Send me to the Harvard of diving!!!

Greetings faithful fans and followers.

Apologies for my recent lack of posting. The wind up to the end of term was full of reports, coursework marking, meetings, assemblies, more marking, more reports, more marking, planning....the list goes on and on. Anyway, I didn't have time to breathe, let alone xmas shop or sleep. But now it's all over for a few weeks and I'm back for a brief stop back home in Canada to see the family, eat some cheese and prepare for New Years on Koh Tao!!! Yup, couldn't resist my favorite place in Thailand. What is New Years without diving and buckets right?? Me + whaleshark = best new years ever. Me + whaleshark followed by me + buckets = even better!!


Anyway, now that I have a few minutes to breathe I thought I would take a minute to write a bit about this mysterious place called Blue Season Bali (BSB) which is sponsoring the contest that I am fighting so hard to win. Ya, I like them because they have put together this amazing competition but it's not just the free dive internship that has me so stoked, it's the company that's putting it on that's made me dead set on winning. It's the perfect combination of the best programme, the best location and the best diving! HEAVEN!!!


So if you weren't sure why you should be supporting me before, I'm going to show you how freaking awesome this place is so that there is no way you can avoid supporting me.


Being a teacher, my head is never far from the relentless grip of academia so I can find no better way to approach the topic than to compare it to that which invades my subconscious endlessly.

Blue Season Bali - The Harvard of the diving world. A comparative study

 

Ahhh Harvard, the height of the Academic world. The pillar of brainwave activity and the birthplace of greatness. Harvard is the cheese, if you manage to get in there you're set for life. Award winning work, the best professors, the best courses, the best reputation, not to mention the lovely campus set in beautiful surroundings! It's the full package indeed.


Coincidentally, Blue Season Bali shares many of the same qualities!


Award winning work
Last Year Blue Season Bali was given the PADI "Platinum Development Award" for S.E Asia and they have also been awarded the PADI "Green Star Award" for their conservation and eco work around Bali!  


Best professors 
Considering Blue Season Bali's reputation, it's understandable that they only have the best PADI instructors and ECO specialists. BSB has the only full time multiple platinum PADI course director in all of Indonesia, some of the most experienced Tec diving instructors, as well as an in house marine biologist! Additionally, all the DMs and PADI instructors are top notch! I know, I've already dived with them. These guys know their stuff!
They are always ready to guide happy fun divers (such as myself) out to find Mola Mola, Mantas, turtles and all their friends. I've dived with Putu and Wayan during my two times out with BSB and these guys are the BOMB! On both trips I have seen amazing stuff, stuff that some people hope to see their entire lives but never do! Yes, yes I know it's all the luck of the draw and mother nature will put what she wants in front of your mask but having the knowledge of these guys guiding you can't hurt :)  Being local they know these spots like the back of their hand. In Thailand you'd be hard pressed to find a local DM but everywhere I've dived in Indonesia there are plenty of local DMs who seem to know the reef and the wildlife better than anyone else. I'm so excited at the possibility of learning from these guys. I think there are certain things that only a local can teach, especially in a land as complicated and multi-faceted as Bali.

       

 Seriously, who looks like more fun? BSB instructors or Harvard professors?

The best courses 
If you want it Blue Season Bali can teach it! From Discovery Scuba for the freshies to OW and AOW to DM training, IDC, Tec diving and Eco courses they offer it all. They also have an amazing selection of internship programs that can take you from newbie to professional over a span of weeks to 7 months! (here's hoping those 7months are mine!!) Recently they've introduced a super cool Eco internship where you not only improve your diving but you learn all about reef restoration and protection and wildlife conservation. How cool is that! If the gods of SCUBA allow me to win this thing I am going to take advantage of everything this place has to offer. I'm going to be preserving and restoring and diving and Tec'ing - when at the Harvard of the diving world it makes sense to take advantage right?

The best reputation 
When choosing an institution of higher learning you always want to be sure that it can deliver. Blue Season Bali has a 100% pass rate on their ICD PADI instructor courses. That means noone has failed! Compared to other shops they take a bit more time with their courses to ensure that students know exactly what they are doing. If you're going to invest your time and money in a course as intense as the IDC (instructor development course) you want to make sure that you're going to get the best. Clearly BSB delivers.

 

100% pass rate! Can't beat that!

