Truk Lagoon - The ultimate wreck dive location
Kiwi Group
17-26 September 2006

7 Nights Liveaboard Diving

The World's Latest and Greatest Dive Location
	Raja Empat Island - West Papua: The area has just opened up to divers in the past few years, and it has quickly earned the reputation as the “World’s latest and greatest hot dive location”. 15 Nov - 30 Nov 2006 : Seven Seas' Details >

TONGA's Best Kept Secret.

Humpback Whales, Awesome Caven Dives, Huge Drop off, All in Stunning 40-60m visibility

More Information »

The Internet is a great research tool, and we do encourage you to use it for that purpose.

Often clients ask why they should book through Dive Fish Snow Travel rather than booking it themselves online, as they mistakenly think that cutting out the middle man will make it cheaper.

Best Deals: Resorts, dive operators and airlines (except Air New Zealand) pay us a commission for sending you to their Resort.  This commission comes out of their pocket – not yours. It comes off the cost of their accommodation of dive package, and is not a fee added on top.  So the end cost is the same, if not cheaper, when you buy it through us.

The bottom line is, it isn’t cheaper. If you want the best deals, the best advice, the best diving and a hassle free holiday, you wont always get that from trawling the Internet. You need to talk to a professional – and that is Dive Fish Snow Travel.

Benefit from our buying power

As we send hundreds of divers to dive resorts each year, and the operators want us to continue sending them business, they often offer us specials not available anywhere else.  By giving us a “pay 6 nights and get 1 or 2 extra nights free” or “pay for 6 - 10 dives and receive 2 more free dives”, they become more competitive. We pass those specials onto you, our valued clients, and you benefit from our buying power.

V.I.P. Treatment

Dive Fish Snow Travel clients often receive preferential VIP treatment and better rooms at Resorts, and are taken to the best dive sites regardless of numbers on the dive boat and distance to the sites.  The Resorts want our repeat business so they do their best to keep our clients happy, and you benefit from this, for free.

Going it alone

It is not cheaper. Often it is more expensive. By the time you add credit card fees, exchange rate issues, hidden taxes, plus your own time, it is usually more expensive than booking through us. And, how do you know if the resort you have chosen really is the best option for you? Everyone’s websites say they are “the best”, but are they really? We know the difference between each resort, and the advice we can give you just cant be found on online. It comes from 21 years of experience.

For more advantages of booking with us versus the pitfalls of booking online, visit http://www.divefishsnow.co.nz/dive/internetshopper.asp

Think about it: if you cut yourself badly you’d go to a professional (doctor) to be stitched up, not just any old place that has a needle and thread. Don’t let the Internet stitch you up – contact a professional dive travel agent (that’s us)! Our service is free!

You wouldn’t take the risk of traveling overseas without travel insurance, would you?
Well, we are your insurance policy against anything going wrong on your holiday. One phone call to us and we can usually sort out most unexpected problems there and then. If you book a holiday yourself and it goes wrong, you are on your own – and that’s often not a comfortable place to be!

There are literally hundreds of pages of valuable information on our new website. We say, “this site is powered by 4000 dives in the South Pacific”, and that’s the experience you can take advantage of when putting together your dive holiday. We have a combined dive travel background of 69 years, have visited thousands of hotels and resorts and clocked up over 4000 dives in over 33 countries. That’s a lot of knowledge and experience to tap into.

So when you book with Dive Fish Snow Travel, you know you’re in good hands.

A couple of pointers to help you through the website

Our Personal Ratings for Diving, Resorts, Dive Boats, Liveaboards and more.. Unbiased and objective personal ratings
	WE’VE DIVED THERE When we give you a recommendation on which dive location will best suit you, it comes from personal, first hand experience. Not from a brochure Not from a magazine Not by googling from a unknown websites That’s why we say “Talk to us, we’ve dived there”.

Suggested Minimum Diving Experience Level
	This is not saying that the quality of diving changes depending on how much dive experience you have. It is simply that some diving conditions in some places – ie strong currents or a deep dive, may require a higher level of experience.

Best times to Dive
	All locations show this information. Often the best time of year to dive is a trade off: Sometimes the weather conditions may not be favourable, but the marine life is better.

Price Range and Resort or Dive Boat Ratings
	At a glance this will give you a feel for the price range for that location and get an idea of overall comfort of what resort or a dive boat has to offer.

So what are you waiting for. Click here to go straight to our New Diving Website

All up and close and personal

Our Cocos Islands trip in April was a trip of a life time. But don’t just take our word for it: the following feature is by Geoff Tizard and Raewyn Kirkman who joined the Dive Fish Snow Travel Pelagics and Predators tour.

“The sharks came boiling out of the gap between huge boulders. I kicked up to get out of the way, but they brushed past me and dropped to the sand below. A 2m shark was being beaten up by two others, one with its teeth through the gills and the second latched onto a pectoral fin. The others, thirty or more, swirled around in a frenzy. I watched the vicious attack from above with the other divers, then sank to the sand and started taking photos. At 36m, the depth was near maximum for 32% oxygen enriched air, but my computer wasn't protesting.

