Pulau Hantu receives very mixed reviews from those who have dived the reefs around it. Most say there is 'nothing' to see and visibility is bad, but more recently with the efforts of many individuals such as Debby Ng of the Hantu Bloggers, and Ria Tan of Wild Singapore, our local reefs are reaching out to the masses in a good and positive way.
The National Geographic Diver program is an excellent way also to reintroduce familiar reefs. It creates an awareness of the local environment and the life it supports, and instills a greater appreciation of any kind of reef and every kind of aquatic life.
We welcome Singapore's very first National Geographic Divers. These are divers who, by participating in the program, show their commitment to the environment and a keen sense of adventure! We were especially encouraged as most of them are PADI Instructors and Divemasters who possess a want to continue their diver education even though they have already achieved much to get to where they are:
Kenneth Wong (PADI IDC Staff Instructor)
Sabine Henkel (PADI OWS Instructor)
Vincent Chew (PADI OWS Instructor)
Felicia Hee (PADI Divemaster)
Edd Ong (PADI Divemaster)
Jeff Greig (PADI Divemaster)
Debby Ng (PADI Divemaster)
Jimmy Woon (PADI Rescue Diver - Training Divemaster)
Congratulations to all of you and we look forward to your sharing the experience with more divers!
* Special Thanks to William Ong, PADI Course Director 18641, for his invaluable advise on the local reefs and suggestions for the program.
As already responsible divers, they honed their skills in :
Buoyancy - hovering in horizontal, horizontal with head slightly elevated and horizontal with feet slightly elevated positions. These useful skills were practised in confined water before applying them to their dives on the reef.
UW Navigation - fine tuning the use of a compass in confined water before using it on the reef together with natural navigation. At Pulau Hantu, positions of seafans and sea whips as well as direction of sand ripples are natural signs useful for orientation.
Aquatic Life Identification - this is a passion that will never go away. It makes every dive a challenging one to discover and know the diversity of life underwater. Participants identified more than the required number of vertebrates, invertebrates and aquatic plants during their dives. They had lots of fun observing certain animal behaviours such as territorial damsel fish!
Exploration Dive - putting into practise their buoyancy and navigational skills, the exploration dive is exciting and meaningful when observation skills are put into use. Divers participating in this National Geographic Portal program (for certified divers), were introduced to general reef survey techniques. Using a surface reference and a 10m transect line layed a meter from the start of the reef crest, they used both digital cameras and observations noted on their slates to identify features, animals and plants within the documented segment of the reef.
The team also used a Coral Health Monitoring Chart, from Project A.W.A.R.E. (www.coralwatch.org), to note coral bleaching.
Open Water Divers(entry-level) on the program practice simpler observation skills and aquatic life identification.
They have since summarized their dives in a simple powerpoint presentation so that their projects can remain dynamic, and updated each time they return to this reef. It is also the beginning to exploring other reefs the same way!
view Photo Album
Others have already signed up for the next course, started reading their own National Geographic Almanacs and watching their own National Geographic DVDs!
Call us now to join in: 62991147 or email us: scuba@seahounds.com
Beaver
PADI MI 99087
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