Lovely setting in beautiful surroundings 
Blue Season has not one but three different dive shops on the island of Bali. One in Sanur, one in Pura Jati (othewise known as PJ) and one near Menjangan Island. If I win I'll be spending most of my time at their shop in Sanur and living near there as well. The Sanur shop is where they do all their PADI development traning and their closest shop to Nusa Penida. The two times that I've dived with BSB I've left from here. It's a nice little centre snuggled off the main road in what I imagine used to be an old Balinese house. They've put in a nice deep dive training pool and have set up a really relaxed and friendly atmosphere for the people who are working, learning and diving there. I imagine that doing your PADI DM and diving instructor course can get stressful at times, lucky for those at BSB the shop is chill and there are tons of people around always (to help with those difficult assignments!) It's the type of place where you can feel comfy having beer when not diving, hunkering down in their classroom and getting things done or meeting the customers who come from all over the world to dive with Bali's Mantas, Mola Mola and other fishies inhabitants.
As for the lovely surroundings...well it's freaking BALI! Things don't get much more picturesque than that. Palms, temples, beaches, volcanoes, mountains covered in lush terraced rice paddies, islands, arid plains... it's amazing. You can't walk down the street in Bali without hearing the distant sound of the gamelan and smelling the insense rising from the hundreds of offerings that can be found on every street corner and shop front. Bali is a truly amazing place both above and below the waves!



 



I could post a million more photos here of how beautiful Bali is but I'm getting depressed looking at them as I sit here in the frosty, drizzly Vancouver winter so I'm going to stop...

So my faithful fans and friends, if you weren't sure why you should support me before, I hope this has enlightened you a little. Help me win! Send me to the Harvard of the diving world and help me live my dream!!

If you want to learn more about Blue Season Bali click HERE to check out all their programmes and courses. Check them out, get excited for me and help me win!!

To help me out here's what you need to do
1) join my fan page on FB HERE
2) visit my application page on the Best Dive Job blog HERE and leave a comment of support by scrolling waaaaay down to the bottom and telling BSB why I deserve to spend some quality time with them!

Keep checking back to the blog for other info and quality tidbits!

Cheers from the battlefield!
J

A sign of things to come??....I sure hope so!

A few weeks ago I posted about one of the mini-contests Blue Season Bali is running as part of their Best Dive Job in the world contest. This one was to win a free Suunto ZOOP dive computer. I figured that I couldn't run about talking about how great the mini-contests are without entering myself so, I submitted an entry myself. Guess what?? I WON!!! I am now the proud owner of a brand new dive computer!! Here's hoping this is a sign of things to come (and not a consolation prize because I'm not going to win the big prize I so desperately want!!)

All I had to do was write them about my PADI OW instructor and why he/she was so wonderful. Lucky for me I had 2 instructors who were very noteworthy! I've pasted my submission below. Hooray for me! I'm on a roll!!!

Simon leading us into the deep blue (we were following a 4 meter whale shark on our OW dive #3!!)

Two years ago I let my friends convince me to get my PADI Open Water ticket during a week long holiday on the sandy shores of Koh Tao, Thailand’s diving mecca. I must admit that it took some serious convincing as I wasn’t sure that I wanted to spend my holiday doing something that if done incorrectly would…well, kill me.  Putting your life in the hands of someone you’ve never met is an interesting prospect and one that I was not too terribly comfortable with.  Understandably, as I walked into the small OW classroom to start my course, it was the one thing I couldn’t get out of my head. To my disappointment we did not get to meet our instructor on that first night. Instead we spent the first evening of our course embarking on an instructorless thrill ride through a catalogue of PADI videos on the mysterious world of dive signals and “washing all your equipment in fresh water.”  Much to my relief, I managed to make it through day one of my OW experience without drowning…or even getting wet for that matter. Clearly satisfied by the fact that I was still holding my life in my own hands, I ticked off day one -so far, so good. 

We met our instructor on day two of our course – Simon Garrity…the man, the myth, the legend of Koh Tao diving. Although we didn’t know it at the time, we were lucky enough to score one of the most qualified instructors at the resort, arguably on the island, and as I would soon find out, I had no reason to worry about tossing him my life wrapped up in a regulator. Even better, we ended up with not one but two instructors! Being a group of 6, the course was a little packed so Ms. Jodie Roberts, a second instructor, came along to even things out. As we soon found out, doubling your instructors definitely doubles you fun.

