News
Philippines Diving: A Night to Remember
It can sometimes take a little persuasion to get us to go night diving, but our diving during the day with Magic Oceans had already hinted at how good a night dive here might be. If you love critter diving, then this is one destination to add to your list, with frogfish, nudibranch and a whole host of macro marine life to discover. At night, even more unusual creatures come out from their hiding places, as we were to discover.
On our second evening at Magic Oceans, we joined a small group heading out for a night dive in the productive Anda waters. As soon as we put our heads under the surface, we could hear the divers ahead of us banging their tanks to announce they had found a cool critter. This was not a bit of beginner’s luck, for the whole hour-long dive, clanging filled our ears. The dive saw us traverse over a sandy seabed, with seagrass, along with small coral bommies, giving a fantastic array of marine habitats to explore.
Whilst we encountered a host of great marine life, including crustaceans, nocturnal fish and nudibranchs, the highlights of this incredible dive had to be between the wonderpus sighting and a hairy frogfish happily eating the small crustaceans our dive lights were attracting.
Back on dry land, the group quickly showered and then met up again for a family-style dinner, where they could re-live the dive and discuss all the weird and wonderful marine life they had encountered. Those that had chosen not to go on the night dive had to listen to what they had missed, but this only meant that everyone went out on a night dive to the same dive site the very next night!
For more information please follow the links below:
The Official UK Travel Guide for The Philippines
Underwater Photography Equipment Used:
- Olympus OMD EM-1 MKII with 60mm lens
- Nauticam housing
- INON Z-240 strobes
North West-based Dive Centre, Palaemon Divers, has been shortlisted for Leisure and Tourism Start Up of the Year with Start Up Awards 2023.
Palaemon Divers is delighted to be named a finalist in the Awards which celebrate Start Up Businesses and what they have brought to the economy within three years of their launch.
Palaemon Divers was started by Leanne Clowes in the midst of COVID lockdowns. Leanne walked out of her well paid corporate sales job with no savings after a redundancy in a previous role and spending the majority of the year before COVID to follow the dream! After the redundancy and COVID, life struck just a little differently and the pull to become a full-time dive instructor became impossible to ignore!
So with that… notice was handed in, no savings, nothing physical to start being a full time dive instructor other than personal kit at the time – oh and the fact, Leanne was actually an Assistant Instructor at the time and hadn’t attended the instruction exam at that point as there had been none going on through COVID obviously!
However, the first Instructor Exam that was happening out of COVID was booked onto – no pressure at all with no full time job, no money as a back up, mortgage and bills to pay…
Leanne started freelancing as an instructor in the North West using various outdoor locations for training, and the business snowballed and quickly gained its first physical dive centre in January 2022 along with finding their own private in-water training facility at Princes Dock in Liverpool. Since then, 100s of new people from Liverpool and further afield have been introduced to the amazing sport of scuba, and experienced the abundant life under the surface of the dock itself.
In a time of no travel to outside your area or abroad, Palaemon Divers found something new and exciting to introduce the city of Liverpool to those who spend five days a week in the office looking down at the dock and not really being able to appreciate what the dock actually means to Liverpool!
It became apparent during 2022, that although Liverpool was fantastic, more growth was on the cards which came in the form of a second location, Palaemon Divers – Warrington. The second dive centre is an ex micro brewery in Warrington with a central location close to the M6, M62 and M56, spread over two floors which includes a classroom, workshop, compressor and a floor dedicated to retail.
The efforts in building this business have not gone unnoticed with the shortlist for Startup Awards, and also another shortlist which will be announced in the next month.
For more, email or visit:
In a video shot exclusively for Scubaverse.com, Jeff Goodman reviews the Quilted Polar Hat from leading drysuit manufacturer Otter Watersports.
For more information, visit www.otterwatersports.uk.
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