Next Liveaboard: The Junk

During my first searches for Liveaboards in the Similans I stumbled over The Junk, an extraordinary vessel, built in 1961/62. Last year on a trip to the Similans I saw it pass by our boat silently and with the unique grace of a vintage sailboat...  It was clear to me: I would have to sail and dive on this one as soon as possible.

The Junk “June Hong Chian Lee”

Yesterday I learned that my trusted dive guide and buddy Marco Coelho will work as a dive guide on The Junk for the entire Season 2016/17.
Luckily, there is a trip with some spaces available that fits perfectly in my schedule, so I did not hesitate a minute and booked it right away, April 10th to 15th.
As a consequence, it is no longer possible to do a Divemaster course on this trip, because there is no more timeframe of at least six weeks continuously. Decisions have to be made and so be it.

So the updated schedule looks like this:
5 days in Phuket
five days on the Sawasdee Fasai
5 days on the MV Pawara with Fernando
two weeks on Koh Tao with my son Leo
5 days on The Junk with Marco
4 weeks without plans (Flying Seahorse to Koh Lipe, Seaventures Dive Rig and Sipadan, Bunaken, Lembeh)
1 week Raja Ampat with Gemma and viajaybucea
no plans for May 21 till June 30, but some ideas...: Hawaii and Mexico on my way back home ;-)

Exciting.

See you under water

First underwater pics with the Canon G16

Mediterranean Sea, Italy and Spain, Depth 12-24 meters

Canon G16, Meikon Housing, SeaLife Seadragon 1200 Light

See you under water

First test of the new camera

Surprising depth of field, super fast, white balance just a click away. Looks good so far,,,

MV Pawara has got a new Sister Ship

Exciting news found on FB: The MV Pawara, operated by West Coast Divers Phuket, now has a new sister ship: The Sawasdee Fasai. Prices are a bit higher than on the Pawara, around 10 percent.
I would really like to try it.

More pictures here: Clicki click 

The boat looks great, I sent an email to Doo at West Coast Divers immediately, to find out, if she is in charge for the booking of MV Sawasdee Fasai as well.
Their schedule shows a trip starting March 14th, my day of arrival in Thailand, till March 18th, one day before I go on board the MV Mariner of Wicked Diving...

More important: Will Marco, Brian, Beto and Fernando be working on the Pawara or the Sawasdee this season? Wanna dive with these guys again, no matter which boat! With them I would go to the Similans even in a Dinghy!

Update: Booking is open for The Sawasdee Fasai! Temporary page: http://www.westcoastdivers.com/mv-sawasdee-fasai-schedule/

See you under water

Maintenance and Repair

My dive leg wore off a bit after 1 year and 42 dives in saltwater, dusty streets in Italy and Thailand, had to seal the wooden foot again.Repair:

My Regulator is back from its first revision after 1 year and 42 dives, 1st stage, 2nd stage, octopus. Maintenance:

Now we are ready for training fun dives in Italy and Spain!

See you under water

Raja Ampat!

Gemma from ViajayBucea Thailandia called in and offered a trip to Raja Ampat in May 2017, 18.-26. May. Perfect timing! Fits perfectly for Hawaii starting end of May. The trip from Sorong, Papua New Guinea to Honolulu, Hawaii might be a bit tricky, but we shall see. Long story short: I booked the trip to Raja Ampat!

Dream landscape Raja Ampat

Remote Location, Papua New Guinea

Camera!

After taking pictures and movies under water with my GoPro Hero 3 for more than two years, I decided to take a better camera for the trip.
The GoPro is ok for point and shoot in depths up to 10m, but gets really bad beyond that. The lack of Whitebalance easily reachable makes it hard to shoot good underwater footage beyond 5 meters depth

What I need:
compact size
wide aperture, below 1:2.0
Underwater scene program
the most simple manual white balance for underwater shooting
dive housing available for a reasonable price
tele beyond 100 mm equivalent

Fernando Miaguchi, a great videographer I met on my Pawara trip in March 2016, recommended his Canon G15.
Canon D30 and Nikon AW130 are Outdoor cameras, no need for a dive housing, but the sensors are small, bad aperture. Nice price around 300 Euros.

The Canon G5x has good aperture, good lens, good sensor, but a price tag of around 700 Euros.

The best and most camera for the price I found was Panasonic Lumix LX100, but nobody could share experience with this camera under water. It operates like a analogue camera, aperture and focus by rings on the lens tubes, no scene programs, several steps necessary the change white balance manually. But a great 1" sensor, aperture starting at 1.7! Price tag around 600 Euros.