They were all whitetip reef sharks. Pretty innocuous as sharks go, but capable of doing damage if provoked. As quickly as it started, after three or four minutes the violence stopped and the victim slowly swam away. It wasn't until we returned to the boat that Edward, our Colombian divemaster, told me we had just witnessed shark courtship. In all his experience, he had never seen it before.

That was the second of 23 dives over seven days from the “MV Undersea Hunter” at Cocos Island, 500km south west of Costa Rica in Central America and just above the Equator. The group of 13 divers had departed Puntarenas two days beforehand. Isla del Coco featured in the opening scenes of Jurassic Park. It consists of densely forested volcanic peaks steeply descending into the sea and interspersed with numerous waterfalls.

But we weren’t there for the whitetips. We had come to see the symbol of Cocos, the hammerhead shark. There were hammerheads on almost every dive. Usually about 3m long and in groups of three to six, mostly to within 10m of us, but sometimes much closer.

Near the end of the second dive on the second day, we drifted in the current while we did our safety stop at 5m. The depth below us was more than 200m and we didn’t have any reference point except for our dive computers. Suddenly, a school of over 50 hammerheads came swirling towards us and circled as we inspected each other. Brought the adrenalin levels up a bit.

Most of the dives were in quite strong current. We would backroll off the dive tender without air in the BC and immediately descend to the rocks or, in extreme conditions, to a rope attached at 10m off the anchor line.

The latter was used at a dive site called Alcyone. This is a reef discovered by Jacques Cousteau at a depth of 30m about 3km offshore. A huge moray eel greeted us as we crawled off the anchor and hung onto a rocky ridge. A shallow sandy chasm 3m in front of us was littered with whitetips. But the rocks on the other side were cleaning stations for hammerheads, and they were there in their hundreds. Cleaning stations are where the big fish go to have little barber fish pick off their external parasites. The stations are species specific.

This was an awesome dive. Manta ray, tiger ray, schools of tuna, marble rays, and hammerheads, some of which were much bigger than the average 3m. Sometimes they came as close as 3m from us. At one stage, I looked up towards the surface and it was wall to wall outlines of the distinctive hammerhead shape.

Later that same day we dived Silverado, a cleaning station for silvertip sharks that are somewhat more aggressive than the whitetips. We lay on the bottom at the front of the large rock for about 15 minutes without any action. Then a 4m long oceanic silvertip silently glided over us. His projection of power was absolutely breathtaking. He circled several times and was soon joined by a smaller shark. We eventually left them to search the gravely bottom for the rosy lipped batfish, and soon found what we were looking for. They are about 250mm long. If you can imagine a cross between a plucked chicken, a Harrier jumpjet, and a grandmother, you've about got it. This is one of the most intriguing fish I have ever seen.

During our pre-dive plan for the night dive, our divemaster told us to stay at least 2m off the bottom. Our lights would blind the reef fish which would be attacked by the trevalli and the sharks would come in to clean up the morsels. If a reef fish was only injured, it would seek whatever cover it might find which could easily include a pocket in the BC. Apparently, it was not a good experience to be mauled by sharks looking for a reef fish hiding underneath your armpit. The dive was exactly as described, with at least 50 whitetip sharks milling around just below our feet.

The diving was not relaxing. Not only were we coping with the current, there was an almost constant scanning of the water so as not to miss anything. I wasn't the only one to be told at the end of a dive that a hammerhead had come in close, without being aware of it.

In addition to the sharks and rays, we encountered several turtles, lots of crayfish, sea snakes, and huge schools of trevalli, jacks, and tuna. But the scenery wasn't colourful. There were no soft corals, and very stunted hard corals.

On one of the dives towards the end of the trip, things were a bit quiet so I decided to see how close I could get to a whitetip. They often lie on the bottom sometimes in groups. I found that I could sneak up behind them if I didn't make too much noise breathing through my regulator. I can now say that I have tickled a shark. Their skin is like sandpaper. Back at the boat Edward admonished me, adding that I should be careful not to hold them by the tail, as they could cause some damage.

The 30 hour return to Puntarenas was time for reflection. We had achieved everything we had imagined during the 12 months of planning before the trip. It had been labelled the "pelagics and predators" tour, and it certainly had been.

Authors Note

Geoff Tizard is a Registered Valuer in Hamilton. Both he and his wife, Raewyn Kirkman, regularly embark on international diving excursions with Dive Fish Snow Travel.

Just a reminder that Dive Fish Snow Travel is open from 9am – 12.30pm on Saturday mornings. If you are planning to call in to see us, phone us for an appointment – just to ensure we don’t have 5 people all coming in at the same time!

Did you know we can arrange more than just diving holidays? Our specialist travel consultants can arrange general holidays as well – especially cruises, the sporting and activity type holidays such as golf or rugby tours, South American or European adventures etc.

We don’t do “Gold Coast” type family holidays as so many other travel agents do and it is a very competitive market. Action holidays are what we know and do best, so that’s what we specialize in.

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Regards - "THE DIVE TEAM" - Dive Fish Snow Travel Auckland
PHONE: (09) 479 2210 -
TOLL FREE: 0508 348 334
EMAIL: divetravel@divefishsnow.co.nz

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