AQUATASTIC projects our love and passion for scuba diving, marine life, marine conservation, fish identification & knowledge and underwater photography. It is our aim to give you the most recent news and info as well as dive tips and honest reviews to you.

We have a Dive Shop to provide you with all your diving needs located at the airport at Tawau, a major transit point to marvelous diving spots like Sipadan, Mabul, Mataking, Kapalai, the Tun Sakaran Marine Park and other exotic dive sites and islands near Semporna. In addition to that, this dive shop; much like the purpose of this blog, introduces you to dive courses that we can conduct and interesting dive sites not just in our area but around South East Asia. To know more about the places and resorts we love to go, check out the useful links on the right side of this blog.

Feel free to send me an email if you have any inquiries at: allister.03@gmail.com, allister@streamyx.com

You can also visit our dive shop at this website: www.aquatastic.net and email: info@aquatastic.net

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Sunday dives at Mabul & Kapalai


Rawr!

Greetings everyone! After a very long break from doing my weekly day trip diving and snorkeling at Mabul and Kapalai (due to laziness and busyness), I finally got myself some time and extra energy to have fun with my friends again last week.

The dive at Mabul was cool, visibility at Lobster Wall was at least 30 meters with lotsa nudibranchs and turtles to accompany us. The dive at Kapalai House Reef was murky but a lot of big snappers, groupers, sweetlips, fusiliers and the gigantic Queensland groupers trying to play hide and seek with us. We did our last dive at Panglima Reef and the current was pretty strong but the dive was good. We got to see small stuff from cute juvenile gold-spec jawfish, juvenile sweetlips, crab-eye goby, nudibranchs to bigger stuff like the school of blue stripped snappers, batfishes, scads and turtles.

We strolled around Mabul Island too, had lunch at the Seaventures Restaurant and bought pretty souvenirs to make others jealous of our shiny new blings :P Not sure if we can do another day trip this Sunday (Merdeka Day) but if everything like the weather condition and timing is cool, we shall set sail again!

Below are some pictures to share:

Assortment of shells on sale. I fancy this beautiful shell necklace.


My flamboyant cousin Nicholas and a shivering Kelvin.


The new tag-team champion of the world: Liong & Khoo.


A rising turtle and a few curious batfish.


Scads and Scorpion fishes are commonly found around the Paradise area.


Chromodoris Kuniei and Peacock Mantis Shrimp at Lobster Wall.



Mabul Island Walkathon?



A group pic at Sipadan Water Village before leaving for Semporna. Thanks to Sipadan Water Village for providing us good service and care during our surface intervals there.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Mabul Marine Week Fun Time!

A safely transplanted coral

Mabul Marine Week 2008 was a blast. The weather and the visibility was not the best but it was enjoyable nonetheless. The resort and dive center managed the program very well and everything was well organized and proper. After the festival I felt pretty good and I bet you will too if you knew you had made a difference and helped to conserve our marine environment. What we have done here will surely benefit our future generation and the future of our sea.

I didn't really enjoy the underwater clean-up too much as the current was strong and the visibility sucked. But anyway the coral transplanting was as good as everyone can expect. We had good fun that dive and the briefing before the coral planting session was thorough and interesting. The talks at night were very informative and educational as well.


The fun dives at Sipadan was great though. The dawn dive was the best if not one of the best this year. From a herd of bumphead parrotfishs to schooling jacks and batfishs and a vortex of Barracudas, to the shy group of White-tip reef sharks and curious Grey-reef sharks all in one dive. Although the lack of sunlight, irritating particles and me being unfamiliar with my new camera frustrated me a bit, I'm still a happy little man. :)


Cute Shoko!
Ben + Ken = Rhyme
John and Chong doin no wrong~

Our proud mascot: Aaron!
Big daddy Danny!

Wong been doin this all along!
Group pic after coral transplanting. From left: Chong, Danny, Me, Ben, DM Abigail, Shoko, Ken, MMD Manager Bobby, John and the mascot.
Group pic after underwater clean-up.
Bobby and the bumpheads!
Batfish at Southpoint
Barracudas of Barracuda Point