Malapascua Diving

After years of planning and procrastinating, we have finally launched our newsletter!

If you are interested in receiving our regular updates, you can sign up here:

http://www.malapascua-diving.com/newsletters/newsletter.html

Updates will be sent quarterly so they are sure to be packed with loads of interesting reads and it is easy to unsubscribe if ever you so choose.

Trevor and I have been lucky enough to meet and work with some wonderful people in the diving industry over the years. We have made many lifelong friends and have many wonderful memories.

Sadly, the 2004 tsunami in Thailand affected many of them and had catastrophic effects on their health, businesses and livelihoods.

Recently a second tsunami has hit in the South Pacific.

Luckily our friends at Dive Savaii escaped unharmed.  But not so for Liquid Motion.  Ian and Vanessa are a couple we worked with in Thailand many years ago. Like us, they followed their dream and now own (or owned) Liquid Motion, a dive shop on Samoa.

Liquid Motion was completely destroyed in the recent Tsunami. Their dive shop ended up on the roof of the adjacent resort.  I cannot begin to comprehend their loss.

You can hear a media interview with Ian here

http://www.thetakeaway.org/stories/2009/sep/30/samoas-swamped-typhoon/

Like the people I know who were involved in the Thailand tsunami, Ian and Vanessa spent the time immediately post-tsunami trying to help the injured and save lives. As they have basic PADI EFR Emergency Medical training they would have been relied upon for help and would have been of great value to the local community.

Despite this terrible turn of events, they are going to rebuild their lives and their dive shop.

As such, we are appealing for help in their behalf. If you feel that you are able to help or donate, however little, please see their website http://www.liquidmotion.ws/.

Donations can easily be made through their paypal account, just go to https://www.paypal.com/, click on “Send money” and enter their email address liquidmotion@ipasifika.net

We sincerely thank you.

Apologies for any recent problems you may have had with the blog, we had some trouble when changing servers We are trying to get everything sorted out but you may have some issues such as receiving old posts again in your RSS feed.

If you see anything wrong on any of the pages please let us know, it would be much appreciated – dive@thresherdivers.com.

And now that we have wi-fi (finally!!!) expect more frequent postings.

Cheers

What a great booze cruise last night. That had to rank one of our most fun.

The weather wasn’t ideal, but at least it didn’t rain and the participants certainly made up for it in terms of personality.

Mixing the first of many lethal buckets

I made my lethal rum bucket and it was passed around many times. We got to 13 straws in our patented drinking game, which is quite something. But this still did not beat Klaus’ group record of 23 straws and I doubt we ever will.

JN, jumping in for the first try of the first straw of the first bucket, its a slippery slope...

Ashley - what a man!

We stopped at Lighthouse and at first it seemed like no-one was going to venture into the sea, but as soon as Tzachir jumped in, there were girls from Singapore flying in thick and fast (usually after being pushed by Tzachir). No one escaped the wrath of Tzachir, including myself, despite being fully clothed.

She really didn't want to go in

WWF - should that be wrestling or wildlife?

Big smiles all around

Later that night at the Pub after a hearty dinner of steaks (U.S. Angus – yum!), we turned up the tunes and there was dancing late into the night…

We welcome Course Director John Taylor and are proud to be the location for the FIRST EVER IDC HELD ON MALAPASCUA! John comes to us with many years experience as a CD and many successful students, including past, present and we hope future members of staff.  David and Sarah are our first two candidates, with our instructor Charlie doing her IDC Staff Instructor course and Mike and myself staffing.

Best of luck to them both!

This week is the main Malapascua Island fiesta of the year and everyone has been in high spirits.

This morning was the “Fluvial Parade” where all the boats from Malapascua get together and do a trip around the island in celebration of the Virgin Delos Desemapardos for whom the fiesta is in honor.

View from our boat Esther

Customers, staff and their families joined us on our boats Amy and Esther as we went around the island accompanied by the Malapascua marching band (though obviously not marching as they were on a boat) and lots of fireworks and bangers. Boats ranged in size from the biggest dive boats which were overflowing with people, decorations and palm fronds, down to tiny one-man fishing boats, some of which had been souped up with huge engines so they were almost taking off out of the water.

The small boats in the parade

Sally and Oliver – our two labradors – were also part of the procession and sniffed the air excitedly as they pulled at their leashes trying to jump in the water and swim all the way.