Written by Sammi Mills (on her phone, so please forgive any typos this time!). Photos kindly provided by Keith Chapman.

After two flights, one ferry and a four but minibus ride, New Horizons Dive Society has arrived at Sogod Bay Scuba Resort. The journey took 48 hours, but the first day of diving definitely made up for all the travelling.

At 8:30am the group were taken over to the dive boat. The equipment was already prepared and all that was needed was nitrox analysis.

The first dive was the house reef. To start with, the house reef gently fell to 20 metres where it became a wall and dropped to 45 metres. We saw frogfish, damselfish, lionfish, shrimp and a cuttlefish. The current was gentle enough to swim against and when it picked up they turned around and headed back to the boat. Just underneath the boat was a large frogfish and Sammi spotted a banded sea snake on the hunt.

Back on the boat tea, coffee and biscuits were shared around. The crew changed the cylinders, and after a small motor out we arrived at our next dive site – Tangkaan.

Tangkaan was another wall covered by a gorgeous coral reef. The corals were a mix of hard and soft, lots of colours and schooling reef fish. In the water a few were affected by invisible stingers, but after a dose of vinegar on the boat all was sorted.

The third dive was back to Max Climax (house reef) to dive the Sanctuary part of the dive site. We had missed this part on our first Dive as the current had started to pick up. Towards the end of the dive, the groups were blessed with a sighting of a large green turtle!

A few members of the group opted for a shore based night dive under the pier. Great macro was spotted including an ornate ghost pipefish.

Can’t wait for the next instalment!