Late NEWS from the Dugong Dive Center
in Palawan, Philippines.

Black Pearl from the Dugong Dive Center
in Palawan, Philippines

Our latest new Boat the "Black Pearl" has been launched yesterday and is ready for all your Diving adventures. The “Black Pearl” has a capacity for 16 divers, ideal for groups and adventure excursions in Palawan. Overnight trips to the world famous Coron Wrecks & Apo Reef for 8 divers. Like our other big Boats the Tashina and Karen Claire it has high quality standards and a Compressor on board.
Discover amazing Palawan with the "Black Pearl" operated by the Dugong Dive Center on Club Paradise.

Did You Know...

Apo Reef is the second largest contiguous coral reef in the world and the largest one in the Philippines. The Apo Reef Natural Park consists of the three islands.
Apo Reef is the largest among the three islands. Apo Reef Natural Park (check this link for more info on APO Reef)compared to that of Tubbataha National Marine Park has a unique natural phenomenon. Apo Reef has a high diversity of corals and has an island covered with terrestrial vegetation.

© Gunther Deichmann - Apo Reef Philippines...a Scuba Divers Dream
and a heaven for Underwater Photographers.

The Apo Reef Natural Park, with more than 20 dive sites, will truly fascinate you with its magnificent walls and large fish species. The reef plateau will surely impress divers and snorkeler alike.

Only 3 hours by banca from the Dugong Dive Center and Club Paradise Apo Reef offers very dramatic drop-offs down to about 400m. The steep walls are well covered with corals, sponges, tunicates, nudibranchs and slugs.
The coral formation at the plateau is magnificent. Green and hawksbill turtles, sharks, Eagle Rays and a multitude of fish including damselfish, butterfly fish, batfish, surgeonfish, snappers, fusiliers and trevallies are common.

Latest News and info on the Kids Sea Camp PALAU 2009!

Please follow the links below for the latest updates on the very first Kids Sea Camp (KSC) to be held in Palau.
Sam's Tours is the host tour operator for Kids Sea Camp Palau with accommodations provided by Palau Royal Resort. The program is limited to 50 persons on this inaugural year.
Kids Sea Camp is an award winning educational program for children and is supported by major sponsors including PADI, SPORT DIVER MAGAZINE, SCUBAPRO and DAN.

KSC is a very important and prestigious event for Palau and one that Sam's Tours should be very proud to have been selected to host. Top dive destinations go to great lengths and compete heavily to be selected as KSC destinations and it is no small feat to have been chosen as a KSC destination. Other KSC host destinations include Grand Bahama, Grand Cayman, Bonaire, Curacao, Costa Rica, Galapagos, Roatan, Fiji, and now finally PALAU!
More information is forthcoming and in the meantime, please visit the URL's below and familiarize yourself with Kids Sea Camp PALAU 2009 and start speading the word!

http://www.kidsseacamp.com/
http://kidsseacamp.com/palau/palauhomepage.html
http://kidsseacamp.com/palau/palaudivesams.html
http://kidsseacamp.com/palau/palauresort.html

Dermot Keane,
GM Sam’s Tours Palau

Baby Buzz...on a Paradise Island!

It is now the Turtle nesting and hatching season at Club Paradise and Dugong Dive Center, but not only Turtles…more sightings of Dugongs and a young calf.

Received from Dirk Fahrenbach - all Photos on this Blog post have been taken only two days ago,
thanks for sharing these amazing past few days with us.




© Courtesy of the Dugong Dive Center -
only hatched a few days ago, Hawksbill Turtles at Club Paradise,
Palawan, Philippines

Club Paradise is certainly the place in Palawan, Philippines for nature lovers, where else can you see Dugongs during the Day with the Eco friendly staff at the Dugong Dive Center who’s conducting the Dugong watching. The same day, later in the evening stoll down to the waters edge and watch Turtle Hatchlings making their way into the Ocean.
Unspoiled Nature at its very best!

Dimakya Island, the Home of Club Paradise, is also a Turtle Island…
Every Year Green and Hawksbill Turtles come on shore and lay the eggs just in front of the guest cottages.
The nesting and the hatching is at night, you can walk careful along the beach with a cold beer and watch nature takes its course it doesn’t get any better.

© Courtesy of the Dugong Dive Center - taken measurements
on a newly hatched Hawksbill Turtle.

The Dugong Dive Center Team put up a fence around the nest’s to make sure that monitor lizard and other predators can’t reach the eggs. On the day the hatchlings crawl out of the sand, the staff gives them a helping hand, protecting and safeguarding these young Turtles until they reach the waters edge.. we release about 25% the same night, the remaining ones are then taken to a small pool until the shell get stronger for their release approx. 30 days later in small groups.

© Courtesy of the Dugong Dive Center - Rolf Winkelhausen
from the Dugong Dive Center inspecting some Turtle eggs.

Guiding these small hatchlings to the water is important not only to protect them from would be predators but they can get disorientated due to the lights from the Resort Building.
The Club Paradise House Reef has a small portion with sea grass on either side and this is where the adult green turtles are residents and can be seen on almost every dive. A food source for Turtles and Dugongs alike, right in front of your accommodation, just a stone through away.
Our ecotourism program is “Dugong watching”. Dugongs can be seen in the general area even if they are not at the House Reef at the time. In the last two-month resort guests have seen them several times, a mother dugong and its baby. A Dugong gives birth to a single calf only, it is born approx. 1 m in length during birth, the calf then spends two years with its mother and receives the milk from underneath the flippers.

© Courtesy of the Dugong Dive Center - This amazing shot was taken by Marvin Alvarez from the Dugong Dive Center, a guest ask him to take a few shots while snorkeling, he past the Camera to Marvin who then took the shot for the guest.

