagi is also pretty good, as judged by New York standards, wish I knew about the Coral Sea restaurant when I was there.

Diving with Dive Tulagi was very good, particularly enjoyed the Moa and the 2 Marus on Guadalcanal, which were easy shore dives and full of marine life. I wish the Dive op was still in Tulagi and not Honiara as Tulagi is a very quiet restful place and I would've rather stayed there. Raiders Hotel on Tulagi looks very nice and the food we had there on lunch break was very good. I wonder if Troy would offer to pick up divers from there if one wanted to stay there and dive the Tulagi wrecks with him. That is what I would do if I return.

Onto the live aboard trip with Taka. I found Taka to be run exceptionally well with a huge dive deck and nice, clean accommodations. One of the owners of the boat, Shaz, was on board and couldn't have been nicer or more accommodating to myself and the other two rebreather divers on the trip. She procured Sofnolime and medical grade 99% O2, which is certainly better than what I get in Bonaire. Dive Tulagi was the logistics source and she worked with them to make sure everything was ready. Several weeks before Taka was chartered and had 12 CCRs on the Lust for Rust trip, and from what I can gather the trip went smoothly for both the boat and the participants. Apparently they are going to return next year and will hopefully dive the USS Atlanta. This trip however required the three rebreather divers to stay within recreational limits, which we agreed to. I would've preferred a bit more freedom, and normoxic trimix would've been great to have for some longer, limited deco diving, but I understand that CCR's are new to the owners of Taka and after a few days of diving, Shaz allowed myself and the other 2 CCR divers to dive by ourselves and I got some really great diving in. I saw sharks on every dive, some very good size Blacktip and grey reef sharks, some very large Bumphead parrotfish, schools of dogtooth tuna, huge schools of trevally and barracuda, with lots of healthy corals and beautiful tropical island scenery. I picked Taka over Bilikiki because Bilikiki does not do any diving from the main boat and doesn't seem to have much of a dive deck/room for CCRs. I am also not a fan of metal dive tenders unless they are huge and have giant ladders. Many of the Taka dives were done from the boat, including live drops off the side. The few times the inflatable tenders were necessary, we either took our gear off in the water and handed it up, or were towed a short distance, which was kind of fun and kept me from getting too much sun as I turned face down into the water, breathing off the loop during the ride.

Overall, Taka is a very nice, well run boat and CCR friendly. And, they are beginning a Papua New Guinea itinerary starting next Spring, with a trip starting in Munda, Solomons and ending in Rabaul PNG. For those of you into WW2 wrecks, there are many significant undived wrecks in the deep part of Rabaul harbor, all I believe are around 100m or shallower. I'm surprised nobody on has mentioned them for a possible trip. All in all, I'm very glad there is a CCR friendly live aboard operating in the South Pacific, and if you are budget conscious, the single accommodations are very affordable compared to the few others in the Pacific which allow CCR diving... -Andy”

Malapascua Philippines, my trip report is here:

CCR trip report Malapascua Philippines with Evolution Divers

Just make sure Matt is still in charge.

Indonesia: I did Komodo twice with Blue Marlin on their small liveaboard Ikan Biru, they have everything and some very experienced CCR divers.

 

[silent running]

Also, Captain Craig DeWitt of PNG’s MV Golden Dawn is a CCR diver. His boat is the best liveaboard I’ve ever been on and he is supposed to be offering regular trips again soon. PNG is the best diving I’ve ever done. Do a search for his boat and PM me if you can’t find an email address for Golden Dawn.