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