Came back from Sipadan trip (sorry, haven’t got enough image to write down the trip review yet), reached home around 2am, slept for 3 hours and drove to Bubbles, Perhentian with Ye and Seen (well, Ye is the driver ). My purpose in this trip is actually for meeting to discuss the volunteer and experiential programme in Bubbles, turned out to be a ’sand and underwater photography’ trip…

(Mainly Eric Ng, Ye, Seen and me) we just chose anywhere near the lighthouse and did our entry. Sandy bottom, we see what we see - according to Mr. Eric; therefore Eric and Ye, Seen and me going just flat bottom to see what we see; well, it’s good that I have the opportunity to practise what I learn from my si fu - with almost none of the diving or photography equipment belongs to me (Camera and housing belongs to Yenny, strobe and arms belongs to Eric, dive equipment and boat belongs to Bubbles, thank all of you)

Underwater photography may cause buddy separation, unless both buddy has the same interest in shooting the same subject, and taking the same old long time to shoot, and be tolarate. An amatuer underwater photographer will send an easy 5 minutes with a single small subject - which a leisure diver may only takes about 10 seconds to have a look at it - try to imagine it

But the great thing about underwater photography is - you’ll kind of enjoy any dive site, as long as you enjoy the photography process (if you got frustrated with the result, mad with your buoyancy, angry with your buddy.l.. then the it’ll be the worst thing about underwater photography). It’s sandy bottom (basically we spend about 4 dives diving flat sand around light house area), and it’s macro I’m talking about. The very tiny pikachu is not what my skill level can handle, and I wish to do it better in future, if I can find it again.

On the last dive, Seen and me decided to play with the strobe and take the ’star war’ type of images - ha ha ha. Will try to explore more when I have the opportunity again, kind of fun

Gan Sien Ban (PADI dive instructor#465342)

Just came back from Sipadan and Bubbles, Perhentian Island… Still haven’t bag for photos from other who were in the trip, still haven’t edit my own, therefore I decided to delay a bit on writing the trip review.

Recently I’m thinking of going into underwater photography, since ‘too many’ divers these days talk about photography - and to join the conversation, I better know a bit of what they are talking about :)  the images on the left was taken during my visit to Bubbles, Perhentian Island. It’s kind of fun playing with the strobe and try out the imagination. the person in the image is me - Seen (my brother) took the shot, but I want to take the credit of planning it!

Of course I’ve took some marine life shots as well… please give me a day or 2 (before I depart for my surfing journey in Bali on 9th April 2009) and I’ll post it up for comments! Yes, comments are welcome for the newbie me to improve

Gan Sien Ban (PADI dive instructor#465342)

DEEP Indonesia was held from 27 to 29 Mar 09 and Blue Dragon was there… Our booth is on the main path of the expo… with a new t-shirt entitled ‘Enter the Blue Dragon’!  The 3 days saw many people visiting the expo but mainly it was more a vendor - vendor or agent - vendor event.  But there was also sufficient end-users going to the expo to check out what’s new on the market and looking for a good bargain, particularly from the equipment vendors.

Our booth was the only one there I noticed that was land, air and sea - with our partners from Bintang Flores Resort (land), Trans Nusa Airline (air), and Blue Dragon (sea)!  There were many people coming to our booth because of the interest in Komodo and Flores, and a chance to go on a traditional phinisi - not just from divers but non-divers (many of the visitors to the expo were non-divers!) looking for some exotic experience.

The expo opening times were long - from 10am to 8pm on the first 2 days and up to 6pm on the last day - and it was back breaking standing there the whole day!  But it was an interesting experience and I think we did a good job to bring ourselves to the market… T-shirts are still available for trip sign-ups while stock lasts!

- Write up by Pheng -

PS: go here to vote for Komodo as a New 7 Wonders of the Nature

http://www.new7wonders.com/nature/en/

Yes, it has taken me a long time since New Year to write this.  My first trip on Blue Dragon in Komodo was 28 Dec 08 to 2 Jan 09 with a group of friends brought by James (Singapore dive instructor), Leonard, Eric (Ah Pak), Seen, Yenny and Gan.  Our plan was to explore the Southern part of the national park.  The dives sites in the South for me were Cannibal Rock and Yellow Wall for the macro - well, we didn’t see anything big there but I can feel that they are around, and no, the feeling wasn’t Komodo dragon lah!  There are plenty of sea apples and many types of nudibranchs there but it was fantastic to find a lacy scorpionfish there also!  Then it was Batu Bolong - Current City, where we went to ’see’ the current - yes, certainly need to dive with care here but I had 2 choices: hide behind the current and enjoy an easy dive with the small stuff; or venture out into the action with the big stuff and the current!  I chose to do the former and just saw some of the big stuff - sharks - from the edge.  From there, we went to Manta Station - and the divers were getting all excited to jump in when they saw many (yes, many!) mantas swimming near the surface.  We saw our mantas underwater but Seen who was snorkeling at the surface saw even more swimming around him and checking him out!

I will keep the diving part short because there will be a lot more later… for this trip, there were 2 highlights - one good, one bad.  The first one was a wonderful New Year dive at Wainilu, and it is my second time doing a New Year dive and that makes it special - I am looking for divers to do it again next year!!  The second highlight was: for a place that has very little rain, it had to rain on my first trip on Blue Dragon!  Well, being a brand new boat with the fittings still settling, the Blue Dragon failed her first ever rain test - the cabins leaked and some power problem was causing the aircon to act up as well.  I really appreciated the divers who were with us on the trip for their patience and understanding in that situation. We will certainly make it up to them.  We would also like to thank them for their suggestions and information, which has helped us patch things up and improved the boat further, which we did before the next trip and things are much better now!

