Iwao Mori, right, of Marine Blue Dive Centre at Dive Seychelles during their recent visit

This week also saw the return of Iwao Mori with a group of keen divers from Marine Blue dive Centre in Osaka, Japan who's main goal was underwater photography. This was Iwao's second visit, his first being in 1997; the group managed to get in some good dives on Brissare and Dragon's Teeth but the whale sharks have eluded them to date...

Divecrew UK dive group pose for a group photo before a dive
The Divecrew deep-dive Nitrox group gets ready for a dive onto the Aldaberan

The group of 25 divers from UK dive centre the Divecrew have been diving with us for a week now under the leadership of Colin Miles. The team has been very busy with lots of courses and specialties being completed as well as lots of dives.

The group was very lucky as they also had a surprise visit of a whale shark on one of their dives on Grouper Point, the main whale shark season having ended a few weeks earlier.

Specialty courses were the name of the game with both deep diver and Nitrox being a great recipe to allow some of the team to dive on the wreck of the Aldaberan, which really benefits from Nitrox use to extend the safe no-decompression bottom time... see the post below for am image of this super wreck taken by Tony Baskyfield.

The groups luck also held out for the weather, as the seasonal change from the South East to North West wind seasons has been looming but the rains held off right until the groups last day

The diving crew from HMS Northumberland pose for a team photo at Dive Seychelles during their recent visit

What a busy few days for all at the Underwater Centre / Dive Seychelles as HMS Northumberland arrived in Seychelles for a few days shore leave....  a whole batch had signed up to do the PADI Open Water course and a number of qualified divers wanted to get in a few dives. 

A total of 18 had signed up to PADI e-learning for the Open Water, 3 for the Advanced Course and 1 for the Rescue Course. The e-learning approach allowed them to complete the academics aboard the ship prior to arrival allowing them to spend their time learning the in-water skills and diving. There was a bit of a concern when the Northumberland banner was put up and it started to rain almost immediately, but it was only a passing shower and the sun soon shone in time to get a group shot of the adventurous diving crew.

The weather in fact was excellent for their visit allowing the courses to be completed on time and for the experienced divers to get in some dives onto some of the long range dives; both Shark Bank and Brissare Rocks gave some great diving with sharks, rays and turtles. 

Jean-Michel Cousteau and some of the members of the Underwater Centre / Dive Seychelles team before his dive on Shark Bank.

A big surprise for all our staff and clients was the visit of Jean-Michel Cousteau to the Underwater Centre / Dive Seychelles.

The renown campaigner for conservation and ocean issues was visiting Seychelles aboard the Regent and took the time out of his hectic schedule to get a dive in on Shark Bank with us.

He also paid a visit to the MCSS whale shark team who were on the final day of the 2008 programme.

In discussions after the dive Jean-Michel recounted that it was some 42 years since he had dived in Seychelles and he was pleased to see the fish life as abundant now as he remembered it... a fitting tribute to the conservation conscious development of this island nation.

The two humpback whales sighted in Beau Vallon Bay put on quite a show for the divers

At 0630  staff at the Underwater Centre / Dive Seychelles received an early phone call from a resident diver, Glenn Mckinlay, to say that there were humpback whales in Beau Vallon Bay, were we interested? You bet!!

As the dive centre team readied boats for the days activities, some staff, divers and members of the Marine Conservation Society Seychelles headed out to find out more about the whales which could be clearly seen from the beach. 

On the way out they picked up Glenn who had kayaked out to see the whales, that had by this time moved much further offshore. As the boat approached them they were treated to a series of acrobatic breaches which created huge splashes as the whales leapt clear of the water.

When the boat was about 50 metres from the whales they changed behaviour and became quiet inquisitive and made several slow swims past the boat before continuing on their way off towards Silhouette Island.

Humpback whales are regular visitors to the waters around Seychelles although there is some debate as to which population they belong to; it is hoped that photo-identification of the tail flukes may allow these visitors to be matched with the databases from the different populations to provide some answers...

Happy participants in the first of this seasons groups from UK tour operator Aqua-Firma

The first of this seasons groups from UK specialist tour operator Aqua-Firma left us after spending a week diving with us and going out on the whale shark programme with MCSS.

After a slow start to their whale shark encounters the group were treated to several days with superb encounters and very accommodating whale sharks! They also had some superb dives with the offshore dive sites providing a number of stunning spectacles for them with schools of devil rays, sharks and loads of other fish.

Group leader Charlotte Caffrey is already taking bookings for the trips in 2007 which will be her fourth year of offering a Seychelles programme.

Visiting journalists Andreas Wackenrohr and Daniel Brinckmann from Germany joined Underwater Centre / Dive Seychelles for some dives and then an afternoon trip with the MCSS team to meet Seychelles famous whale sharks... and very successful they were too!

Instructor Thierry with Subios  presenters Tony Baskyfield & Pedro Vierya prepare for the dive
Seychelles newest wreck the 'Aldaberan' at a depth of 36-40 metres; photo Tony Baskyfield

Visiting SUBIOS guest speakers Pedro Vierya and Tony Baskyfield jopined our instructor Thierry Vandamme to dive the new wreck the Aldaberan. This wreck is deeper than most Seychelles sites at 36 - 40 metres and so is offered as a Nitrox only dive from our Centre.

The vessel was an impounded long-line fishing boat which the Government of Seychelles agreed could be cleaned and sunk as a wreck for recreational diving. It was purposely sunk as a diving site earlier this year off the North West of Mahe in Beau Vallon Bay as a part of the lead up to SUBIOS, the theme of which was 'Wrecks as Ocean Habitats'.

The final resting place of Aldaberan makes it an ideal site for advanced divers and advanced dive training and we offer a combination of both PADI Deep Diver and Nitrox specialties to make the most of this dive site with extended no-decompression bottom times. 

Underwater Centre / Dive Seychelles hosted the visiting guest speakers and presenters for a dive to Brissare Rocks this morning as a part of its support for SUBIOS 2008. Everyone enjoyed the dive out to one of Seychelles favourite long-range dive sites with loads of fish and good visibility.

Katie and the new whale shark, photo Tony Baskyfield

UK photographers Tony Baskyfield, Pedro Vierya, Mary-Sue Rogers and Michael Garfield arrived in the hope of photographing loads of whale sharks, but the season has been very slow this year with the MCSS monitoring team only recording one or two sharks a day and several days with no sharks at all... 

However, the diving was great with little plankton giving visibility in excess of 20 metres; there was loads of activity on the offshore dive sites with schools of devil rays and numerous reef sharks around.

For three days while the aircraft found whale sharks on the surveys, they spent little time at the surface and we were unable to get onto them but on day four, just when things were looking grim whale shark wise, the MCSS team got the photographers onto a new juvenile male shark which swam with them for over an hour.

This was Tony's third year bringing photographers to see the whale sharks in Seychelles and in his own words "while the sharks weren't as abundant this year the quality of the encounters was the best ever!"