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  • Tag: diving

    • uss liberty

      Posted at 9:52 am by jasminedesirees, on December 9, 2014

      The USS Liberty in Amed, Bali was my first shipwreck dive, and it was amazing. It’s a great dive for beginners, or for people who aren’t actually certified to wreck dive (ahem) because it’s a shore dive, and the wreck isn’t very deep, only 18M, so it gets a lot of sunlight.

      uss liberty wreck
      uss liberty wreck

      The water is very clear so it’s easy to see everything, and it’s pretty wide open so even if you are claustrophobic, there aren’t really any places where you feel trapped inside.

      There were a lot of little fish, although we didn’t see anything super exciting, but just the feeling of being inside the wreck was enough to make it one of the best dives I’ve ever done.

      uss liberty wreck
      uss liberty wreck

      I was able to do some wreck diving in the Philippines a few weeks ago, and I actually had kind of a scary experience, (more on that later) but it definitely made me look back on this dive with even more affection, because for those dives it was very deep, and the visibility was pretty terrible, and it was so dark that we needed a flashlight inside the ship.

      uss liberty wreck
      uss liberty wreck

      We talked to almost every dive company in Amed, before deciding to go with BLD.

      Most of the dives around Amed are shore dives, so it was cheaper than some of the other diving we’ve done, but if one thing to keep an eye out for is that a lot of the companies will only take you to one dive site per day, to do two dives there, and we found out it’s because they have to pay a tax for each dive spot they go to, and they make more money by just keeping you at one site.

      uss liberty wreck
      uss liberty wreck

      It’s up to you if you want to dive only one site, but we wanted to see as much as possible, which is one of the reasons we went with BLD. Our second dive was actually not that great, it was a shore dive down a sandy slope, there wasn’t much to see but we did spot a black baby frog fish, and it looked like a tiny alien.

      Our dive guides were really great, they were local guys from Amed, and we ate lunch with them and chatted about our lives, and their lives and learned a lot about Bali. They both thought it was very strange that we had been married for 3 years and didn’t have any babies. They invited us out to see a band with them at a bar that night. All of the people in Amed were lovely.

      uss liberty wreck

      If you are a diver, or even a snorkeler, and you have some time when you are in Bali, definitely make the trip up to the USS Liberty, it’s so so worth it.

      uss liberty wreck

      Posted in Indonesia, travel | 1 Comment | Tagged amed, diving, Indonesia, scuba, shipwreck, shore dive, uss liberty
    • scuba diving: the great barrier reef

      Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on November 3, 2014

      When I was trying to decide what I wanted to write about the experience of diving at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, I was going to start with talking about how it’s been a dream of mine since I was little, since before I even really understood how scuba diving actually worked.

      I probably thought it was some combination of magic/mermaid technology, but the idea to do it was there.

      great barrier reef
      diving the great barrier reef
      diving the great barrier reef

      And then I realized how many of my posts from this trip have started with that, and I got to thinking about how lucky I am to have had the experiences I’ve had, not just the ability to travel and see the world, but going to school, moving away from home but still being able to see my family regularly, marrying the person of my choosing.

      diving the great barrier reef
      diving the great barrier reef
      diving the great barrier reef

      Just thinking of all of the things that I dreamed of doing when I was a kid, with no reason in the world to think that I couldn’t do exactly what I wanted, if I could find a way to make it happen.

      I’ve always known, but it has been reenforced with my recent travels, that a lot of people never have even a tenth of the opportunities I have had, and that lots of children all over the world grow up without the belief that they will be able to one day make all of their dreams come true.

      Just something I was thinking about.

      diving the great barrier reef
      diving the great barrier reef

      So anyways, the GBR. We had been in Cairns for almost two weeks looking for jobs by the time we went diving.

      It was quickly becoming apparent that we weren’t going to be getting jobs immediately, we’d been talking to other travelers who had been in Cairns for four months before they were able to find work, and we were toying the the idea of returning to Byron Bay, but the thought of being in Cairns without going diving at the GBR was completely unacceptable to me.

      diving the great barrier reef
      diving the great barrier reef

      So even though it was very expensive (nearly three times more than what it cost to dive for a day in Indonesia) we decided we had to do it. We’d also heard horrible things about coral depletion and pollution in certain areas of the reef, so we wanted to be sure to pick a dive boat that would take us out to the outer reef.

      great barrier reef
      DCIM100GOPRO

      We were not disappointed. We didn’t see nearly as many exotic fish as we had been seeing in Indonesia, but we did see a shark, and the coral was nothing short of amazing. It went on for miles each way, and in certain parts it was almost like skyscrapers on either side of you, but instead of buildings, it was coral.

      The pictures aren’t the greatest (but I did see that GoPro now has coloured filters you can add to get the colour to transfer better from underwater) but I wanted to share a few anyway.

      DSC_3048

      Posted in Australia, travel | 1 Comment | Tagged Australia, diving, gopro, great barrier reef, scuba, travel
    • scuba diving: komodo national park

      Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on September 18, 2014

      The absolute best part about Indonesia for me was the diving. We’d heard over and over again that the diving there was amazing, and it couldn’t have been more true.

      These pictures don’t really do it justice, since they were taken on a go-pro with no flash, but I wanted to share some anyway. In reality, the water was crystal clear, and the colours of the fish and the coral were vibrant.

      DCIM100GOPRO

      DCIM100GOPRO

      DCIM100GOPRO

      DCIM100GOPRO

      We stayed on the island of Flores, in Labuan Bajo, for 5 days, and we were diving 3 dives per day for 3 of those days. When we first signed up to do it, I was worried that it might be a lot, considering the boy had only been diving once before, in Thailand.

      DCIM100GOPRO

      DCIM100GOPRO

      DCIM100GOPRO

      It turned out that my worry was completely unfounded, he loved it, and by the end of the third day, I was so sad that it was over that I wished we would have done at least one more day.

      DCIM100GOPRO

      DCIM100GOPRO

      DCIM100GOPRO

      I tried to explain to him how spoiled he was, that some of us got certified in Zihuatanejo, Mexico where you couldn’t see 10 feet in front of you. He got clear turquoise waters, thousands of different kind of fish, sharks, turtles, and manta rays.

      DCIM100GOPRO

      DCIM100GOPRO

      DCIM100GOPRO

      We dove with Komodo Dive Center, out of Labuan Bajo, and I would absolutely recommend them. They were very professional, their food was great, and their staff were very knowledgable and fun.

      My favourite dive sites were Batu Bolong, and Crystal Rock, but we did nine different dives at different sites around Komodo National Park, and all of them were pretty amazing.

      DCIM100GOPRO

      Screen Shot 2014-07-27 at 8.16.02 PM

      Screen Shot 2014-07-27 at 8.16.18 PM

      We are already planning our next trip to dive in more of Indonesia’s gorgeous reefs, and I seriously can’t wait.

      Screen Shot 2014-07-27 at 8.16.56 PM

      Screen Shot 2014-07-27 at 8.17.35 PM

      Posted in Indonesia, travel | 6 Comments | Tagged diving, fish, Indonesia, komodo, komodo national park, manta ray, padi, scuba, shark, travel
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