Simon - PADI instructor extraordinaire

Jodie demonstrating that losing your mask will not make you drown

Before my first descent I made it clear to Simon and Jodie that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to breathe, that my mask would flood, that I wouldn’t be able to equalize, that my air would suddenly turn off, that I’d get lost never to be found again or that I would be eaten by a shark.  Although it sounds ridiculous now, to the virgin diver, these scenarios are not just possibilities, they are inevitable truths! Truths that needed to be brought to the attention of these dive instructors who clearly didn’t understand the life threatening situation they were about to throw me into! Luckily for me, Simon and Jodie were not only pros underwater, they were pros above water too. It takes a certain talent to calm someone out of their irrational fears; you can’t just tell them they are wrong, you need to convince them that they will be ok. I’m sure my slight panic was more of an annoyance than anything for Simon and Jodie but they never let on. They sat me down and went step by step through all the reasons why none of the above was likely to happen. They then went through how they would fix each of these problems (including me being eaten by a shark) if they were to arise. They didn’t laugh at my insecurities or make me feel stupid for being afraid. Instead, they made me feel as though I was going through something that every diver has experienced at some point or another and that it was totally normal. Confidence renewed, I took the plunge.

The next 3 days were spent going through the motions of a PADI open water course. Our days were filled with what I can only assume were the usual problems and panics of any OW course, all of which Simon and Jodie handled with sensitivity and professionalism. I can remember one particular moment where we were asked to remove and replace our regulators. One member of our group took a small bit of water in when replacing hers and began to cough as she took her first breath. Terrified, she tried to bolt to the surface. Simon gently took hold of her BDC and placed one hand on her regulator to keep it in her mouth while Jodie came over and made a slow “in and out” motion with both her hands to calm the girl’s breathing down. They both looked her clearly in the eyes and although they were in complete silence, you could tell that they were telling her she was going to be fine. If it wasn’t for Simon and Jodie’s quick but calm reaction, I am pretty sure that the student would have quit the second she hit the surface.  Luckily, she quickly relaxed and we continued on with the skill sets.  Similar scenarios played themselves over the next few days. Regulators where kicked out by accident, Trigger fish were approached unknowingly, masks leaked and fins fell off but through all of it, Simon and Jodie remained calm and supportive both above and below the water. None of us, no matter how silly our mistakes, were ever made to feel stupid or unable. Yes, we had a few beer fines here and there (of  which I was usually on the distributing end rather than the receiving) but they made sure it was always in good fun and never discouraging.

I entered my PADI OW course apprehensive to say the least. I did not feel even remotely confident living like a fish and was sure it would end tragically. Yes, Simon and Jodie taught me all the skills I needed to be safe underwater but it wasn’t the skills that kept me in one piece down there, it was the confidence that they instilled in me both on the surface and under the waves. I never felt as if I was in trouble because I had seen firsthand how Simon and Jodie could remove the panic from even the most frenzied diver with simple hand gestures and a reassuring touch. The day we finished out OW we all decided that we would head straight into our advanced…as long and Simon and Jodie remained our instructors. We have remained friends ever since. Some instructors might lay on the charm and the friendliness to get the extra students or the tip at the end of the course but for Simon and Jodie, their friendship is as genuine as their care for their students and that’s what makes them both amazing PADI OW instructors.

Simon and Jodie (3^rd and 4^th from the right) enjoying their beer fines with another successful group of  PADI Open Water divers J

Cheers from the winner's circle (the mini one that is)

J

Dick of the day....Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Prime Minister Harper indicating by a show of fingers how many sharks will be left in the sea by the time his government decides to ban the importing of shark fins

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a dick on many levels. His political views make him a dick, his policies make him a dick, even his hair cut makes him look like a dick...quite literally. But today, he made sure to further enshrine himself in the "Temple of Dicks" by declaring that Canada will not ban shark fins.
My analysis of this declaration: Prime Minister Harper  - YOU ARE A DICK!


Let's listen in on his comments regarding a recent national petition campaign by the NDP fisheries critic and Shark Truth Vancouver calling on the federal government to ban the importing of shark fins:

”Canada does not favour a ban of shark fins. We do, however, and we’ve been very clear that Canada supports only the humane harvesting of sharks.”
                                                                             - Stephen Harper,
                                              dickhead extraordinaire and destroyer of mother nature

Seriously, how the hell can you fin a shark humanely? It's not like they anesthetize them or someting? It's not like the fins will grow back and the shark will swim off happily. It's not even like they keep the meat? I guess Stephen Harper plans on going on the finning boats to check that they meet his high standards or "humane" finning...whatever the hell that means. And what the hell is he doing saying "Canada" does not favour a ban? I bet if Stephen Harper put out a national vote asking "is it important to you that Canada continues to import shark fins" the resounding answer would probably be "no" because most people don't eat it in Canada and I would hope that many more can spot barbarism for the sake of a few dollars when it's staring them in the face.


