SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - Wow. Wow. Wow. Koh Tao is nice. Very few places make my grade of the ‘return list’, but staying a suite in Bans Dive Resort on Koh Tao and heading out for a few dives per day and relaxing the evenings with cocktails on the beach has.

This is tropical. Proper S.E.Asia beach stuff. Great restaurants. Spectacular scenery. Really chilled. We went to do our PADI Open Water and stayed to complete the PADI Adventure Diver.

Having arrived and been brought to the resort in the back of a pick-up truck we started into an evening of theory followed by more theory the next morning. The next afternoon got a little more interesting as we started off in the pool getting used to equipment.

There was predictably lots of trying to fly, waving arms about until working out was neutral buoyancy was. Here’s a video of me looking like a bird that can’t get off the ground.

And Aoife looking, as always, slightly more graceful…

And so from out of the pool on our second day and into the dive-boat for enroute to our first dive site. Two giant rocks… called ‘Twin Peaks’. Afterwards we moved on to a giant white rock, aptly named White Rock! We repeated these dives the next day, building up our confidence and experience to 18m. That’s Days 3 & 4… and Open Water PADI, Easy!

The next dive was a night dive to start our Adventure Diver certification. I loved this - it was like something out of SeaQuest! But it really wasn’t for everyone. The water is completely inky black and lit only in a narrow by your torch. We spotted a giant barracuda out night hunting as he flashed by. Very cool.

Day 6 was Deep Diving (30m) which was the best dive of the trip. We expected to see sharks, but instead saw millions & millions of tiny nemo’s. Millions! Really amazing dive at an offshore pinnacle. Green Rock (a big green rock!) was our final dive site, this was navigation. By this stage we were wearing our own dive computers, compass and slate with map so after descending with the instructor in the group we were set off to complete a navigation course through the rocky arches of Green Rock. The last half of the dive was alone with our buddy to explore and try and surface using our new navigation ability beside the boat. We got it bang on - but the boat had moved (no really!).

Could it get better? Yes! Our final day we hired a tandem surf kayak and headed off into the mid-morning sun to a nearby island with snorkelling gear and an underwater camera.

What a view…. savage island!

And a Koh Toa story wouldn’t be complete without the beach bars.

A great trip and another TGU adventure!

-Robin.

(Image Credit: By Author).

SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - Yesterday, I headed to Launch 2002 in Punggol, Singapore’s largest wakeboarding area. Joined up on a boat with 4 others through the invite from a friend of a friend - we had had all-types on-board from ‘never done-it’, ‘done it a few times’ to ‘local pro!’.

Here’s a short TGU video from the trip:

TGU Wakeboarding, Singapore from Robin Blandford on Vimeo.

We headed out to the lee of one of the islands on the Malaysian border into (at times) total flat calm. It was great to have a proper boat and tow line as the wake was fantastically formed for jumps for some big air.

The hired driver was only ok, good at the driving - but didn’t give much instruction for the new starters. Apparently some of the instructors at this school are fantastic, so there is credit due.

I got a few wake-to-wakes and we snapped some great pics! I took out my new Olympus m790 waterproof camera and it worked well enough although many photos were missed due to shutter-lag. It’s certainly not the Canon EOS D-SLR I’ve got used to!

Cost:
We got a taxi from Orchard road to Punggol Marina Country Club costing S$14 (20mins costing £5 split between 3). The wake-boarding boat hire, all equipment and a driver was S$110 an hour (£35), we had it for 3 hours (S$330 split by 5).

Full flickr Set here.

-Robin

(Image Credits: Author & friends at Launch 2002 Wakeboarding, Ponggal.)

SINGAPORE - Last Sunday I took to East Coast Park to try out the Cable Ski lagoon. Think a very fast button ski lift (around 16knts) with a ski tow handle that does a circle of the lagoon in around 1min 20secs.

While the dry dock starts took a bit of mastering compared to behind a boat my wakeboarding came straight back and I moved from the ‘easy-up’ to the smaller sharp edges on my second start.

The rope height was good. I’m used to being towed from a boat transom so to get some up pull was very different. It’s a different feeling to a boat as the speed is very constant even on the corners. The corners are steep and at up to 90deg really give you a yank in the direction they turn. Some are hard to hold.

There were a few younger kids who fell off and got in my way, but this was made up for when the pros came out and did their stuff. Scenes like the above photo were about 10m from my nose as I sipped my iced latte afterwards.

For 42 Sing Dollars (£14) for an hour inc equipment rental and unlimited tows it was excellent value. I’ll be back. Hopefully at night for some floodlit boarding.

-Robin-

LONDON, UK (Team Geared Up) - Three Irish 23 year olds plan to set off from Ireland on September 8th 2007 and arrive at the Olympic Games in Beijing in August 2008.

They’ll pedal through Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgystan before reaching the half way point at the Chinese border! China is big!

They have three hundred and forty four days to complete the trip, and at a total distance of approximately 18,000 kilometres. This requires them to cycle at least an average of 52.5 kilometres a day for the 11 months!

Follow the expedition on biketobeijing2008.com

Good luck! We hope to get some updates on here from you.

-Robin-