Due to some equipment issues, Liquid Lense will only be able to teach video courses to those with their own video cameras and housings until further notice.

The Liquid Lense team would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused and will try to get things up and running again as soon as possible.

Photography courses are unaffected and will run as usual.

At Scubafish part of our daily boat briefing informs you that as an environmentally-aware dive operator we request that you do not throw any of your leftover food or fruit peel into the sea and make use of the binbags on the boat instead, but why shouldn’t we feed marine fish?

Feeding the fish is a bad idea for tourists, snorkellers, divers, the fish and the ecosystem.
It can:

1.Disrupt the ecology
Over time this activity can change the behviour of fish, as they learn to connect snorkellers, divers and boats with feeding time. Marine life maintains balanced ecological relationships by competing for habitat and food. Continue reading »

Scubafish and all the Kantiang Bay Volunteers are proud to be mentioned and quoted in the globally-followed Project AWARE blog, regarding their efforts for ICC 2009.

From The Sunday Times                                                                                        October 11, 2009

The world’s 10 best tropical beaches

You want Bounty-ad beaches, see-through seas and palm trees? And you want it all for a bargain price?

Ba Kan Tiang Beach in Ko Lanta, Thailand was voted Top Beach in Thailand & No. 9 in the World in the Travel section of the The Sunday Times on October 11th, 2009.

Voted #9: Ba Kan Tiang, Thailand

As tourism marches on, the Thai idyll is getting harder to find.

Step forward Kan Tiang, the last gasp on the Ko Lanta coast road as it dwindles away into Mu Ko Lanta National Park. There’s just one resort, Pimalai, a good dive shop that offers daily snorkelling jaunts and a collection of beach-shack bars, not so much built as washed up like flotsam on the tide. Our favourite for food is Same Same but Different, but the Aqua Bar’s seafood barbie is great, too.

Trailfinders (0845 050 5871, trailfinders.com) has a week at Pimalai Resort for £899pp, B&B, a saving of £400pp. The best of the beachside guesthouses is Baan Laanta (00 66-75 665091, baanlaanta.com), which has doubles from £66, B&B. Scubafish Diving – PADI 5 Star IDC Centre (0066 75 665 095, scuba-fish.com).

Castaways should try La Laanta (75 665066, lalaanta.com), on remote Bamboo Beach; from £53 a night for two.

To read the full article and see the other Top 10 votes – please visit Times Online.

This month sees the start of a new dive season, and in response to many of our divers wanting to take the next step and Go Pro, we at Scubafish, have put together some great new dive equipment packages . These packages are designed to offer professional standard diving gear at affordable prices and provide the first step towards changing your life-style and realising your diving dream. The great news is – you can do all this and – save money!

There are 4 different dive equipment packages to choose from, each including top Mares and Suunto products. This ensures that all your equipment is reliable, comfortable, durable and stylish, the most important features to think about when buying new equipment.

The Mini Pro and Mini Deluxe Pro Packages are great sets to get started with. They include the essential core items needed when taking the exciting leap to become either a recreational diver or dive professional, saving you money in the process. In addition to this, if you decide to add any extra equipment to the set, you receive a fantastic 20% discount off each item. Who could ask for more?!

The Pro and Deluxe Pro Packages are the perfect choice for future Divemaster and IDC candidates as they include all compulsory equipment as stated in the PADI course requirements. This ensures you’re fully equipped for the course and for your future as a dive industry professional. With Mares’ range of different Mask styles and a variety of colours for both fins and masks, designing your set to suit your individual style is easy. You”ll look every inch the PADI Pro!

Find out more about our range of dive equipment packages, and if you’re interested in swopping your office for the beach, changing your meeting-room to the swimming pool and making diving with Manta Rays a regular part of your schedule – take a look at the PADI Instructor and Divemaster courses.

International Coastal Clean Up day (ICC), the largest volunteer network worldwide, fell on the 19th September this year.  In 2008, 390,881 volunteers in 102 countries collected 3,090 tons of debris from shorelines around the planet for ICC. It is now supported by Project AWARE, the Thai Department for Marine Coastal Resources, Greenfins and a multitude of local and international organisations. Out of respect for the local Muslim community, Kantiang efforts were postponed a week until the end of Ramadan and therefore took place on 26th September 2009.

This year’s activities were a resounding success and three times more people than last year turned out to join in the community spirit.

With plastic accounting for over 80% of all marine debris, our focus this year aimed to specifically highlight the need to reduce plastic bags use. With Event Sponsors funding re-useable, non-plastic baggies for every volunteer to take home, we hope to provide a practical alternative – ‘Do Something Drastic – Say No to Plastic’. Continue reading »

[24/09/09]: Ban Klong Hin School: Environmental Activities and Educational Presentations.

Scubafish and Narima Diving staff were very excited about spending a day back at school! Children ranging from 4-11 years were divided into 4 teams for the days activities: Pla Tao (Turtle), Pla Shallam (Shark), Pla Mook Jak (Octopus) and Pla Hoi Kong (Nautilus).

Four environmental and educational stations were set up in Ban Klong Hin School for each group to visit, with the aim of demonstrating human impact on the environment and providing the kids with responsible rubbish disposal strategies to help reduce their impact. Continue reading »

Did you know that over 6 million tons of debris enter the oceans and sea each year causing harm to the underwater environment and wildlife? Furthermore did you know that over 80% of all marine debris is plastic? It is estimated that 1 million plastic bags are used every single minute around the world. In Thailand alone 15% of all waste consists of plastic bags with a staggering 18,000 tons of used plastic bags being disposed of every day.

19th September 2009 is International Coastal Clean Up day (ICC). The ICC started back in 1986 with 1800 volunteers; today it is the largest volunteer network worldwide. In 2008, 390,881 volunteers in 102 countries collected 3090 tons of debris from shorelines around the planet.

Volunteers from Scubafish and Narima Diving are joining this global effort to make a difference, and have organised a series of environmental and educational events over 3 days around International Clean-Up Day 2009. However out of respect for the local community these events have been postponed until the end of Ramadan.

• Day 1: Klong Hin School: Environmental activities, Clean- up and Educational Talks.

• Day 2: Ba Kantiang Bay Clean- Up.

• Day 3: Ko Haa (Ko Lanta National Marine Park) Underwater Clean-Up, ReefWatch and AWARE Asia Pacific Fish Survey.

For International Clean Up Day 2008 Scubafish and the community around Kantiang Bay recruited 80 volunteers who cleaned almost a ton of rubbish from this shoreline. We are hoping to surpass this number and make this year more sucessful still and we need your help! Continue reading »

Liquid Lense has recently received a glowing endorsement in the new edition of the Lonely Planet for Thailand.

After visiting last year, the Lonely Planet team were so impressed with Liquid Lense’s talented, professional staff and innovative range of courses that they decided to include us in the new edition’s Ko Lanta section.

Liquid Lense is proud to announce that photographer and videographer Phil North recently won the prestigious BSAC Newcomers 2009 Underwater Photography competition. Phil is more usually seen with a video camera in hand, but he proved that he can mix with the best when it comes to photography too with this competition win.

And in another significant achievement, Phil also came second in the Newcomer’s Portfolio Category for this year’s BSOUP competition. The British Society of Underwater Photographers (BSOUP) is hugely respected in the world of underwater photography and has many world-famous photographers within it’s ranks.

The Liquid Lense team would like to congratulate Phil on these fantastic achievements and looks forward to many more awards in the future.