The Canon G15 is not available anymore.

Then I found the company Aditech , Advanced Diving Technology, situated in St. Antoni, Catalunya, Spain.
They offer housings for a wide variety of cameras, even for the Lumix LX100.

And they offer a bundle of a Canon G16 with a housing for 780 Euros:

After many weeks and days of research, I finally made up my mind and ordered the bundle at Aditech. Next week i can try the camera, it's the follow up model of Fernandos G15.

See you under water

My son will join me for some portion of the trip

My Son Leo, now 23 years old, wants to join me on a portion of my trip and take the OWD course.
Since I will be back from the Pawara trip on Monday, March 27th, I decided to go to Koh Tao with him and let him do the course at Rainbowfish Divers, where I got my first certifications with Julia.

Julia instructing the OWD, Koh Tao, March 2014

She doesn't work there anymore, which is a pity, would have loved to have her as instructor for my son.
But in my opinion Koh Tao is a good choice for a 23-year-old who wants to become a scuba diver.

High tide at Sairee Beach, Koh Tao, Thailand

Thus, no possible Divemaster internship with Wicked Diving, I prefer to get my son to scuba dive, and learn it in a school I know and where they speak his language.

Basic scheduling plans, first bookings

The basic idea behind this endeavour was
to get some more dive training, like Rescue Diver or SSI Master Diver,
try the liveaboard The Junk
see some friends I made during my diving, like Julia now on Hawaii,
and see some spots I never had the chance or time or both to see, like Raja Ampat, Sipadan, Bali, Fiji, Hawaii, Mexico Yucatan Cenotes...

Some of my diving buddies even proposed the Divemaster course for me...., but i am not sure if I should take that responsibility

So I want to keep all chances open by not planning ahead every day of the 111 days.
A possible schedule could be:

• Start day is March 13, 2017, from Berlin, Germany
• Some diving in West Thailand, check Wicked Diving as a new to me operator in the Similans
• Do the Rescue Diver and some Specialties on Koh Tao, then chill down to Koh Lanta and dive the southern Andaman Sea with Lanta Diving Safaris, fly to Sabah and hang out on Mabul or the Seaventure Dive Rig, diving Sipadan.
• Take a trip to Raja Ampat
• Phillipines, Malapascua and Thresher Sharks? Or Bali or Fiji
• Hawaii, dive with Julia and Brad: Kona etc
• San Francisco, rent a car, drive down Coastal Highway 1 to L.A., fly to
• Mexico, Yucatan, ocean and Cenote diving
• back to Berlin middle of June

I thought of starting with a 7 day trip on the Junk to Similan and Surin Islands, but decided against it.
No early booking discount, no dive deck, all dives are dinghy dives, relatively expensive. Also that would have meant to start diving more or less on the day of arrival in South East Asia. I want to take it easy and allow some time to get used to the area again and sleep out my jet lag (traveling in eastern direction).
So I made a booking for a 3-day-trip with Wicked Diving starting five days after arrival. That way I can do some fun dives and my EFR course with them before the trip and then get an impression of their business. I could ask them if I could become a Divemaster: They offer a dive master internship of 6 weeks with 3 live aboard trips...
That trip ends around 3 pm and at 8 pm I start the next trip, hopefully from the same pier at Tab Lamu near Khao Lak: 4 days and 4 nights on my loved MV Pawara with West Coast Divers

First bookings and preparations

Now started inquiring for the Similans, of course with West Coast Divers

and their beautiful MV Pawara again:

and Wicked Diving

at Khao Lak

Starting it all

I've been working for the same newspaper company for 18 years now and thought it was time for a break.

So I took 3 months off, added some vacation days and made it exactly 111 days out of office. 

I always loved riding my motorbike and the simple lifestyle of Camping, loved to go to vintage car meetings and races with my 45 year old Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, 

but what really made me do this 111 days break is something I discovered only three years ago: Scuba diving. 

Especially on liveaboards in South East Asia...

I must admit it's addictive. 

Whenever I came back from a scuba trip i wanted to go again after a couple of weeks. 

So I set up the plan to go round the world one time, dive a lot, continue my scuba education and meet friends I made in the last three years while diving. 

All the paperwork is done by now, part time contracts signed: I will work for 75% of my salary for nine months now and get three months off with 75% of my salary paid.  

some money is put aside, and it's time to start booking flights, boats and courses...

See you under water