Living Seas Manado Tech and Rec Trip 2011

[alan_lee]

Hi everyone! Here's my humble video of my tech trip to Manado (Indonesia) with Singapore's GUE outfit, Living Seas. Manado is a perfect location for tech dives because of the walls which were created due to the volcanic profile of the region. The highlight of the trip is featured in the first part of the video, at the island of Naeng, where the hammerheads usually hang out. The viz was AMAZING, easily in excess of 40metre (130feet). No luck with hammerheads, but we found a beautiful swim through, and swam through a canyon that was formed when a part of the island broke away. There's also a bit of a shot of the Tech 1 girls on their experience dive with their instructor, Gideon Liew. I'm proud to say that my wife is one of the Tech 1 girls

If you're interested in reading the trip report, you can check out my blog.

Cheers!

[video=youtube;dgS7Sm7THJI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgS7Sm7THJI[/video]

 

[gsk3]

Cool. Thanks for posting. Saw that same awesome pufferfish in Bonaire

 

[reticentDiver]

I see that you cut certain things out...

 

[TSandM]

Hey, congratulations to your wife, and is it sexist of me to enjoy a class of "tech 1 girls"?

My favorite staged decompression dives are the ones where you can do your deco up a gorgeous wall, covered in life. It hardly feels like deco at all then -- in fact, long stops mean you get to admire things longer! It would have been great fun in Bunaken, where my favorite part of every dive was the aquarium on the TOP of the reef

You've come a long way from when we first started talking!

 

[alan_lee]

@ gsk: They're gorgeous, aren't they? I think the two in my vid were courting, and they were madly in love, chasing each other in the water. In fact, one of them practically hit my camera! It was awesome. Definitely one of the highlights!

@ Reticentdiver: Which bits? Lots of editing has to be done before a video is made "viewable"

@ TSandM: Haha! Not sexist at all! I think it's cool that more women are taking up Tech, and I think it was the first time we had an all-female tech 1 class. Actually, the reason why she took up tech was because she wants to dive together with me. Her dream is cave. And yes, we always look to ascend up the walls so that we can enjoy our decos. In fact, for the Naeng dive, we were doing our deco over the reef, and there was so much life that deco just went by so quickly. Although 6-up at 1m is still a pain in the butt! My Stinger keeps turning off when the waves come, and I end up logging more than 10 dives on particularly choppy days

 

[kathydee]

Hi Alan,

Thanks for reminding me of the beauty of diving Bunakan & congrats again to you wife for passing T1!!

 

[alan_lee]

Hi Kathy, thanks so much!

 

[zamburinha]

It was a fantastic trip. It is becoming a tradition for livingseas to have GUE tech courses in Manado this time of the year and it is always a blast ... and not just for those involved in the course. One of the nicest things is that it is usually a mix of rec and tec with people on course and people just there for the diving. It allows people to check out what happens in the courses and ask lots of questions of the students and the instructors. After reading yesterday through a really long post about a not so good fundies experience in this forum, I realize that we are lucky here to have the opportunity to get that information so easily.

As for the girl tech team ... they were awesome! And it was such a great feeling when we could join them for the last of the experience dives. You should have seen the grins all around! I just wish we had more days to dive together after the course ... but reality called us back and the holiday had to end.

 

[alan_lee]

It was a fantastic trip. It is becoming a tradition for livingseas to have GUE tech courses in Manado this time of the year and it is always a blast ... and not just for those involved in the course. One of the nicest things is that it is usually a mix of rec and tec with people on course and people just there for the diving. It allows people to check out what happens in the courses and ask lots of questions of the students and the instructors. After reading yesterday through a really long post about a not so good fundies experience in this forum, I realize that we are lucky here to have the opportunity to get that information so easily.

As for the girl tech team ... they were awesome! And it was such a great feeling when we could join them for the last of the experience dives. You should have seen the grins all around! I just wish we had more days to dive together after the course ... but reality called us back and the holiday had to end.

Yes, and I finally found out who "reticentDiver" is , and my answer to him is still "yes, all videos must be edited before posting", particularly this one! Haha!