Wednesday, November 11, 2009

GUE Extravaganza 2009

GUE Wrecks of the South China Sea trip 2009
In this photo: Gideon Liew, Alvin Javier, ZJ Wen, Eriko Jonsson, Andy Dyer, Thomas Jonsson,
Takashi Tayama, Richard Walker, Andrew Robertson, Justin Martin,
Richard Walkland, Leon Boey, Dagomir Dag Kaszlikowski

For the past three years Gideon Liew and his team from Living Seas have been running a GUE sponsored dive trip to the numerous wrecks around Tioman off the coast of Malaysia. October in the South China Seas is a period of calm and warm weather perfect for running extended open ocean diving expeditions. Each year the trip has grown in popularity and and the calibre of the diving has improved from what was essentially a Fundamentals level trip in 2007 to a full Tech 1 & Tech 2 level expedition with scooters etc in 2009.

Word of these trips has certainly got around and this year the trip was over subscribed. The trip also attracted a prestigious number of GUE Instructors from around the world; along for the trip with Gideon and Leon was Thomas Jonsson, his wife Eriko and Takashi Tayama representing the Japanese Underwater Explorers (JUE); and from the UK Rich Walker GUE's Technical Training Director joined the trip as part of a four week diving tour of South East Asia.

The rest of the team was made up of the technical divers from Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, both regular faces and some new blood, and of course the DIRdudes were there again to lend our own distinct form of credibility to the whole proceedings!

THE DIVING