Posted on August 23rd, 2013 by admin-scubacat-dw | Comments Off on Go Eco Phuket 2013
The 13th August 2013 was a very good and special day for Phuket’s divers. In fact, in honor of her Majesty Queen Sirikit’s 81st birthday, divers community and volunteers met to cleanup our reefs and beaches.
GO ECO PHUKET is a non-governmental organization recognized by the Thaï government, that takes place every year, this year in August. This year, more than eleven diving companies and 1500 divers and non divers were present to clean up and help to protect the oldest most productive ecosystems on earth. Moreover, a lot of volunteers came, included divers of other countries who were in holidays, Thai people and students and schoolchildren from educational establishments of the island. Everybody was ready to begin this cleaning day at 7:00 am under the sun at Chalong Pier for a small briefing, TV interview and thanks for all those involved in this action.
After that, every diving teams and beach cleaners went to the beautiful Racha Yai, Racha Noi or Coarl Island to begin their job…
Our Scuba Cat Team took about 1.5 hours to go to Racha Yai with MV Scuba Fun, and about 22 people on board, included 10 volunteers.
Our destination once we arrived were the Bay’s 2 and 4 for the day.
Scuba Cat were given the responsibility for putting down 2 new mooring lines at Bay 2, the owner Sarah Kench, has donated the use of 2 1000 tonne anchors for the lines to be attached to, this will enable more mooring opportunities for the dive and snorkel boats visiting the island. Once the equipment was on the divers went for the dives to try to make the reef of Phuket one on the top diving destination in Thaïland and in the world !!
After approximately two fifty dives each and many efforts, Scuba Fun and his team have collected bottles, clothes, old dead fish for analyses, metalics and plastics debris, ropes, ans fishing nets.
To close the day on the way back, all dive boats stood in line to celebrate this good and productive day and take pictures before going back to the pier to sort and weigh all the collected debris from the day.
We would like to thank our sponsor for the day All About Scuba Diving, the crew and volunteers who donated their time to help in this underwater clean up.
Summary of the day : 4 356 kilos of debris collected in total !
GO ECO PHUKET, it’s doing what you like, while participating in the environmental protection !
Posted on April 29th, 2013 by admin-scubacat-dw | Comments Off on Finally I am a certified diver, by Quang
Quang is a marketing / sales intern who is with Scuba Cat for a 6 month placement from his university in Holland. As part of his internship he is receiving dive training up to Advanced open water through Scuba Cat. This is a great way to be involved in the industry and understand more about what you are trying to market. This though was more of a challenge for Quang than previous interns as he was unable to swim at the time he joined us.
Quang worked really hard, learnt to swim and snorkel and too 3 discover scuba dives prior to taking his open water course, this is his story of the day he got certified in his own words…….
Taking a deep breath, Breathing out, Opening my eyes, Seeing the sunlight: “Damn, I am now certified!!!” That is my first thinking when I completed the first of the last two skills in dive no.4 – Mask fully removed, replaced and cleared!
I could never forget two worst moments when I wasn’t able clear my flooded mask. That led to lose my regulator and suddenly come up to the surface in scare. I couldn’t recall how many times I must practice clearing my mask at the pool – win then loose, on then off because the feeling of water in my eyes and my nose is the most irritating thing for me!
I always remember the first two dives I did with Sean Porter. He is the first instructor who saw my mask clear problem and also the last one to help me end it. He must be the most experienced, the most incredible instructor I’ve known ever!
The journey to become a certified Open Water diver takes so much time and effort of me and several instructors. Yes! Several ones!!! I have done 3 times of Discover Scuba Diving with 7 dives in total without being able to swim, spent 3 days at the swimming pool. For me, each dive at that time was exciting yet worrying. I brought with me excitement, joy, nerves to underwater every time.
