“It’s snowing pyramid butterflyfish” is what my student, Mokhtaria from France, shouted after we came up from her last advanced open water dive! She was beyond excited by the fish snow as she described it. With her 9th dive completed she has seen some incredible things here on Bunaken and she is very aware that her diving adventure is off to a great start.
After completing her open water course and seeing at least 20 green and hawksbill turtles, napoleon wrasse, humphead parrotfish, white tip reef sharks, barracudas and trevally to name a few, Mokhtaria caught the SCUBA diving bug and instantly decided that her underwater adventure was not over yet.
She signed up for the advanced course during which she continued to develop her skills as a new diver as well as witness some more of the amazing sea life that Bunaken has to offer. Finishing off with an epic dive at Tanjung Parigi a site that is known for it’s vast and varied fish life, the moment where she was completely surrounded by pyramid butterflyfish had trumped all her expectations. It was this dive that reassured her once and for all, SCUBA diving is truly A-MA-ZING!
Besides our guest from France, we are hosting Mark, Bev and Colin from Canada, who will be moving on to our center in Lembeh for some fantastic muck diving. They wanted to sneak two more dives in before heading off so they will be checking out after lunch time. Arnold and Astrid from Holland are staying a few nights to do some more snorkeling and diving before their holiday comes to an end.
Marieke and Driss from Belgium are being looked after by our instructor Sam as Marieke is completing her open water course with us. She has prepared the dive theory and confined water sessions in Belgium, so after a quick dip in our swimming pool she was ready to get on the boat to complete her open water dives with us.
It’s also been a very emotional week for us, as we have had to see our DM Dan off. He was the last one our high season support team and we are down to the core crew again. We will miss him very much, and are so proud of how he turned out (as a divemaster, of course).
If you want to meet him, or even dive with him, this is possible as he will be moving on to Two Fish Divers in Amed, Bali to continue gaining experience as a DM. We wish him the very best of luck there, let us know if it snows pyramid butterflyfish there too!