CCR supported locations throughout the Indo-Pacific

[GF99/99]

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?

There is lot and lots of coral cover and is in amazing condition some of the best I have seen considering the depths your at.

They do get big stuff on the deep wall but its not an everyday event. However pretty regularly can find devil rays, marble rays, eagle rays, most reef species of shark, sometime get Jenkins whip rays, couple months ago they did have a whale shark on one of the recreational sites, and in the deep deep walls sometimes you get mola mola and thresher sharks. The new site that “Evan Davies” is talking about Phil and Lindsay discovered not very long ago and they have been seeing hammerheads there pretty regularly. For the small stuff you will get hundreds of fusillers, banner fish, surgeon fish, Spanish mackerels, GT’s, tuna, snappers, emperor angelfish, Moorish idols, banded sea kraits. Plus all the regular tropical sea life you would expect to find in this part of the world.

On the deep verticals walls you get tons and tons of huge gorgonian fans and black coral, barrel sponges, table corals, on the slopes you get huge fields of cabbage and mushroom corals, foliose coral

I would suggest you contact the three main diver centers Evan Devies listed and get some more info from them. They are all very very knowledgeable CCR divers and can help you out.

 

[silent running]

There is lot and lots of coral cover and is in amazing condition some of the best I have seen considering the depths your at.

They do get big stuff on the deep wall but its not an everyday event. However pretty regularly can find devil rays, marble rays, eagle rays, most reef species of shark, sometime get Jenkins whip rays, couple months ago they did have a whale shark on one of the recreational sites, and in the deep deep walls sometimes you get mola mola and thresher sharks. The new site that “Evan Davies” is talking about Phil and Lindsay discovered not very long ago and they have been seeing hammerheads there pretty regularly. For the small stuff you will get hundreds of fusillers, banner fish, surgeon fish, Spanish mackerels, GT’s, tuna, snappers, emperor angelfish, Moorish idols, banded sea kraits. Plus all the regular tropical sea life you would expect to find in this part of the world.

On the deep verticals walls you get tons and tons of huge gorgonian fans and black coral, barrel sponges, table corals, on the slopes you get huge fields of cabbage and mushroom corals, foliose coral

I would suggest you contact the three main diver centers Evan Devies listed and get some more info from them. They are all very very knowledgeable CCR divers and can help you out.

Hello marsh9077, which specific part of the Gili’s are you referring to that have deep walls with bigger animals? I heard the nearest place like that to Gili Trawangan was in South Lombok, which is a whole day trip away from the Gili’s. The deep wall dive I did on Trawangan had no current and we only saw one big grouper down at 100m. It was a good training site but there was not much wildlife in Trawangan.

Generally speaking, I have found the highest medium and large fish aggregations in Indonesia to be in places with strong currents. Trawangan only has one or two spots that have current and those are the only places I saw a good number of fish. Very nice resort though...

 

[Jheard89]

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!

Sounds great. Wouldn't have expected to be able to see all of that. Thanks, I've followed them all on instagram. Judging by their photos you definitely weren't over exaggerating about the size of those surgeonfish schools!

Yea I've been to the Gilis once before. Didn't bother diving after seeing how smashed the shallow reefs were while snorkeling but I regret that now.

Ideally I'll be wanting to collect some samples as well as publish so I'll probably have all sorts of trouble with the research permit application process. Not a bad idea with the whole 'interning' thing. I'll do as you've advised and drop them a message. Maybe they'll be able to think of something.

Thanks for your suggestions!

 

[Jheard89]

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.

Thanks for the suggestions and your thorough descriptions. The Solomon Islands sound great and I'd love to do some research there as well as PNG. Problem with liveaboard diving for research is that I'd need to charter a boat purely for myself and colleagues, which is unlikely to fit within my budget. I'm pretty much restricted to day boats and shore diving unless I manage to squeeze my way onto a bigger expedition .

 

[Jheard89]

There is lot and lots of coral cover and is in amazing condition some of the best I have seen considering the depths your at.