Dugongs are vegetarian and need to eat 25 kg of sea grass per day, hence the reason for been regular visitors at the Club Paradise House Reef.
Surveys over the last few years (from ultra light plane and helicopter) spotted between 19 and 24 dugongs in the near vicinity of Club Paradise and in the Bay area.

For our more serious Divers, diving the famous Coron Wrecks or a dive trip to the World famous Apo Reef is a must and should be on any Divers agenda.
Report by Dirk Fahrenbach and GD

© Gunther Deichmann - A very frisky Reef-shark. Could this be Truk Lagoon? This shot was taken on a different location in Palau, but according to this report Truk has got now some great action too.

…OK, so every scuba diver knows that Truk Lagoon is the worlds premiere wreck diving destination. And yes, more than 60 WWII wrecks were sunk during the 1944 Operation Hailstone and all are accessible to the scuba diver. Most people familiar with Truk Lagoon also know that we have more than 100 miles of surrounding outer reef which has gone basically untouched because the big draw in Truk Lagoon are the wrecks.

Well, the folks at the Truk Lagoon Dive Center are changing this mind set that Truk is only for wreck diving. They have been exploring the reefs off the wrecks and learned these areas are BIG FISH territory, with the bluest water imaginable and visibility that is often 60m/200-ft.

Students of history may recall rumors that the Japanese Navy would lay anti-submarine nets across the openings in the lagoon reef to dissuade allied forces from sneaking inside the lagoon. The Truk Lagoon Dive Center staff found one of these recently and it just happened to be anchored to a most magnificent seamount.

Currently going by the imaginative name of “Seamount No. 1”, this special place is just a 35 minute boat ride from the Truk Stop Hotel dock. Seamount No 1 is a circular plateau several hundred feet across and rising from the bottom of the lagoon at 60m/200ft all the way up to about 6m/20ft.

While a mixture of graduated steps, steep walls, and deep fissures make the site topographically interesting, what really makes this site special is the sea life it attracts. We dove this site about 4 times now and we always see huge schools of surgeonfish fighting for space with dark clouds of midnight snappers. Skipjack and large yellow fin tuna hunt side by side while swarms of big eye trivially engulf the passing diver.

Solitary bump head parrotfish and Napoleon wrasse graze the reef while man-sized dogtooth tuna cruise casually by, but it’s the sharks that keep bringing us back to this site time after time. White tip, black tip and grey reef sharks abound in the shallow waters while big 3m/10ft silvertip’s swim below 20m/60ft. These are big fish, not your typical reef shark, but rather heavyweights of the ocean and you can certainly feel their presence.

Inquisitive by nature, silver tips will repetitively pass very close to you (making the casual diver quite nervous but thrills the underwater photographer) and are found here in unusually large numbers with the occasional leopard shark basking on a sandy ledge.

But the real thrill is the Tiger shark, huge Tiger sharks that have been seen here on several occasions. Tiger sharks are perhaps the most graceful and magnificent of the apex predators in the ocean and move in such a relaxed manner, without a care in world and oblivious to everything that is not consider food to them – turtles are food to them and there is a lot of food around.

So, if you’re in Truk Lagoon and your “lust for rust” has been quelled or you just want a mid-week break, get out and see what very few people have every seen – some of the worlds best reef and walling diving and right in the middle of Truk Lagoon.

Island hopping at its best...explore Palawan and beyond.

She has arrived...and ready for some serious island hopping in Palawan Philippines.
we have just gotten word that the very “SEXY TASHINA” is now at Club Paradise and Dugong Dive Center.
Dirk Fahrenbach dropped these images of yesterday, now he is on the way with Juergen Warnke from Club Paradise to the Shanghai Dive Expo.

Dugong Dive Center Info...”The Tashina”

As of September one the Dugong Dive Center has the brand new Yacht “TASHINA” (Trimaran).
The Fiberglas Yacht is 16m long and equipped with a back up engine.
For daily dive trips the boat has a capacity of maximum 10 divers and for overnight trips a maximum of 6 divers.
The boat is ideal for private charter. Guest that like to have a private boat with dive guide and boat crew will have an individual dive cruise, they never forget.

You like to go as couple with a yacht across the Calamian Islands of northern Palawan? This is only on sample of individual cruising.
Trips to APO REEF NATURAL PARK or CORON BAY with its Wrecks from WW II or TARA ISLANDS are the 3 main destinations we still offer with our Dive Boat “Karen Claire”. This 12 years experience with those dive trips will benefit the trips with our new boat.
For more info contact: Club Paradise and Dugong Dive Center @
http://www.dugongdivecenter.com/
http://www.clubparadisepalawan.com/

Data Sheet (“Bust and waistline”)

200 HP Main Engine
40 HP back up Engine
Bauer Compressor
Deep/Fish Finder
GPS
Satellite Telephone
Simple Kitchen
Small Toilet with Fresh Water Shower
Open Air Shower / Fresh Water
Diving Platform
12 and 220 V
TV with DVD Player and SD Card Slot
Radio with JBL and Bose Marine Speaker
One Open Air Sitting Area with Table and Sun Roof
One Cabin Sitting Area with Table
One Double Bed
4 Single Beds.
6 Open Air Hammocks for sleeping under the Stars.

Published Rates:

120,-Euro per person per day. (min. 4 Guest)
Inclusions: Accommodation, Food, 4 Dives per day.
OR
Boat Charter
100,-Euro Boat Charter per Day
30,-Euro per hour Travelling (fuel charge)
Per Person:
50,-Euro / Day Diving per person
15,-Euro per person for 3 meals

Tags: Trimaran, Boat Charter, Yacht TASHINA, Pacific, APO REEF NATURAL PARK, CORON BAY, Dive Boat , TARA ISLANDS, Wrecks from WW II