Well Mr. Harper, congratulations!! You've rightrously upheld your position as an insensitive dickhead who is out of touch with reality yet again and this time you've also made sure to ensure tens of thousands of innocent sharks are slaughtered for a bowl of freaking soup! When I left Canda what seems like a million years ago....well it was more like 10...but anyway...when I left, I swore I'd never move back home as long as there was a dickhead in the Prime Minister's chair. Sorry friends and family back home...I think you might as well just give up on me ever returning for more than a quick xmas hello.


If you'd like the read the full article in the Vancouver Sun you can do so by clicking HERE



Cheers from the fishbowl
J

Koh Tao Dive Briefing - Dry Land edition

As we all know, the diving lifestyle isn't just about the fishies and their friends. It's also living and travelling to amazing locations, living life on white sand beaches and meeting people from all over the world. Divers are known for their adventurous spirit, their laid back outlook on life and their general friendliness but let's not forget the other thing divers can do pretty well...party.

It's pretty difficult to wash up on white sandy shores and not indulge in a little bit of island style "R&R". For many of us who are travelling divers it's often a difficult balance between those 6am wakeup calls on dive days and those 6am bedtimes after a night out at a beach hut bar under the palms. My recent flood induced escape to Koh Tao was one such balancing act. Fortunately...or is that unfortunately?... the surprise "get the hell outta Bangkok because the deluge is coming" nature of this particular vacation meant that finances were a bit low and I couldn't afford to dive much...which left extra time for every diver's other favorite past time...viva la beverage! viva la dancing! and while in Thailand: viva la bucket, viva la fire dancing, viva la vida !                                              



Fellow evacuee Carrie seems to be able to resist the temptation for long enough to smile for the camera. Me on the other hand, has apparently been glamoured by the irresistable powers of a bucket of strawberry margaritas.



                                                                                                 

Koh Tao is a pretty small place and the area where most of the dive shops, hotels and restaurants are is pretty condensed and centralized along a strip of beach called Haad Sairee. A night out on a beach in Thailand tends to be pretty much the same whereever you happen wash up. Music, pillows on the beach and boys spinning fire. It also contains all of the following:

1) drinks of questionable alcoholic quality served in plastic sandcastle pails
2) drunk young European/Austrailan tourists skinny dipping
3) drunk young European tourists trying to pick up other drunk young European/Australian tourists
4) enterprising Thai bar boys trying to pick up drunk European/Australian tourists

5) drunk European/Australian tourists who think they are invinsible running through flamming skipping ropes while the Burmese fire boys laugh their asses off as the singed eyebrows and leg hair piles up. 

6) some sweet ass dancing by all of the people mentioned above plus a few Thais tossed in for good measure

7) DMs, instructors, and DMTs all dipping in to the above activities to varying degrees

As you can imagine nothing, I repeat NOTHING beats people watching on a night out on Haad Sairee. 

I boogied, I drank, I watched in awe... it was worth every sip of my bucket of...sex on the beach. I shudder to think that I was drinking that sludge by the bucketful but hey, they get tastier the more you drink.

Sometimes a picture says a thousand words...I'll just leave it up to you to fill in the blanks.

Fellow evacuees, my brother and neice, recovering from a night out on the buckets.

  





When you look at this man and say "Hey I could do that...no problem!!"
You've clearly had too many buckets.
As too many drunken tourists have found out the hard way...
NO, you CANNOT do that!!! Unless you plan on burning off most of your body hair!
Oh liquid courage! It doesn't just affect one's confidence in the game of love!!!



Who says that dogs can't enjoy a night out on Haad Sairee too? I found this lovely young lady excellent company and she didn't try to steal my drink while I wasn't looking! 

.

Epic Jenga...'nuff said

And after a long night out it sure doesn't hurt to wake up to this...

I'm gonna miss you Koh Tao!

Cheers from the evacuation zone

J

Win stuff!!! All the cool kids are doing it!

Hello again faithful followers!

Well Blue Season Bali have done it again! It's mini-contest #2!

"Oh Joe! This is so exciting!!! What does Blue Season Bali want to give me this time??"

Well I'm glad you asked!

How about a new Suunto Zoop dive computer!!! Yes! It could be all yours! No more pesky dive tables, no more floating above your dive leader all dive, no more guessing how cold the water was! Fantastic! The freedom! The excitement! The piece of mind!

