Round up Season 2017

2017 has been a fantastic year and we certified a record number of students, at all levels, from BubbleMakers to DiveMasters! Congratulations to everyone who completed their course here, and we hope that you will get the opportunity to use your new certification, travel the world and see amazing new places (and perhaps come back to visit us too!).

Toni, our Operations Manager through 2017, led the team through some great times, but here’s just a few that stand out;

Our small structures on the TDC House Reef are doing well and growing relatively fast! It is amazing to see how the individual coral species grow and start to cover the substrate. We were amazed to see so many ‘new recruits’ which we hadn’t transplanted ourselves… let’s hope this continues, and we may be able to move these corals to the edge of the reef, to allow them to continue growing!

TDC completed a number of clean ups through the year. Underwater, nets and trash were collected, on the land, huge amounts of beached trash was picked up and disposed of. Unfortunately, half way through the year, after an oil tanker spilled off the coast of Johor, we tried our best to remove as much of the tar-like substance from the surface of the ocean as possible. With a huge group effort by all the dive centres here in Tioman, and guided by the amazing team at Cintai Tioman, we collected in total, 1.4 TONNES of what we believe was crude oil! Now that is an outstanding effort! We are so fortunate to be on an island where all the dive centres work together so well. Unfortunately, this was probably a very small portion of the leaked oil, but many animals, both ocean, land and air based, were saved by removing this much from the ocean and beaches.

In September, we were happy to undergo our yearly Green Fins Dive Centre Assessment, and excited to find out that we scored better than in previous years. Green Fins is an organization designed to help dive centres operate in an environmentally friendly way, whether this is with recycling efforts, clean ups, the use of bio-degradable bin bags or washing up liquid. GreenFins also monitor how effectively we encourage our customers to be more environmentally sensitive divers.

We are now currently Ranked #

You can find out more about Green Fins here – www.greenfins.net/malaysia

Earlier in the year, we welcomed our friend, Paul Jambunathan, a psychology lecturer at Monash University, with a group of wonderful Breast Cancer survivors, and nurses from KL to give health talks to the women and girls here in Tioman. These amazing ladies also took part in Beach Clean Ups and completed the Discover SCUBA Dive with us here at TDC… reminding us to make the most of every precious moment! We could all take a leaf out of these ladies’ books. Please come back to visit us and Tioman again next year!

Throughout the year, we also took on some amazing DiveMaster Trainees. From the beginning to the end of the season, our DMTs became part of our team, and their energy and enthusiasm will be missed around the dive centre. We hope you got a lot out of your experience, and we wish you all the best as you start your careers in the dive industry!

Last but certainly not least, rewind to Feb 2016, and we had just started DiveMaster Training with the brilliant Kay Zakaria… Since completing this course, Kay has been working with us, and now… we are so proud to congratulate Kay, as he has completed and passed his INSTRUCTORS COURSE in Nov 2017, in Gili Air, Indonesia!!! Luckily the course went ahead as planned, despite the imminent chance of a volcanic eruption from Mt Agung in nearby Bali! We are so excited to work with Kay through 2018, and as all of you who have had the pleasure of diving with him know, he will make a fantastic Instructor! Well Done Kay, you should be very proud of yourself!

So much more has happened, but these few moments really stand out… Thanks to all of our divers who made 2017 so wonderful! And see you again in 2018!

Love, TDC