This week in Bunaken…. Our divers on Bunaken have been super lucky to spot both a whale shark and a pod of pilot whales during the surface intervals of the two morning dives! The whale shark came very near to the Bethlehem boat on Sunday to show off to our divers while they were de-kitting. Then just this morning there was a large pod of pilot whales swimming just along the front of our boat Sylvia – one pilot whale was so huge and curious, he just hung out next to the boat with our divers looking on!
Welcome back to Sian Lewis group, Kelly and Wayne, Beate & Bernd – it’s really nice to see you all again and enjoy the nice diving underwater. Everybody looks really happy when they are seeing lots of fish, barracuda,whitetip reef shark, yellowfin tuna, giant trivially, eagle ray, napoleon wrasse, bumphead parrotfish, pontohy piymy seahorse, ornate ghost pipefish, candy crabs…etc. And of course did we mention we can see turtles just about every dive!
Our instructors had lots of fun bringing 4 new divers into the world – Nilou, Bartosz, Gregoire & Perrine – as they completed the new version of the PADI Open Water Course. They learned some very vital skills, like how to fix a loose tank band for their buddy underwater and shoot a surface marker buoy to the surface, and also got to plan their very own mini-dive in the pool.
A special congratulations goes out to Hanna who earned her title as a PADI Divemaster. After 3 hard weeks of practicing skills, assisting on courses, exchanging equipment underwater and fine-tuning her rescue skills, Hanna not only met course requirements but reached a level of dive professionalism that not many people do. Now we have one divemaster trainee left with us, Joana, who worked really hard on perfecting all her skills in the pool and learning proper search and recovery techniques.
James, our IDC candidate, finished up his final week of the Instructor Development Course (IDC) with our course director Marlies Lang. He pushed himself hard to develop control of student divers, pick up on learning problems, make inspiring classroom presentations and brush up his dive theory knowledge. Today he is off to the first day of his instructor exam in Manado – Good Luck James!
That’s about it for this week – stay tune for more news from our side here in North Sulawesi!
Keep ’em there until December, when we are coming!
Oh man! I was there a week and a half mr whale shark.
I have their phone number! – Nigel
Congrats Hanna and all the best to both James and Joana!