Dive Against Debris with Kontiki Divers - Thank you very much!

Thank you very much to Lotty, Ian, Ivy and all Kontiki dive staff for participating in Dive against Debris on September 4th, 2011. Now our House reef looks much cleaner! We found all kinds of debris including: plastic bottles, beer cans, paper plates, glass bottles, shopping bags etc. All these debris were found in just 5 meter deep water which is obvious where it comes from. We wish that all the visiting boats are more careful about the garbage disposal. The reef we have here is not just for us but for the future generations therefore we ask everybody to do the part. Kontiki Divers will organize the same kind of event very soon again. We are thinking perhaps every month to help our reef to look good.

By: Greg Maciejowski

Alta Cebu Village Resort and Diving with Kontiki Divers

Kontiki Divers Team is proud to announce that has joined forces with Alta Cebu Resort which is located in Cordova on Mactan Island. This beautiful resort has more than 50 rooms including function rooms, swimming pool, restaurant, hot shower, cable tv and many other functions. Kontiki Divers is going to provide scuba diving education for guests from Alta Resort. We offer scuba diving experiences, courses, fun diving, day trips, dive safaris and other great diving adventures. The good this about Alta Resort is that they have the swimming pool where we will be conducting Discover Scuba Diving and confined water training from most of PADI diving courses. After initial training in the pool all the students will be transferred to Kontiki Divers in Maribago where they can complete rest of the course in the ocean under direct supervision of Kontiki dive staff. For more information please contact us directly.

By Greg Maciejowski

Dive Against Debris with Kontiki Divers

September 4, 2011 from 9am - 11am, Kontiki Divers is organizing dive against debris in front of our dive center in Maribago. All certified divers are welcome to join for free with exception of entrance fee. During this dive we will collect all the debris and make a report that shall help local government institutions in creating new laws about underwater protection. We need to stand together in order to secure the future for ourselves and our kids so they too one day can come, make a dive and say: "what a beautiful reef we got here". Project AWARE created this event as a additional event towards already existing Underwater Clean-up Days. We wish that all divers, regardless of training agency will join the forces and do something about the state of our oceans. We are planing to start this event on Sunday, September 4th at 9am with a briefing then after assigning teams we all go and do our part underwater then after the dive we collect and log all the debris on the special data card which we will send to Project AWARE. Please let us know if any of you are interested to join and we will be happy to provide more information.

By: Greg Maciejowski

Next Dive Safari August 27-30

Guys, we still have open space for our next dive safari on Aug 27. Price is 660 US$ for 4 days. We dive Cabilao, Balicasag, Alona Beach and other dive spots.

San Juan Wreck

I was working in a call center before I got this awesome job with Kontiki Divers. It was just one ordinary working day before Christmas of 2010 that I got invited to go wreck diving- San Juan Ferry, which sank during a storm some time in 2000. It rests 50m at the bottom on it's starboard side. Kontiki Divers regularly conducts diving expeditions to this wreck for advanced and experienced divers and I was just lucky to be invited and be part of this expedition with our Tech Director- Satoshi "Toyo" Toyoda, one of the world's most renowned Technical Diver. Immediately after end of my shift at 6:30 in the morning, Christmas day, I took off from the office straight to Mactan. No time for sleeping.. I'm going diving! I thought to myself that this is gonna be one unique Christmas celebration for me considering that this is my first shipwreck diving. And that was indeed a great experience! And that started it all. Just can't have enough about the underwater world. It never ceases to amaze me.

Last week Kontiki Divers Team set off for another expedition on this wreck. Take the tour with me guys! Check out this awesome video: 

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150310731557247&oid=168526919858433&comments

A BIG THANKS -from the Belgian diving group

Just got back from another great diving safari experience with Dive Master “Searex” of Kontiki Divers Scuba Adventures and 6 experienced Belgian Divers. The safari team spent 5 days around the neighbouring islands of Bohol- Cabilao, Balicasag and Panglao. This was my second time to join a dive safari and it just keeps getting better. Just as every diver would always say “each dive always gives you a fresh and different experience”.  As an adventurer myself, it felt really great being with the group who seeks life’s greatest adventures. This trip was simply a remarkable one.  