I must say I used to hate breathing through regulator (the weirdest kind of air ever), I couldn’t get over the feeling of water under my nose (perhaps feeling only), I wasn’t be able to be calm every time I clear the mask (I did it too fast and improperly), I couldn’t kick fins correctly and balance myself underwater. On top of that, my heart beat ten times faster every time I descended! However those things only existed in me until yesterday 26 of April.
It was a lovely Friday at Racha Yai. There was no big wave, the water was as clear as its best visibility. Benoit and I were ready, excited to finish it. I told myself hundred times “Just do it and I can!”
Racha Yai Island
Tony- my instructor- always encouraged me and made me relaxed on the way to the islands while Sean and Claus kept teasing us. We went through briefing to make sure that we understood correctly what we were going to do underwater. Yeah! There is no difference from the pool except 6 meters deeper down the sea J . “You two watch me then repeat one by one” That’s what Tony always gave a sign before each skill. We took time to perform all the skills from easy to difficult. Fortunately, all went on slowly, gently and properly. After done with skills, we had fun dives – swimming around and look for some special stuff to see
I love Racha Yai because it is a new-diver-friendly dive site. We went from a sandy bottom to a hard corral pinnacle. Marine life down here is amazing! At the dive no.2 we immediately saw a moray eel. At first, it can remind of you the giant monster undersea with big long mouth and sharp teeth in the imaginary movies that we often see, in fact, it is not dangerous at all.
There are many blue sea stars laying on the ground, many ugly moving sea cucumbers, lots of groups of colourful fished that I don’t know their names… They all look amazing!
ImageAt dive no.3, we were so lucky to meet a group of barracuda. We got closer to them, watched them and stayed with them in a while. I really wanted to get into the group but afraid that they would swim away.
At dive no.4, Tony taught us to use the compass. It is quite important to master the navigation skill by compass. It helps us direct and avoids getting lost underwater. Once swimming on the surface with my compass, suddenly I forgot my buddy Benoit and swam too fast. Tony wasn’t happy about that and reminded us the importance of staying together with the buddy. Sean and Claus were watching and laughing a lot, yeah teasers again!
Once I finished CESA, I descended with Sean while Benoit and Tony were doing CESA. Few minutes later, I met Tony, Benoit and my lovely Thai colleague: Fon. I had prepared for this last dive, perhaps because of my uninteresting skill: Mask fully removal and replacement. After Tony’s demonstration, he came closer to me, hold my BCD and put his fingers on regulator. I knew he was always there in front of me. Taking a deep breath, I took the mask out, closed my eyes, pinch my nose for one second, slowly breathed out through my nose, put the mask strap over my head, pulled over and put on my face, taking a another deep breath, Breathing out through my nose, Opening my eyes, Seeing the sunlight, “Damn, I am now certified!!!” That was my first thinking. Looking at Tony, I saw his smiley eyes. He shakes my hand to congratulate me. I gave him a sign to show my happiness again. I swear it has been the happiest moment so far!
I felt all of the stress, worry and scare were released with the water once I finished it. I now could stabilize myself in the water by control my breath inhale and exhale, my fin kicking got better. There were moments I stretched myself out like a cat on the sofa. I turn myself around and enjoyed the feeling of being free.
As swimming around the pinnacle, we found a red octopus. It was my first time seeing it. Keeping our eyes on it in minutes, it suddenly swam away, we slightly moved after it, it went to a rock and changed its colour. What an amazing scene!
Not to bother it anymore, we continued our journey, on the way back I saw a lionfish. I have seen it few times and I couldn’t hold back to lionfish’s beauty. This lionfish noticed us so it opened its fin spines to warn us. How beautiful it is to see! But okay we would leave it alone.
Coming back to the boat, many people cherished me. I certainly couldn’t hide my happiness. On the way back to the pier, I was thinking of the efforts of so many peoples. What I have achieved today in dedication to Sean’s training, (Santa) Claus and Patrick’s experiences, Tony’s instruction, Debbie, Fon and Sang’s supports and many other’s encouragements.