"Holy Crap Joe, that's awesome!!! So how do I win??"

I'm glad you asked that too!!
All you have to do is tell Blue Season Bali about your PADI OW instructor. Tell them why your instructor was good and what they did to help you become the super diver you are today.

You can get all the info on how to enter by clicking HERE

Good Luck my dive buddies!
Let's all Win!!!

Cheers from the fishbowl
J

Koh Tao dive briefing...underwater version

Hello my faithful followers!

Again, many apologies for my lack of posting but the flood waters have been rising here in Bangkok which resulted in me heading for the dryer lands of the South for 10 days to try to escape the creeping, typhoid laden wall of water that was slowly approaching my home and workplace. Now that I'm back in Bangkok (and the water seems to have stopped a few blocks away from my neighbourhood) I am able to post a little Koh Tao dive briefing to wet (no pun intended) you appetites!

One of my favorite views - watching the sea, beer in hand -

Haad Sairee, Koh Tao

Ahhh Koh Tao! As I said in an earlier post Koh Tao is where I learned to dive and ever since has snuggled down and taken up residence in a happy little corner of my heart. Cute, cosy and chocked full of buckets, beautiful bodies and beaches - Koh Tao is one of my favorite places in Thailand. Conveniently, it's also home to some great and easily accessible diving! Because I had just returned from diving in Bali and had not really budgeted for another diving adventure, I had to curb my appetite and only pop under the waves few times. The self-denial was difficult but I managed to survive. I got down for three days of diving in total.

The first day I had a morning dive at a site called " Hin Peewee" It was my first dive of the trip and set the bar a little low...on the visibility side that is. Due to some wierd tides and the runoff from an early morning rainstorm the visibility was about...uh...25cm. Ya, total brown out. We ended up aborting the dive after 20 minutes simply because we couldn't see anything at all. Although completely annoying and not even remotely interesting I don't mind doing a dive like this every once in a while because it keeps me on my toes and reminds me of how good I usually have it! - admitedly I don't particularly like paying for it!
Dive fun-o-meter: 1
Interesting-stuff-I-saw-o-meter: 0 - does sediment count? What about the tank of the person next to me...oh wait, I couldn't even see that.

Dive #2 was much better. After a change of sites to "Red Rock and Nang Yuan caves" and a 1.5 hour surface interval the vis has cleared and we were back up to about 18meters vis. This is a wicked dive site that decends onto a big underwater "rock" with a horizontal crack running along the center at about 12meters which is home to lovely little critters such as Jaan's pipefish, nudibranches and banded cleaner shrimp.
While we were snooping through the crack we heard the unmistakable "ping" of a tank which only means one thing...something cool!! So we shallowed up a bit and came face to face with a big fat hawksbill turtle grazing away and looking grumpy as they tend to do. After realizing that we were there only to gawk and ruining his lunch he took his leave and so did we. The rest of the dive was through the Nang Yuan caves which is a series of connected swim throughs rather than caves. All in all it was a good dive with lots of fishies and more :)
Dive fun-o-meter: 8
Interesting-stuff-o-meter: 8 - yay turtle! Yay pipefish!

          

Pipefishy face!

The next day we did two dives again the first at South West Pinnacles, the second at Shark Island.
Dive #1 - S.W Pinnacles is an open ocean site consisting of a series of pinnacles starting at about 8 meters and decending down to about 30 meters. It was an early dive and we were lucky to be the only ones at the site. We spent our dive cruising with giant groupers (these were whoppers! Definitely dinner for 10..or more), schools of jacks and trevallies, stingrays and bat fish. The best part of the dive was shallowing up to about 8 meters surrounded by literally thousands on baby damsel fish swirling and schooling around us. It was like a damselfish blizzard but it was warm and my eyelashes didn't freeze off!
Dive fun-o-meter: 8
Interesting-stuff-o-meter: 7 - Damsel fish blizzard!

Damselfish!!

Dive:2 - Shark Island...unfortunately there are no sharks here, just looks like a shark fin sticking out of the water :(
This was a cool site with lots of small stuff. Urchin clingfish, sergeant fish, nudis galore and cute little baby cuttlefish. Unfortunately there was also a lot of rubish on this site. I don't know if it was the tides or the location or what but I spent a lot of the dive stuffing the pockets of my BCD full of plastic bags floating in the water. Another cool thing about this site is there is an underwater grave of a man who loved diving and asked to have his ashes buried there. Kinda a wierd thing to come across but cool none the less.
Dive fun-o-meter: 7
Interesting-stuff-o-meter: 6 - the plastic bags but a bit of a downer on the whole experience.