Some of the best sightings on this safari were a large banded sea snake (about 2 meters in length) at 20 meters and the pigmy seahorse at 27 meters during the first two days of diving at Cabilao Island, the chance of being able to see 7 sea turtles at a time on one of our dives at Balicasag Island was a site to marvel, 3 Ghost Pipefish near a wreck lying at 30m depth at Atlantis, Alona Beach, Panglao. The Island is located just southwest of Tagbilaran City, and is also famous for its diving locations and routinely listed as one of the top ten diving locations in the world. Numerous tourist resorts dot the southern beaches and cater to divers from around the world. Different kinds of nudibranches were everywhere on each dive that we made. My second best was a colony of mandarin fish. As it gets dark they started to rise up off the corals in pair for a few seconds, discharging their sperm and eggs into the sea. We were really amazed to witness that episode.  And to top it all, an absolute highlight during our night dive, currently recognized as one of the world's most venomous marine animals; the Blue-ringed octopus! It is 12 to 20 cm (5 to 8 inches), but its venom is powerful enough to kill humans. There is no blue-ringed octopus antivenom available. The octopus produces venom that contains neurotoxins and one of them is found to be identical to tetrodotoxin which is 10,000 times more toxic than cyanide. Tetrodotoxin blocks sodium chanels causing motor paralysis and respiratory arrest within minutes of exposure, leading to cardiac arrest due to a lack of oxygen. The toxin is created by bacteria in the salivary glands of the octopus.

The Visayan Archipelago always has something to prove that it has one of the richest places for marine life. Other than that, the Filipino people are gifted with a warm and welcoming character that it gives the Philippines a sense of freedom to explore the islands and experience its culture. As part of the Safari package, the safari team also had the chance to visit a few of Bohol’s tourist destinations like the Loboc River where we did a river cruise with lunch buffet, we saw the 26 ft python- “Prony”, the smallest primate- Tarsier, and of course the country's third National Geological Monument and proposed for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage list- the Chocolate Hills.

Another five days of GREAT DIVING with Kontiki Divers! Time to get myself a new logbook!

Here's an e-mail we received from the Belgian group: Petra, Ingrid, Christophe, Koen, Thierry & Filip:


Dear Karl,

A BIG THANKS from the Belgian diving group, having done  Malapascua-diving & the Dive-safari from 18-27 April 2011. 

The first part, diving Malapascua was really beautiful & well organised. But the safari afterwards had that little thing more to make it excellent... being the superb service from Rex and Albert. 

Sea-Rex is really a first-class-diver, always looking out over us. He organised every part of the planning at our convenience, nothing was too much for him. On top, every underwater-speciality  we could ask to see he managed to show us within 2 dives (eg. Pigmy-sea-horses, sea-snakes, leaf-fish, frog-fish, Blue-ringed Octopus...)... Really top-act from Rex. 

Albert also will become a class-diver very soon: he already had the very good attitude of looking over us without being noticed. On top, he was a very pleasant & intelligent person to talk to. 

Please send our congratulations & deep thanks to both of them!

Kind regards,

Petra, Ingrid, Christophe, Koen, Thierry & Filip..

PS: we will make a selection of our underwater photos and send them to you.

The Belgian Diving Group

                              

Dive For Earth Day!

      As we prepared for the Earth Day celebration last April 22, 2011, we also looked into how much impact we have made on the environment. Approximately 71 percent of the Earth`s surface is covered by the ocean. But over the years our relentless drive for advancement has caused too much stress on the Earth´s underwater habitat. Just recently, a study was done and it turned out that 75 percent of the world`s coral reefs are being threatened by these local and global pressures. Leaving those species whose well being and existence relies solely on the ocean, greatly affected.

For this year's Earth Day celebration, Seven Seas Dive Center, Kontiki Divers Scuba Adventures together with Plantation Bay and 60 divers from the Philippine Navy, PNP, and Airforce joined forces but this time on a different battlefield- The Underwater world. The effort to combat underwater pollution creates a new challenge for these people who spent almost half of their lives to help in keeping our country in peace and order. Now, they cross to a peaceful environment in need of help.The action was headed by Dive Masters; Dario of Seven Seas Dive CenterandRex ofKontiki Divers Scuba Adventuresand P01 Vicente Pio of PNP Information Department.

   

  

It was a whole day event done on the Plantation Bay house reef where they were able to collect bottles, fish traps, nets and plastics. These are the debris that causes marine mammals to suffer and eventually die. An estimated 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles choke or get tangled by these types of marine debris every year. And 86 percent of all those affected are sea turtles.                                                                                                                        

  “Education and awareness  plays a big role in making this effort to combat against marine debris effective. People need to be taught and be made aware of the consequences to whatever actions they do to our planet, especially the Ocean.  - Rex (Dive Master). 

  Seven Seas Dive Center and Kontiki Divers Scuba Adventures have been working hand in hand with the local government and other NGOs in this annual beach clean-up activity to help provide action and awareness not only to the locals but the foreign tourists as well. 

                    

The day ended with a feeling of accomplishment that somehow we were able to take part of this worldwide effort to bring about change and have a reason to celebrate this year´s Earth Day.