We all know the Open Water “lost buddy procedure”. If you lose sight of your buddy then look around for a minute, before coming straight to the surface where you should meet back up with them. Easy, right? Sure, if you’re diving safely within no decompression limits. But what about if you’re doing a dive[...]
There are many people out there who’ve been drinking the budget-travel kool-aid, it’s pretty great stuff. Most of us are forced to travel within some kind of budget, depending on personal means, desires and other commitments. It adds an even greater challenge to travel – trying to find affordable rooms, tasty but cheap food, activities[...]
Gin-clear waters, craggy limestone, quiet, cows. These words all bring to mind diving in Mount Gambier, South Australia. Not for the faint-hearted, to be sure, but perhaps not as dark and gloomy as rumor and Sanctum might have it?
Amazing, Wonderful, Sen-bloody-sational… all of these are great ways to describe the day of diving on Sunday! It was a double dive day on Sunday, with the first dive being on the ex-HMAS Canberra and the second a spot on the Nepean Wall called “Fingal’s Cave” which neither Liz nor I had done before. Absolutely[...]
This was what I would call a bit of a nightmare dive. Great for skills development after the fact, but just a little bit frightening at the time. When I surfaced, I was blowing off a 5 hour decompression obligation according to my computer. That’s a bit scary irrespective of how confident you are!
Sadly, overrated would be the word that I would most use to describe this particular day of diving. There is no doubt that Manta Ray’s are stunning creatures, but I really felt like I was on my way to the Penguin Parade at Philip Island, or to the Zoo where you can generally guarantee a[...]
I’ve grouped these two dives together because they were largely the same dive, twice over. I was diving with one of the smaller shops in Bali, and headed out to Tulamben to dive the USS Liberty, which is a shipwreck off the northeastern coast of Bali. There’s something fantastic about the dive. You do a[...]
At the bottom of the ocean, near to a tiny little island off the northern tip of Palawan (the last frontier of the Philippines), rest several Japanese ships which were sunk in a surprise attack by the US forces during World War 2. These ships are, fortunately, mostly within recreational depths and therefore accessible to[...]
Faced with the potential relaxation of sore, tired muscles and easing of cramps, I was able to persuade my sickly travel buddy that we were in need of a trip to the Maquinit Hot Springs one evening during our stay in Coron. There are several known hot springs in the area, but these are the[...]
Diving being one of the major activities in Coron, there is no shortage of dive shops to choose from. After extensive research, I had narrowed my choices down to three different operations based on price and their ability to offer technical diving and wanted then to meet the different operators to make a final choice.[...]
Everyone sings the praises of ‘travelling light’ and taking nothing more than a single carry-on bag for those long trips away, but let’s be honest: it’s just not possible to keep all your dive gear under 7kg and have enough fresh underwear to keep your mum happy. In fact, when packing for my next trip[...]
Everyone who travels outside their own cultural bubble will have at least one moment along the way where they realise they’re not in Kansas anymore. Probably more than one.
At the bottom of the ocean, near to a tiny little island off the northern tip of Palawan (the last frontier of the Philippines), rest several Japanese ships which were sunk in a surprise attack by the US forces during World War 2. These ships are, fortunately, mostly within recreational depths and therefore accessible to[...]
Faced with the potential relaxation of sore, tired muscles and easing of cramps, I was able to persuade my sickly travel buddy that we were in need of a trip to the Maquinit Hot Springs one evening during our stay in Coron. There are several known hot springs in the area, but these are the[...]
Diving being one of the major activities in Coron, there is no shortage of dive shops to choose from. After extensive research, I had narrowed my choices down to three different operations based on price and their ability to offer technical diving and wanted then to meet the different operators to make a final choice.[...]
Everyone sings the praises of ‘travelling light’ and taking nothing more than a single carry-on bag for those long trips away, but let’s be honest: it’s just not possible to keep all your dive gear under 7kg and have enough fresh underwear to keep your mum happy. In fact, when packing for my next trip[...]
Everyone who travels outside their own cultural bubble will have at least one moment along the way where they realise they’re not in Kansas anymore. Probably more than one.
As you might know from some of my earlier posts, diving in the Mount Gambier area is mostly for divers with technical cave training of some level. But, this isn’t entirely true. In fact, there is one site where anyone with an Open Water certification can dive, called Ewens Ponds, which is located near to[...]
Just a quick post to point you all in the direction of Photography Under Pressure a blog about underwater photography by my friend Liz. She’s just done a fabulous post about a dive we did back in may on the Ex-HMAS Canberra, which I wrote about in rather effusive language here.
I recently had the pleasure and privilege of visiting Tibet, a province within China. The Tibetan Autonomous Region is a very spiritual place, but what struck me most was the sheer colour that is all around you! Itinerary We took the train from Chengdu to Lhasa in a soft-sleeper, which took around 2 days (we[...]
I recently booked flights for a 9 week round trip: Melbourne to Manila then on to Hong Kong before coming home to Melbourne for $651.02 total (including taxes, baggage fees etc) with no more than 1 stopover of 2-3 hours and peak periods. So, how did I do it?
A few years ago, I went to Western China (Tibet, Szechuan, Yunnan) on a three week trip. It is a Chinese government requirement that all visitors to Tibet be on a guided tour, and so in order to get our Tibetan travel permit, we were required to organise a tour. Organised tours can be the[...]