My final day of diving was a full day trip to the famous "Sail Rock". Big Blue Diving (the dive shop I dive with in K.Tao) runs a weekly day trip out there. It takes about 2.5 hours to get to but is well worth the trip. We do 2 dives at Sail Rock and then hit S.W Pinnacles on the way home. What makes Sail Rock so cool is the "chimney". It's a big cylindrical swimthrough that runs vertically from 6 meters to about 18 meters. You can do your intial decent down the chimney popping out of a hole at the bottom or can do it the other way around.  Super Cool tube of diving fun!

Me at Sail Rock!!!

Dive 1 and 2 were pretty similar since they were on the same site. We were told there was a whale shark at the site the day before but alas he or she did not decide to come visit us :( We did see tons of batfish, longface emperor fish, porcupine fishes, angel fish, snappers and fun nudibranches. On the first dive we popped out of the chimney onto a school of tiny baby yellow tailed barracuda! They were only about the size of my index finger. Awww so cute! We also had a visit with a big fat momma moray eel that had to be at least a meter long if not more and had a face off with a couple of very cranky titan trigger fish. All in all, both dives were delightful! Yay Sail Rock. I heart you!!!!
Dive fun-o-meter: 9
Interesting-stuff-o-meter: 8 - cute baby barracuda! 

Dive #3 - S.W Pinnacles. 
I would like to rename this dive the "airsucker super express" since we were diving at 27 meters is wicked heavy currrent which meant that we all huffed up all our air quicker than usual. The dive was a bit short (40mins) but we saw lots of cool stuff. Probably the wierdest thing was a rabbit fish that had a full bite taken out of its back - just like out of a cartoon. He was still swimming along with this fishy buddies but I have a feeling his days were numbered....poor little bunny.  

Beware of injured rabbitfish.

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen. I escaped the murky floodwaters of Bangkok for the fish filled Gulf of Thailand. Upon my return I found my house still dry and everything in the general vicinity to be as it was when I left it. Here's hoping it stays that way.

Stay tuned for my Koh Tao dive briefing - the dry land edition!!

Cheers from the fishbowl and remember to leave me a comment on my Blue Season Bali Best Dive Job application site by clicking HERE, scrolling to the bottom of the page and telling Blue Season Bali why I deserve to win!!!

J

P.S Once again, I can't take pics underwater so thank you to google images for allowing me to steal other people's pictures.  

Bali Dive Briefing - October 22, 2011

Bali update…better a bit late than never.

Apologies for the lateness of this post but things (flood water, school closures, a bad case of food poisoning, evacuating the city) happened to get in the way. But have no fear, the moment you have all been waiting for has finally arrived! The Bali Dive Briefing starring yours truly – everyone’s favorite candidate for Best Dive Job in the World- Joe Zeiler and everyone’s favorite dive resort in Bali – Blue Season Bali!

Living only a few hours flight away from Bali, I have been fortunate enough to have dived with Blue Season Bali before (and even more fortunate to have spotted the Best Dive Job in the World poster on the shop wall). My last experience with Blue Season was this past July where I spent 3 days on a “Mola-Mola Madness” dive safari which put me in close quarters not only with magnificent Mola-Mola but also with majestic Mantas (both black and white versions), hawksbill turtles, lion fish, swirling schools of trevally and jacks, tiny crabs, and a huge variety of technicoloured nudibranchs (among a million other fish that would take me a lifetime to list).

So you can imagine my excitement as Blue Season picked me up at my hotel at the crisp morning hour of 7am. My guide for the day was Wayan, an incredibly knowledgeable and well skilled dive guide who, as I was soon to find out, clearly had an inside line to Mola-Mola central. There was only one other person in my dive group, Mr. Adachi from Japan.  I think I was put in this group because I can speak Japanese and in addition to Wayan’s Mola hunting skills, he is also a fluent Japanese speaker. So it was decided that we would conduct our day in Japanese, a language all three of us were confortable in.  I have rarely had the chance to speak Japanese since I left Japan so it’s always nice when I have a chance to speak it, strangely, it only seems to be when I’ve diving that the opportunity arises. 

