Pre-Hawaii Try Dive with Duc

Try dive with Duc before his holiday in Hawaii! Lucky lucky boy!

Try Dive with the Green Bamboo shelter boys

The Green Bamboo shelter helps children who have been living on the streets to learn the skills they need to become independent.  It provides access to education and short-term shelter.  The shelter always tries to place the children back with their families; however if this is not an option, long-term accommodation is available.  Younger children receive food and beds in exchange for attending school, and older children can stay for up to two years while they undergo vocational training. There were around 20 children from a variety of backgrounds living in the shelter.  The shelter also helps over 25 children in the wider community annually, assisting them in any way they can.

As an ILA community network volunteer I helped take the boys on various activities on a fortnightly basis, usually to play football, go skating or swimming.  After a few months of spending my Saturday afternoons with the boys I thought it would be great to take the boys on a try dive at the Rainbow Divers training pool in district 2.  Jeremy, owner of Rainbow Divers Vietnam, was keen on the idea and offered free use of the school's equipment.  Chris Rolls, ILACN coordinator, was also keen on the idea and gave the idea the green light.

The above water pictures were taken by David Dredge, a colleague from ILA and freelance photographer, who kindly agreed to come along to take some snaps of the boys.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sipadan - 1st dive - South point - Day 2 (Tues 10th Feb)

Depth: 24.4m
Time: 41 min
Temp:27 degrees C
Sipadan: dive 1

Mabul, Sipadan & Kapalai

Phu Quoc - Nail Island

Nail Island can be reached on foot at low tide. It is a very shallow dive site ideal for training purposes.  There are many large rocks spread round the site offering swimthroughs  as well as many hiding places for the local sea life.

Max Depth: 6.1 m

Time: 61 min

Temperature: 27 degrees C

White Sea Urchin

Giant barrel sponge

Phu Quoc - Turtle Island

Phu Quoc diving accommodates shallow diving , between 10-12m at best.  Due to the breezy weather conditions we dived in the north of the island which is more sheltered than the greater range of dive sites offered in the south.  When there is more wind the southern islands are more exposed and conditions can change drastically.  Diving there is more suited to advanced divers.  Amongst the divers on our groups were visitors trying scuba diving for the first time so we were unable to head south.

Diving in Phu Quoc will be appreciated more by divers interested in macro and muck diving, you won't see big sharks, turtles or rays (even though our first dive site was called turtle island!).

We saw lots of damselfish, angelfish, anemone fish, nudibranchs (jorunna funebris) puffer fish, hard coral, whip coral and giant barrel sponge.

Depth: 6.7m
Temperature: 27 degrees C
Time: 40min 
Visibility: 10m

jorunna funebris