Posted on January 4th, 2013 by admin-scubacat-dw | Comments Off on E-learning the benefits
Why would you choose an e-learning course when it could be more expensive than the standard course after paying the fee’s?
The reason is simple, for more convenience, you can complete all the classroom portion of the course at your own pace prior to arrival, so no classroom whilst on holiday. All you need is a high speed internet connection.
have also introduced the e-learning gift pass, you can customize this for special occasions, such as birthdays, holidays, weddings etc, as you are even able to provide a personal gift message to the recipient.
So if you are trying to think of a different present this may be the answer.
I was fortunate enough to have completed the Rescue Diver Course with ScubaCat Diving over the last 5 days with 3 other trainees – Noel, Josh and Kasper. Patrick and Sean were our brilliant instructors for the course.
Sitting through hours of dry, boring videos is never an easy task – I was struggling to keep myself awake at times. However, the lively discussions that we had with regards to the subject as well as the mock scenarios we were given to remedy made the day so much more bearable. It also helped that our instructors shared many of their real-life experiences, making the knowledge fed to us a lot more relevant and memorable.
Day 2 – Pool Session
Day 2 was our first taste of the Rescue Diver Course. In the training pool, we learnt how to deal with, and pretend to be, a panicked, tired or unresponsive divers on the surface and in the water. Despite the training being serious and extremely draining, there was never a shortage of laughter throughout the day. Of course, Sean, being our instructor was the one who always had the last laugh, and an extremely sinister one in fact – in Patrick’s words “a bit of a mix between that of a Dracula and the Devil”. Midway through our training we even got to meet Sean’s hairy ‘son’ (Jasmine, I think he was called)! Towards the end of the day it started to drizzle. A sign of things to come the next day.
Day 3 – Practice Exercises @ Paradise Beach
The day began beautifully. The air was nice and warm. It was also the first time we got to see the Sun in days. We were on MV Scuba Sport in less than 30min after setting off from ScubaCat’s back office.
The objective for the day was simple; we were going to do what we did the previous day in the pool, except this time we would be subjected to the sea condition. We didn’t think much of it since the sea conditions seemed rather favorable that morning. Our instructors, of course, had very different ideas. Sean and Patrick casually mentioned that it would be a lot more beneficial to us trainees if the sea was choppier and winds were stronger. They then proceeded to summon a thunderstorm (which came within 5 minutes) with their secret mutant powers. Sean would later pretend that he had no hand in the sudden change of weather by humming to ABBA’s Mamma Mia!
As rescue diver wannabes, we were all getting more and more comfortable with the drills and routines we were supposed to do. Pretending as panicked or unresponsive divers, we were all getting more and more comfortable with having seawater go up our nostrils and into our eyes.
The 2nd day out at sea started early at 7.00am. We headed to Chalong Bay where MV Scuba Fun was already waiting for us. It was Christmas Day so there were no surprises when we found Santa Hats on board. The videographer Johnny B. was a strong advocate of them hats and spent a good 15mins trying to convince others on board to put them on as he did. The journey to Rachai Yai wasn’t the most comfortable one as the ship took a good beating from the angry sea. However, once we got into Bungalow Bay of Rachai Yai, everything was nice and calm again.
Today was the day we became extremely proficient in getting into our diving gear and jumping into the water. I think we may have gone in and out of the water no less than 15 times. Working together, we found out how much easier things could be if we established good communication during our rescues.
The highlight of the day came when we had a real search to carry out – fortunately, not for a real case of a missing diver – after it was discovered that one of the customer’s fin was knocked into the sea just as the boat was moving to another dive site. Eventually, we managed to recover it rather quickly.
Day 5 – Knowledge Review and Theory Examination
After 4 tiring days, we concluded the course with Patrick going through our knowledge reviews and then sitting for our theory examination, which all of us aced. We were now newly certified Rescue Divers! A bittersweet moment for me since although the course being absolutely exhausting, it was also extremely fun and insightful!
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