So we pulled up to the Blue Season centre, had our morning cup of coffee, sorted our equipment (which consisted of not one but TWO wetsuits for wimpy me!) and we were off to the dive boat.  The trip to Nusa Penida took about 40 minutes and the water was glass smooth.  Our first dive site was Crystal Bay, a lovely little bay with….you guessed it…crystal clear waters.  Unfortunately, as with a clear winter’s day. The clearer the water, the colder it is and I was none too prepared for the rush of 17 degrees that seeped into my wetsuit. Note to self – invest in a hood and some gloves when I get to Bali!

The dive was great, beautiful fish too many to name, ribbon eels, moray eels, garden eels, nudibranchs, crabs, a banded sea snake and the beautiful corals that crystal bay is known for. A too many moments to counts I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was swimming in a giant fish tank. It was breathtaking (…or was that just the freezing water leaving me breathless?).    All in all it was great dive but alas…no Mola Mola this morning L

Our second dive was at Tugu, a drift dive site about a 15 minute boat ride away.  The currents were unpredictable and we had to wait a bit while things settled (somehow Wayan could tell the shifting currents simply by looking at the surface of the water).  After we got the all clear we were in and landed almost right on the head of a grazing Hawksbill turtle! After a short visit we drifted on to visit with some lovely lionfish and ourangutan crabs as well as schools of surgeon fish, sweetlips, red toothed triggers, clown triggers,  tuna…you name it! ….but alas…no Mola Mola yet again L

It was now time for lunch (everyone’s favorite part of a day of diving) and a return back to Crystal Bay for a last ditch attempt to spot the elusive Mola-Mola.  As we descended on our 3^rd and final dive I was pleased to see that the water temperature has risen from 17 to 22 degrees and I wasn’t freezing through my neoprene any longer. About 5 minutes into the dive we turned a corner of the reef and all of a sudden we come face to face with a massive Mola Mola! 3 meters fin to fin in absolutely crystal clear waters, no sediment, no plankton, no thermaclines….nothing.  She (or he) was clearly a fish in search of the spotlight since she seemed to be more than happy to just hang in mid water and pose for the eager (and slightly flailing) photographers and divers who were bumping into each other as they tried to get the best shot/look at her.  We were lucky enough to spend 20 full minutes in her company before another group of divers decided that they would swim right towards her which of course made her hightail (ha ha…even though she doesn’t really have one) it outta there.  The rest of the dive we spent poking around the reef where I spotted yet another fish that I was been itching to meet in person – a horned cow fish!! So cute! So…horney!  Me and him spent some quality time scooting around and then sadly it was time to ascend and time to say goodbye to Nusa Penida until next time (hopefully right after I WIN Best Dive Job in the World!)

Cowfish! MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

 
Hello there Ms. Mola-Mola

The ride home was a bit bumpier than the ride there but the smiles on the boat were from ear to ear as we were informed that that was one of the best Mola visits they had had in a long time! As the day came to an end I was left with the feeling more than ever that I was born to do this! Joe Zeiler was made for this job.  Here’s hoping!!!!

( I did not take the above pictures by the way....I'm far too crap at taking underwater pics for that...thank you to google images for helping me out)

Cheers from the fish tank
J

Quick!! Someone get me two of every animal A.S.A.P!

Hello faithful fans!

Well things in Bangkok have been a big soggy since my great return from my half-term jaunt over to Bali (thrilling and exciting post regarding my diving adventures with Blue Season Bali to come soon!). I've returned to Bangkok and to the flood waters that the government had convinced me would be gone by the time I got back. Unfortunately things have gotten much worse and as of yesterday the government has ordered all schools closed until November 7th which means...flood holiday for me!! Considering the food and clean water supplies are running short in Bangkok and the water is slowly creeping towards my condominimum (so much so that the manager has purchased a boat to get us down the street!) myself and pretty much every other person I work with has decided to evacuate. So the big question was, what does a diving addict do when presented with a few extra days of unexpected holidays??? Well I didn't want to leave the country since who knows what might happen so I've decided to run down to Koh Tao, a small island in the South East of Thailand and the diving mecca of the country (at least at this time of year since the Andaman sea is still in monsoon at the moment). I leave tomorrow for a week of diving with whale sharks (fingers crossed) and bull sharks (fingers crossed) and all of my other favorite Thai underwater friends.
Koh Tao is where I learned to dive and it will always hold a special place in my waterlogged little heart. Since I'm absolutely rubbish at taking underwater photos (yet another reason why I need to win The Best Dive Job in the World) I won't be posting any pictures of my adventures under the sea but stay tuned for a Koh Tao dive briefing...and perhaps a Koh Tao bucket infused land briefing as well. 