-Posted by Chong Pheng-

How long have I been missing? Approx. 4 months.

Preparing the Komodo liveaboard taken up most of my previous 4 months time - from building supervision, wood sample and fixing check, rushing for the delayed schedule, damage control, site (Komodo, Rinca and Padar islands) exploration, stuff trainining and coordination, maintenance and operation check, standard schedule and marketing… it’s not as easy as when I board other liveaboard and start to comment on it hahahaha…

Click on the link to find out images and information about it: www.bfdive.com/komodo.htm

The preparation period is almost to the end now - with the Indonesia DEEP exhibition in Jakarta, the proper running of KLM (Kapal Layar Mesin / sail boat with engine)  Blue Dragon in Komodo National Park will be started, together with the exploration plan to Bonerate, Wakatobi, Alor, Flores… this blog will be richer and much more interesting in future - if we are not too lazy or busy to put it on

Gan Sien Ban (PADI dive instructor#465342)

Till this moment, I only able to get some very basic images… I really wish to see my complete Blue Dragon!!!

The construction was delayed by bad weather and incident of the main constructor passed away (due to motorcycle accident), I truly sorry and will certainly do the compensation for the not-well-run previous trip!

Gan (PADI dive instructor#465342)

Have been missing for 3 months - main job is to supervise and navigate the building of Blue Dragon liveaboard and find out Komodo dive sites

so it finally reach the completion and will do its first cruise on 24th October 2008 (trip 23rd - 28th October)! Good luck to me!

Gan (PADI dive instructor#465342)

Finally, we started our very own liveaboard in Komodo National Park, Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia! The boat construction started 20th June and estimated to start cruising on end of October or November; and will mainly explore the fantastic and rich dive sites of Komodo National Park and West Flores, Indonesia.

Click on the images to see the layout, it’s called Blue Dragon:

Boat specification: Lenght. 25m, weight. 6m, 3 attached bathroom a/c cabins, 3 common bathroom a/c cabins, capacity. 12 pax, cruising speed. 8 knots, Radar, Deep Sounder, Compass, radio, life jacket, life boat, dive facility, 2 small boats.

Click on Komodo trip review; Komodo site information

I just came back from the construction site visit and took some images at the very beginning and the most current development (13th July 2008)

The boat is a modified Southern Sulawesi well known Buginese Phinisi Schooner. It sailed from the production place to Madagascar more than 1500 years ago. The special thing about this type of boat construction is the strong, handmade external hull skeleton (frame) that can with stand all type of condition. The main construction material is Iron and Teak wood, class 1 - quality and durability is guaranteed.

Well, can’t wait to dive with it 3 months later and will start to introduce it to everybody on end of August 2008. We’ll start the operation on year 2009.

For trip booking or charter information, please contact us.

Gan Sien Ban (PADI dive instructor#465342)

Ya, I should upload those Komodo photos before this… mainly because I haven’t got the chance to meet zoe to claim some nice nudibranch images - OK, not too much excuses…

Layang-Layang, it’s the blue that captured me (they keep on say it’s turquoise). The best thing that happened is the lake-flat water and clear sky (most of the time), as the group before me met the Philippines typhoon and hardly dive outside the lagoon - well, it’s open sea out there, anything can happen.

Yes, you need luck to have great dive in Layang-Layang. According to the logbook at the dive centr, the possibility of hammerhead schooling sighting is 1 boat per week (around 50 boats out), and normally morning dive at Gorgonian Forest or Wrasse Strip - our luck came on the last day, 2nd last dive - when Marko joint us (he saw schooling hammerhead, 2 manta rays, schooling devil ray and thresher shark, in 4 dives when we’re there, and we don’t want to know what else he saw after we left…) - there were 60+ (Pietr said 100+, I’m too near to the schooling, lost count) moving from The Point to us in Gorgonian Forest.

Some said it’s the mating aggregation, but I think they just come out for a morning jog. Each of them is about 3+metre long, and swimming slow - should mating behave so? I heard shark mate violently

How I’ll describe Layang-Layang? As I wrote, blue (that captured me, turquoise is nice, but the blue is the main role). Forget about the macro (unless you are doing night dive), set your objective right - into the blue, look for blue shadow, if you are not lucky, you’ve dive Layang-Layang; if you are lucky, everything is guaranteed - as the resort dive manager said. Oh ya… do take good care of your dive time depth while you are in the blue, and always have a buddy with you to look at in case you lost your sight focus (he/she may be the ONLY thing in the blue) that can cause dizziness.

Thanks pluto and Chia for supplying images - I think I really need to buy my own underwater camera already…

Gan Sien Ban (PADI dive instructor#465342)

As I’m still in Bali, therefore I’ll just do a simple summary about the trip(s), continue from last Komodo post: I will not write too much about the facility and dive master, as they are not performing as they promised (or at least we expect) - since I may change both items anyway. The 2nd trip, which we were forced to report ourself to the Komodo National Park headquarter in the middle of the 2nd day diving, was frustrating. Below is the encounters, which we may expect to search on the coming trips, hopefully with much more additional experiences and marine life.

Many of the common fish certainly not listed here, as well as unique coral and crabs, reef lobster, spiny lobster… The rest of the thing such as photos will be pasted later when I’m back to KL… and if I’m free… sorry ya?

Gan Sien Ban (PADI dive instructor#465342)