pics from germany
February 3rd, 2010Boot 2010
February 2nd, 2010amazing, my last blog entry is nearly four weeks ago, and so many things happened so fast! While the Whaleshark and the Manta Rays appeared at the Similan Island, while Manta Queen 1 and Manta Queen 2 were coming back with the most stunning pics… in the meantime some of us were in Winter Wonderland Germany, attending the Boat Exhibition in Duesseldorf. We had an awesome time in Duesseldorf, met so many people, made new friends, learned new things…
One of the stories from was: http://www.aqua-med.de provided for all the exhibition halls heart defibrillators. These are supposed to be very easy to handle, so also not trained persons can help in case of emergency. There are patches to be attached to the affected person. Than go away from the person and switch the defibrillator on. The machine than starts automatically to measure if it is necessary to shock or not.
On Saturday in one of our neighbour halls a man had a heart attack. Another visitor, not trained at all, took the defibrillator and simply followed the three on the machine described steps; patches, go away, switch on. The man´s heart had already stopped, so the defibrillator shocked a couple of times. After a few minutes the emergency team arrived and overtook.
The man is alive, he will be fine and the emergency team said, that were would have been no chance to survive for this man without the interaction if the visitor and the defibrillator.
Good job visitor and aqua med!
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new pics from Manta Queen II
January 4th, 2010task force ‘movie’
January 2nd, 2010We were planning to make a video about… well about everything, the shops, the boats, the diving, how a typical day looks like… everything. Underwater stuff was kind of easy, but for the rest we had no material. So we were trying to hire a videographer, simple like that! Unfortunately we are in peak season and all the videographers are very busy, and we had a delivery date.
Doesn’t matter, we can do that on our own! So we borrowed a camera (thanks a lot for that!) and started filming… Hmmmm… looks not really nice… we need some more action, we need actors!
During the next three days Sarah and Dave turned into the honeymoon couple Suzanne and Andrew (for friends Suzi and Andi), they arrived at their Hotel, checked in, got divorced and Andi became a Divemaster over night. That’s how things happen in real life, yes!
We were really surprised about how many problems we were facing all of a sudden; the hotel pool looked really ugly because there was a big cloud, for night shots we would have needed more light, everything in the shadow looked grey, the outside boat shots were a disaster; there were a lot of waves, the dingi was shaking, sun behind the boat, tiny water spots on the lens… and and and! It just didn’t end.
After three days of filming we were really fed up with it and very sure that all we made is not usefull. But after watching it all over again we were surprised that maybe some stuff could be pretty good.
We sent the material to the editing company, it will take some more time before we will see the result… can’t wait!!!
mission dive course accomplished!
January 2nd, 2010latest students from Manta Queen 1
December 26th, 2009
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daytrip to boonsung wreck
December 24th, 2009a very easy diving day is a trip to the wreck. Last week i went together with four other divers with a longtailboat to boonsung wreck. As this is very close to shore, there is no need to get up too early, we were leaving the dive center around 9.30am. After driving 10 minutes, hour longtailboat was awaiting us at pakarang beach. Equipment, tanks, food and drinks were loaded, and here we go 
after only half with nearly no waves, we reached the dive site. Two other longtails were around, but it was not really busy, nice.
Around 11.15 we jumped for the first dive. My very first dive at the wreck. And it was great! The dive site is only 18 meters deep, and the different parts of the wreck are overgrown and so many schools of fish are around! There are heaps of lionfish and many many scorpionfish and uncountable moray eels, and… and… and…
After the first dive we had our lunch and chilled for one and a half hours on the boat, before we jumped for the second dive. Even after the second dive, it felt like we could have spent much more time at this dive site without getting bored.
Around 4pm we were back at the dive center, exchanging signatures and stamps in the logbooks. Mission wreck dive successfully accomplished!
a summary of the season so far
December 18th, 2009Let’s have a look back how the first two month of the season were working out so far…
In general many companies in Khao Lak are complaining about not enough tourists, and that it’s worse than last year… and so on. I don’t think this is true. We had a very good and busy november and the complains are every year in december the same, everybody remembers that last year at this time it was much more busy. For some reason not many are remembering the complaining last december about not enough tourists and that everything was better the year before. This might be because humans rather remember the good stuff and forget about the bad. But the ‘pre-christmas-down’ is an established enemy.
For us at KSA it still looks very good, we have a lot of internet pre-bookings, many walk in’s, boats are filled but not uncomfortably crowded, the christmas and new year trips are fully booked since weeks. The forecasts for January are ranging from ‘desaster’ to ‘it will be soooo incredible busy!’. Let’s face it; we gotta wait for january for knowing for sure.
Let’s have a look at the diving so far;
against all expectations, there is a lot of big fish around already. The Manta Rays around island number nine are a common picture already and it’s worth to have an eye on the blue at Richelieu Rock for the Whaleshark. The Liveaboards are bringing back happy divers, as well as Sea Horse and white dolphin from the Daytrips. Conditions and visibility are great, the speedboat rides are not too bumpy and it rarely rains.
Summary; Diving at the Similan Islands this season is awesome and it seems like we are avoiding the ‘pre-christmas-down’. No reason to complain for us… so far so good
MQ1_12, MQ1_13 and MQ2_10
December 13th, 2009
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more pictures from Manta Queen II
December 2nd, 2009
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First Whaleshark of the season was spotted by manta queen II at richelieu rock! Yihaa
December 1st, 2009
latest students
November 29th, 2009
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guest comment from Karen from Singapore
November 28th, 2009My first LOB experience and all of you on Manta Queen 1 set the standard so high! The food was amazing, the staff were helpful, friendly and funny, especially when they were rushing us to put on the gear before every dive - “Weight belt! Weight belt!” even when we were still tugging on the wetsuits at our knees!! It was so funny! Please thank Pinok and his assistant for us again. We were definitely well-fed and I have those lumps around my waist to prove it.
Special thanks to our man, Dan for working so hard trying to spot those magnificient sea creatures for us. Jaz really had a horrific experience with a bad instructor in Sabah that she wasn’t keen to dive ever again and thankfully, Dan helped changed her mind! Those were my first ornate ghostpipes, clown triggers, Pinky the frogfish, ribbon eels, mantis, soft shell cowrie, fire goby, octopi and so many more!! So thank you so much Dan! I’ve got 14 proud pages on my logbook from the Similans! *Kisses.
Michele and I were very impressed with dearest Vicky whom took so good care of all of us that all we had to do was to eat, dive and sleep! I’m sure there must be hell lots going on behind the scene to ensure all the guests’ safety and comfort were well taken care of so kudos to our sexy, beautiful tour leader - Ms. Kiwi!
Please thank Fabien for us too for so patiently answering all our so many questions before the trip. =)
Thank you. Thank you all very very much for giving us such an amazing and unforgetable time at Similan… Even when somebody on board did not rub his/her nipples. =P
Manta Queen I _ Trip11
November 28th, 2009
Giant frog fish, ornate ghostpipe fish, 3 juvenile tiger tail seahorses, pineapple fish, nudibranch, maldives sponge snail, leopard sharks…nice!
vic
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the navy fishing at the similan islands… no further comment!
November 23rd, 2009
Manta Queen I _10
November 22nd, 2009
Manta Queen I Trip No.10 - Manta Ray, Eagle Ray, Marbled ray, jenkins whipray, porcupine ray, school of bumphead parrot fish, white tip, black tip, leopard sharks, baby seahorse, pygmy pipehorse, pineapple fish, harlequin shrimps, stone fish…..nice!!! Back out in two hours…… vic