My posts on Bali are in the making (sorry, flood preparations have gotten in the way of my recent blogging superstardom). Good thing I'll have lots of time during those surface intervals to keep you all updated :) 

I leave you with a lovely little video about the recent flooding in Bangkok. I think a diver must have made it since they have decided to compare flood waters to blue whales attacking the city. I have yet to see any blue whales cruising down my front lane but I think I'll get out of here just in case one does. The video brings up a good point that most Thais don't seem to undertstand. That we have made this situation the way it is by tearing down forests and destroying the natural beauty of this country. As divers we spend a lot of time cleaning the beach and reefs that we call home but we need to also make sure that our education campaigns push people to understand the interconnectedness of the land and sea.  The subtitles are a bit hard to read at times sorry about that. Let's keep those blue whales in the sea and not swimming down the expressway or into the local temple!!




Cheers from the Blue Whale Sanctuary
J

Welcome to my new little piece of cyberspace!!!

Hello all and welcome to my new little slice of the cyberworld. As you may all know (well you probably do know since you are here reading this), I have recently entered Blue Season Bali's Best Dive Job in the World competition. Since my fingers are in so many parts of cyberspace I thought I would open up this blog so that I can post about my battle for the Best Dive Job and other dive and Bali related tidbits that I think you'll find interesting. Although the initial inspiration for this blog is the competition, I'm also excited to use it to share my passion for diving and my love for that little island with big personality, Bali. Enjoy and come back often. I'll be updating as often as possible.  

JOE ZEILER WAS BORN TO WIN

But I need all of you to help me do it!!!

Click on the link below and scroll down to the bottom of the page. Leave a comment telling Blue Season Bali why I'm the right lady for the job!!

http://www.bestdivejob.com/2012/?p=90

In addition feel free to join my many fans on my Facebook fan page

by clicking HERE

You can also leave comments on my various blog posts by clicking on the comments link at the bottom of each post. Let me know what you think!!

Cheers from a freshly born slice of cyberspace

J

A Call to Action...

I've pilfered this off my other blog because it fits right in with my whole mission of getting into the diving profession. At the moment, the passions in my life are become more and more focussed on the sea and helping to fix the mess we've made of it...

Hey there faithfull followers,

Today's post is of a more somber note. Please watch the video posted below. Do not turn it off when it turns your stomach. Do not look away, close your eyes or ignore what you are seeing. This is a massacre on a global scale that needs the world to open up their eyes and do something. We can all sit back and say "well it's not my culture so I don't have a right to say anything" or "well I don't eat it so it's not my problem" but the fact is that it is your problem, it is all of our problem. The practice of shark finning is inexcusable. The fact is that shark's fin is tasteless, it adds nothing to the food it is added to. Simple tradition and cultural ignorance has led ot the massacre of a species which due to media representation and cultural ignorance is completely misunderstood. We cannot continue to kill sharks without even the most basic sense of what is right or wrong. These pictures and so many others make me cry...no weep but cry out loud. How dare we be so full of ourselves, so egotistal, so high and mighty that we think that we can do this and it's ok. Every single one of us should be ashamed that we either take part in this shocking practice or that we do nothing about it. Chinatown in my home city  of Vancouver has shark's fin restaurants as does probably every Chinatown in every country that my readers come from. It is only with your help and your intervention that we can begin to change the way people think. We need to start with the youth and make them understand the barbarism of this tradition so that they can begin to change it and pass these new understandings on to their children. It is in the hands of the young that the lives of these helpless creatures lie. 

There are many sites that can steer you in the right direction if you want to help, here are only a few:
 http://www.antisharkfinning.com/
http://www.stopsharkfinning.net/campaigns.htm
http://www.sharksavers.org/index.php
http://www.facebook.com/antisharkfinning
http://www.seashepherd.org/sharks/shark-finning.html

There are a million more. It's up to us to stop this. People need to be educated to understand the barbarism that they are supporting. The family in the shark's fin restaurant in the video clip sums is all up...they don't think about where the fins come from and they don't care. But maybe, just maybe if they saw the practices that their 150$ dinner was supporting they might change their minds.

I beg of all my readers to please take up this cause. Sharks have survived millions of years of evolution, ice ages and mass global extinctions and are now on the verge of completely dissappearing because of human greed and ignorance. We do not have the right to hold the future of a species in our hands. Please fight for their rights because they cannot.

Cheers from a place of sadness and shame
J