They do get big stuff on the deep wall but its not an everyday event. However pretty regularly can find devil rays, marble rays, eagle rays, most reef species of shark, sometime get Jenkins whip rays, couple months ago they did have a whale shark on one of the recreational sites, and in the deep deep walls sometimes you get mola mola and thresher sharks. The new site that “Evan Davies” is talking about Phil and Lindsay discovered not very long ago and they have been seeing hammerheads there pretty regularly. For the small stuff you will get hundreds of fusillers, banner fish, surgeon fish, Spanish mackerels, GT’s, tuna, snappers, emperor angelfish, Moorish idols, banded sea kraits. Plus all the regular tropical sea life you would expect to find in this part of the world.

On the deep verticals walls you get tons and tons of huge gorgonian fans and black coral, barrel sponges, table corals, on the slopes you get huge fields of cabbage and mushroom corals, foliose coral

I would suggest you contact the three main diver centers Evan Devies listed and get some more info from them. They are all very very knowledgeable CCR divers and can help you out.

Yea big stuff is great but it's not essential to my research. I'm interested in the fish community as a whole, and will probably be spending a lot of time looking for smaller, potentially undescribed species. The important thing is that there are actually mesophotic reefs down there, as opposed to mainly rubble with little coral cover, so what you're saying sounds very promising.
Thanks again for your input!

 

[D_Fresh]

In Philippines, check out La Laguna Beach Club and their dive op "Laguna Dive Club". I'm not a CCR diver myself, but I believe they have their own units, so I assume they have all you'd need....

 

[silent running]

Thanks for the suggestions and your thorough descriptions. The Solomon Islands sound great and I'd love to do some research there as well as PNG. Problem with liveaboard diving for research is that I'd need to charter a boat purely for myself and colleagues, which is unlikely to fit within my budget. I'm pretty much restricted to day boats and shore diving unless I manage to squeeze my way onto a bigger expedition .

I didn’t realize liveaboards were non optimal for your purposes.

In that case and with an eye towards land based and highest diversity, I would first suggest Alor Indonesia, this operation in particular:

Diving in Alor

The owner, Thomas, has the serious local knowledge you need to get best out of the Alor area. The range of environments is truly stunning, from steep walls rising out of abyssal valleys between the volcanic peaks of East Nusa Tenggara, to amazing sea mounts teeming with full food chain action, to mucky critter dives in the bay and the shallow fringing reefs up north, which have the greatest profusion of small tropical species and the healthiest hard corals I’ve ever seen.

I spoke to Thomas again last year about a potential trip, and he can get sorb from Bali and O2 with a month’s notice. He bought the O2 whip from my buddy after our trip, so all you would need is your CCR and back gas cylinders, which I had no trouble bringing around Indo on my 4 trips there. Of course Thomas does not have a booster, but if you use 3ltr/20cuft cylinders and cascade your fills from the highest pressure cylinders to lowest, you can get at least one day’s diving from a fill. And when you run low, Thomas’s boat is big enough to bring several O2 cylinders so you can decant between dives. His boat is also phenomenal, with a real head, plenty of shade and it has the best dive exit/entry ladder I’ve ever seen, its giant and about the size of a regular set of stairs.

The only other place that compared with the diversity and amount of life that I saw in Alor was in northern Papua New Guinea, Kimbe Bay. Walindi Plantation is the operation I dived with for a few day during my liveaboard stop over. They had nice, very fast day boats that could cover a lot of territory. Restorf Island was phenomenal for hard corals and tropicals. Kimbe Bay is extremely deep and has lots of pelagics out in the middle of the bay as well. Milne Bay also has fantastic diversity and density of life, but it’s harder to access the good stuff by day boat.

I’ve found most dive operators will allow solo CCR diving as long as you explain your redundancies, give them a sample dive plan and tell them you will shoot an SMB at the end of every dive. O2 can be ordered by any dive operation from the nearest hospital or welding supply. Sorb can usually be shipped in from the nearest big city. Most dive ops have to import all sorts of things in on a regular basis, so I’ve found they are usually willing to help with CCR logistics.

