Our technical guide in Bunaken, Markus (pictured in the middle), had a busy start to the month, guiding a mixed group of CCR and open circuit divers on what we consider to be Asia’s best wall dives.

He was joined by Christoph (left, on his Inspiration Vision) who has dived CCR literally for decades adn was keen to explore more of North Sulawesi diving and Leo (right), who started his tech diving career much more recently after completing TDI courses at Two Fish Tech last year.

Preparing for the deeper walls

Christoph had travelled to Bunaken directly from Amed, Bali, where we had enjoyed a couple of great 50 m CCR dives, but Leo had been out of technical gear for a while. He had, however, spent some time shopping and acquired a lot of his own diving equipment.

Accordingly, whilst Christoph was ‘warming up’ to Bunaken diving together with our recreational guides, Markus and Leo hit the pool to fine tune gear configurations and to refresh Leo’s tech diving skills. Refreshing your skills regularly after tech diving courses is key to keeping them ‘usable’ in case of an emergency and as so many of the things we do as technical divers rely on motor skills and muscle memory, the only way to keep them fresh is by practising, practising, practising – in a safe environment.

Back to the diving, though! Christoph, Leo and Markus enjoyed a series of beautiful 45 m dives together – complete with sharks, large tunas, eagle rays and, of course, turtles. As usual within mixed open circuit and CCR groups, it’s the gas consumption of the open circuit diver that largely dictates the dive plan. Luckily, in Bunaken, the walls have amazing life at any depth, allowing divers to explore and enjoy even during the decompression stages of their guided technical dives.