UW Photo Specialty Dive Tours
UW Photo Specialty Dive Tours
31 May – 10 June 2010 – Philippines, Mactan Island, Dumaguette Pier, Apo Island and Southern Leyte to Bohol – SY Philippine Siren
From nudibranchs to whalesharks, this macro and wide angle photographic journey through the central Philippines Islands has it all. Join professional underwater photographer Andy Sallmon, one of Reef & Rainforest Travels most experienced tour leaders, on this incredible adventure to experience the central Philippines best dive sites and marine life from tiny nudibranchs to huge whalesharks. Andy is a veteran photographer, world traveller and dive Instructor and loves to help his groups have fun and get the most from their underwater adventures. The trip starts off when you fly into the capitol coastal city of Dumaguette known to the Philippinos as the “City of Gentle People”. There you will meet up with the SY Siren staff at the airport after immigration and head to the boat. The itinerary is every divers dream……We start off diving at the Dumaguette Pier, world famous for the strange and varied macro life that inhabit this incredible ecosystem. From there we are off to the pristine reefs of Apo Island with huge schools of fish and coral reefs that never seem to end. From Apo the Siren heads out to Sigihore, Pangalo and Baliqasac where we will have the chance to dive with manta rays and then down to the south coast of Bohol looking for more manta rays, sharks and an amazing variety of corals. The next 3 days we will spend diving in the waters around Southern Leyte and there, in Sogood bay, we will look for whale sharks to dive with as it is one of the best places in the world to find them. The final day we dive around Mactan Island looking for thresher sharks and other great dive sites. That night the crew puts on a farewell party and we disembark the next day. The SY Siren is owned by World Wide Dive and Sail. www.worldwidediveandsail.com. Frank, one of the owners of the boat was practically born sailing and says that “as long as there’s a fair wind, those sails will go up”. So please join us as we dive and motor -sail our way through some of the Philippines finest diving. 
This trip includes Nitrox (if you are nitrox certified of course). Airfare and ground transfers not included. $3120
Contact Reef And Rainforest Dive travel to book now. 1-800-794-9767 or email Andy@seait.com to find out about this awesome trip. Also see www.reefrainforest.com
Cocos 27 June – 9 July 2010
Where the Underwater “Wild Things” are
Rock on
When you finally get to Malpelo, the small land mass, aka rock, will impress you only in its height and the fact that it’s quite literally in the middle of nowhere. You’ll wonder what all the talk is about. How could this little chunk of rock be home to so many pelagic animals? Why have I spent all this money, time, and effort….and ridden this boat for 40 hours?
Wow!
Your answers will hit you like a 10 lb lead weight in the head almost as soon as your mask gets underwater…..this place is alive! Sharks in small and large schools cruise the drop offs, moray eels litter the bottom everywhere, eagle ray squadrons appear from nowhere and then fly by like “Ghost Riders” into the blue…..schools of jacks and barracuda so large they will engulf the entire dive team…..this is Malpelo, this is why you are here!
Green and Lush
Upstream another 36 hour boat ride lies a beautiful green foliage- and waterfall-covered jewel of an island……enter Cocos, the “thrill ride” of the Eastern Pacific. This is “Pelagic Central”. Big animals are the way of life here. Everything from schools of hundreds of scalloped hammerhead sharks to big orange frogfish and the endemic Cocos Red-Lipped Batfish await the ocean weary traveler. Whale sharks and mantas make cameo appearances on some dives and will even spend time swimming with divers. Is it curiosity that guides their behavior? I don’t know. Come and discover it yourself and tell me.
Beauty in the Deep
The rock islands and deep sea mounts of Cocos are circled by dozens of marbled rays so busy they need Air Traffic Control to guide them. Many times, I have swum around a rock to run face to face with one. Very politely and leisurely, they make a wide turn around me, eyeballing me as if to say “excuse me”. Green and hawksbill sea turtles reside on the offshore rock islands as well as the submerged pinnacles. Resting on the bottom, they will periodically swim right to the diver on their way to the surface for a breath of air and to stretch their flippers. This place is amazingly alive underwater!
Beach Time
On shore, the Costa Rican Park Service houses a handful of rangers that patrol and protect this World Heritage Site. Live-aboard dive boats and the rangers’ patrol boat are the only visitors excepting a long range privateer that occasionally wanders through. At the two placid bays, Wafer and Chatham, flat calm anchorages are provided for the few boats that visit. A beach walk here will take you back in time as you search out the hundreds of years-old initials carved into the rocks. Pirates once roamed here, and yes, they buried treasure. Of course, the real treasure lies offshore under the surface.
Led By Pro Photographer
Group trips to Cocos like this one, are lead by some of the most experienced underwater photographers in the world like Andrew Sallmon. “Andy” has devoted his life to underwater photography and travels all over the world several times a year, adding images of the underwater realm to his stock image portfolio. Trips like these provide the traveling diver not only the opportunity to experience the best in far-away places, but they also do it with expert guidance in getting the best underwater images possible. Bring lots of memory cards and back-up hard drives, as Andy will encourage you to keep the video cameras recording, the still cameras shutters clicking and to fill those hard drives…..because this is where the underwater “Wild Things” are…..
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If you are interested in some of the most diverse big animal encounters in the world with a professional underwater photographer there to lead you and give you daily photo tips and advice, then a Cocos trip is for you. Please join us for the next one….. You’ll be glad you did. It’s where the action is!
Dates: 27 June – 9 July 2010
Price $5635 plus $315 Cocos National Park fee and $60 transfer fee from San Jose Costa Rica to Puntarenas RT. Airfare not included. Nitrox included.
Contact Reef & Rainforest Dive Travel at: 1-800-794-9767 or 415-289-1760 Monday-Friday 08:30-5:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time or Email info@reefrainforest.com
To see this trip at Reef and Rainforest cut and paste this address: http://www.reefrainforest.com/tp_cocos_with_andy_sallmon_172.html