 

[echocat]

Re: Philippines
A couple of resorts in the Visayas (Central Region) are offering CCR support
Silver Reef in Dauin support CCR divers, I think they dive Meg CCR but not sure. From Dauin you'd be a short boat ride away from Apo island which has pretty steep walls going down to 100m. The diving condition there varies a lot between the summer season and the wet season. Winds and currents will flip direction so it may be tough to consistently survey the same area throughout the year. The local university (Silliman) has been doing coral surveys for a long time but I doubt they ever went deeper than 30m. Some of the local NGOs have been doing surveys and coral restoration work on the coast of Dauin. One of the organisations (Marine Conservation Philippines) is tech-friendly (the owner Soren is a GUE guy) and has done trimix surveys down to 60m so they might be able to tell you if it's worth exploring more
Kasai Village in Moalboal also supports CCR divers - think they have a couple of Poseidon
Siquijor divers in Siquijor support CCR as well. If I remember correctly I think they dive AP Inspiration.
Cabilao divers in Bohol also supports CCR - I heard there's a number of nice deep walls in that area

Up North in Luzon, aside from PG, ProTech in Anilao supports CCR - JJ-CCR according to website. I've never been, it's really famous for macro and beautiful reefs, might have taken a hit by the volcano eruption from earlier this year, although it would probably only affect the upper part of the reef (maybe, not sure)

For research in the Philippines, I think the regulation is looser than Indonesia, especially around samples as you mentioned. But for any government permits, you'd have to partner with a local organisation (government or NGO or academia)

Caveat: I don't dive rebreathers so my knowledge on this is superficial

 

[D_Fresh]

Oh, almost forgot, I think that ScubaTech in Subic might support CCR.... but would definitely email them first to confirm.

 

[Jheard89]

Re: Philippines
A couple of resorts in the Visayas (Central Region) are offering CCR support
Silver Reef in Dauin support CCR divers, I think they dive Meg CCR but not sure. From Dauin you'd be a short boat ride away from Apo island which has pretty steep walls going down to 100m. The diving condition there varies a lot between the summer season and the wet season. Winds and currents will flip direction so it may be tough to consistently survey the same area throughout the year. The local university (Silliman) has been doing coral surveys for a long time but I doubt they ever went deeper than 30m. Some of the local NGOs have been doing surveys and coral restoration work on the coast of Dauin. One of the organisations (Marine Conservation Philippines) is tech-friendly (the owner Soren is a GUE guy) and has done trimix surveys down to 60m so they might be able to tell you if it's worth exploring more
Kasai Village in Moalboal also supports CCR divers - think they have a couple of Poseidon
Siquijor divers in Siquijor support CCR as well. If I remember correctly I think they dive AP Inspiration.
Cabilao divers in Bohol also supports CCR - I heard there's a number of nice deep walls in that area

Up North in Luzon, aside from PG, ProTech in Anilao supports CCR - JJ-CCR according to website. I've never been, it's really famous for macro and beautiful reefs, might have taken a hit by the volcano eruption from earlier this year, although it would probably only affect the upper part of the reef (maybe, not sure)

For research in the Philippines, I think the regulation is looser than Indonesia, especially around samples as you mentioned. But for any government permits, you'd have to partner with a local organisation (government or NGO or academia)

Caveat: I don't dive rebreathers so my knowledge on this is superficial

Thank you very much for such a thorough overview of the Philippines. I've spoken to a potential local collaborator who mentioned quite a few of the same dive shops, although I wasn't aware of some that you mentioned so thanks for that. Marine Conservation Philippines definitely sounds like it would be worth me contacting.

I've only ever been to Bohol and Apo/Dauin, just for rec OC dives, but I do remember longingly looking down some steep walls at both of these locations. Apo would be nice but seems like it would be a bit more of a pain logistically. Having spent the last two years in Taiwan I'm keen to avoid anywhere with strong seasonal changes in diving conditions!

You're definitely correct about the Philippines being easier than Indo for permits. It actually sounds relatively straight forward by comparison. Their universities also seem a bit more open to international collaboration.

As much as I love Indonesia, opting for the Philippines instead sounds like it would make my life a lot easier.

Thanks again!