INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Diving with the President International Clean-Up Day Manta Alert " I Speak Softly" Creature Feature

DIVING WITH THE PRESIDENT by Gigi Santos

The historic Tubbataha divetrip in April was  a  once  in  a  lifetime opportunity.   Not   everyday  does one get   to  be  the  dive buddy  of the dive buddy of the President  of  the Philippines!   And that's what I had thought  that  it  was  a  once  in  a lifetime thing.....  until  I  got  a  call    early    Friday     morning, 20 September 2002.      4 days later I was on-board the " Ang Pangulo"  headed for Coron. With  me  was  an  entire  army  of PSG      personnel     also     being deployed     to    Coron     and  the surrounding   area  to  watch  over the President as she went around Palawan      visiting          different municipalities. She wasn't going to Coron just to dive.   This  was  an official visit,   the  diving  was  just something that she wanted to do in her spare time.        We left Manila Bay late in the evening.

Aside from the PSG personnel, onboard were some TV crews with us,   including    famous    underwater photographer Marisa Floriendo who was my assigned roommate. That first nigh, Marisa and I had the entire VIP lounge to ourselves!     The " Ang Pangulo" arrived in coron sometime Wednesday morning were we rendezvoused with the other military boats and the other divemasters. The President wasn't due to arrive until Thursday but we were all busy arranging the logistics for the diving, deciding where and how we are going to take her and how to group the dive teams.

CRAZY DISCOUNTS AS USUAL!!! (CDAU) (Might as well call us CRAZY WORLD!!) 30% OFF on all of OCEANIC equipments!!! 45% OFF on OCEANIC BCD and Reg set!!! 40% OFF on all SUUNTO dive computers!!! Check-out our clearance sale  stocks!!! Its really....Aaarrgh!

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SCUBA WORLD PARTICIPATES IN WORLD CLEAN-UP DAY by Yvette Lee

We hit the South Super Highway just as the first rays of the sun peeked out of the horizon. As we pulled into the parking lot of the Petron gas station,we spotted familiar faces- divers all!      Everyone was in a good mood as high fives and helloe were exchanged. It was Clean-Up    weekend  and  we  were  all

looking forward in giving Mother Earth a hand in cleaning up the underwater gardens we all loved.      After McDo and Starbucks dipped into the wallets, we were off to Dive Solana. By 9:30, it was a beehive of activity as the Seals of Unilever, the Ayala Divers and the webfooted doctors of NBI and Joy Guevara

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