Reporter Alex Frew McMillan and photographer Dan Groshong accompanied Mark, Marek, Juve and several other diving Dili residents on a five-day dive-camping trip along East Timor's north coast in late August.
"The trip was great," Alex says. "We got to dive virgin, unexplored dive sites, which is a first for me, as well as some of Timor's best-known sites, such as K57 and K41. We headed off in three 4WDs and stopped off to dive wherever we felt like diving. We didn't see a single other diver on the trip, so we had every site to ourselves. At Jaco, you've got your pick of around 20 sites, most of which have never been dived before. It was thrilling to get into the water in a spot where you just knew you were the first people to see the underwater sights. Coral bommies as big as houses, hunting grey reef sharks, white tip sharks hiding in the coral and a virtually untouched and unfished marine environment were some of the highlights.
I think Timor has a very bright future for adventure travel and dive tourism. Mark and the guys at Dive Timor Lorosae took great care of us and had a blast showing us around. It's also awesome to dive with a dive shop whose staff still show such a passion for diving. I want to come back -- next time, we have vowed to get a ship and hit some of the sites we could see along the coast but couldn't reach from the road."
No comments:
Post a Comment