Diving the wrecks of Coron Bay

For the last three days we've been diving the wrecks of Coron. Located just to the north of Palawan, on the island of Busuanga it is one of the most spectacular wreck diving sites. Amongst the scenic bays and narrow passages between islets surrounding Busuanga lie Japanese navy's auxiliary transport vessels. They were sunk during two air strikes on September 24th and October 9th 1944.

Altogether there are 7 wrecks around Busuanga, but we dove only 6 of them:

• Okikawa Maru
• Akitsushima
• Taiei Maru
• Olympia Maru
• Tangat Wreck
• Irako

More on history of Coron wrecks.

All the diving was done from the spiderlike bancas, traditional filipino boats now used for everything from transport to fishing to diving. The wrecks are rather deep for recreatioal diving, ranging from 25 to 45 meters, and all the dives we did were penetration dives. It is very easy to exceed your No Decompression Limits under such circumstances, especially if the divemaster minds only his computer which is less conservative than yours. After spending 17 minutes on decompression stop on the first days second dive we decided to use nitrox for second dives on the last two days.

The wrecks were just amazing, especially the auxiliary oiler Okikawa Maru. With her spacious tanks. Although the visibility outside was just 10 meters, inside the wrecks the water was much clearer (until someone made a false move and stirred up the silt...).



All of the dives were penetretion dives, though for less experienced divers it is also possible to stay outside the wrecks and still have a lovely dive. We were ofcourse led by a divemaster, otherwise we would have probably gotten lost and I wouldn't be writnig this. Inside the wrecks are rather comfortable, though we had to watch our heads most of the time and there were a few tight squeezes - we once exited a wreck through a propeller shaft.

Diving the Malapascua Island

20+ dive sites around the island, most of them only 10 minutes away. I haven't seen any sharks, but thats probably just my luck. I have, however, seen lots of small stuff: nudibranchs, different shrimp, crabs, pipefish, sea moths and some other weird things that I'm not able to name..

Sea moths

Ornate ghost pipefish

The sad thing about this island is that during diving you can hear underwater blasts all the time. Yes, people are fishing with dynamite around here, and lots of corals are broken:/

Bye bye Samui

Tomorrow we are leaving Koh Samui, setting off on a 4 month travel through South East Asia. We are going to visit the Philippines (do some diving there :D), Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, then pass through Thailand en route to Malaysia and finally Singapore.

And although I enjoyed living on Samui pretty much, I am very excited to be moving somewhere new.

Galvanic corrosion of regulators

Knowing that South East Asia uses almost exclusively A-clamp (INT connector) we purchased two Scubapro's aluminium DIN to INT adapters (yeah, wanted to save some weight on air travel) for our Apex DS4/ATX-40 regulators.We knew that, as the 1st stage is made of admiralty brass and the adapter of aluminium, there might be some problems with galvanic corrosion between these two parts. And there were... Basically galvanic corrosion is an electrochemical process when in which one metal (e.g.. aluminium) corrodes preferentially when in contact with different metal (e.g. brass) and both metals are immersed in electrolyte (e.g.. salt water). This means that a metal that normally wouldn't corrode will when contacted with another one. But what does that mean for a mere mortal? Well, same as with a rusted screw that you cannot to unscrew, two metals can "rust" together. And this is what happened to Magda's reg and her yoke adapter. We tried everything, short of angle grinder and ultrasound bath, but the parts just won't budge:/

Fortunately the preventive measures I undertook (unscrewing the adapter from time to time and greasing the threading with silicon grease) turned out to be sufficient:D

Whale Shark

Today I've seen my first whale shark:):):) It happened on Sail Rock, one of the best dive sites in the Samui area.

Whale sharks really are the "gentle giants", even though the one today was "only" 5 meters long. Generally whale sharks can grow up to 18 meters according to some sources.

Bangkok protests

Bad, bad times for diving industry in Thailand. The opposing party supporters ("yellow shirts") have blocked Thailand's largest airport - the Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok (read more) . This basically means that people have extremely hard time leaving Thailand, with plenty oftourists stuck on this airport. Those who are coming can choose alternative routes (e.g. through Kuala Lumpur), but still it has been made harder for them. This situation will also make lots of people reconsider their travel plans:/

Effects can be seen on Samui - empty streets, restaurants and hotels, not much movement in the diving industry. On top of that we have the economic crisis (lots of talk about that, but I'm still not sure if it affects tourism that much) and bad weather.

We were to begin our trainig with Easy Divers, but because of all this the boat was canceled all past week, so we cannot start this training (which is basically getting to know the dive sites), not to mention working:/.

Today was the King's birthday and everyone expected him to say something about these protests during his speech which he always gives on his birthday, but because of some illnes the event was cancelled.

Hopefully not all of those who booked their hotels for the Christmas period (a little high season here on Samui) will not cancel.

Diving jobs in Thailand

We've spent most of the last month looking for a job. And it turns out it's not so easy to find work as a Divemaster on Phuket. Unless you speak a rare language (like Russian) in addition to English, or speak 3 or more languages (i.e. English, German, Swedish or other Scandinavian) your chances are very slim. Dive centers prefer to hire instructors because they are more versatile and it is easier for them to get Thai work permits (WP). Work permits are required, and they are often checked. The penalty for working without one is jail. You can always try to bribe your way out, but it'll cost you a substantial amount of money (it is said that if you do it early enough 50K Baht should be enough). Sometimes dive centers hire staff on a freelance basis, which moves the responsibility for obtaining a WP from the employer to employee. It is possible for a divemaster to get a WP, but again it costs. You need to set up a company, for which the starting price is 100K Baht. If you are smart or have some luck you could probably do it for 60-70K, but still its a big sum of money for us poor backpackers...

That is why we decided to try somewhere else (anywhere else to be frank). After some time and about 200 applications sent (I love SPAM :D ), we finally managed to interest someone. This someone was Easy Divers on Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand (the other side of the Malay Peninsula). After an interview we were accepted and hired on a freelance basis. We are moving to Samui now:)