Stella Chiu-Freund's latest posts

27 – 31 March 2010 N13 44.441 E120 53.580 The province of Batangas has more than a 30-kilometer long coastline – Balayan Bay in the west and Batangas Bay in the east. To the north is the town of Bauan, and on the south is Maricaban Strait. Known to scuba divers as Anilao, the prime […]

27 – 31 March 2010 N13 44.441 E120 53.580 Anilao Batangas was where I learned diving in 1997. I had been coming here camping on the rocks when I was still in college in the 80’s! Anilao was where Manila divers went for diving because it was closest to Manila and we all thought it […]

15 – 22 March 2010 N12 39.856 E120 53.266 – Apo Reef Club Guenter Taus was my dive instructor for my PADI advance course many years ago. He also is part owner of Occidental Mindoro’s newest dive resort called Apo Reef Club. Michi Roos is the founder and operations manager of this resort in the […]

15 – 22 March 2010 N12 39.856 E120 53.266 – Apo Reef Club N12 39.463 E120 25.137 – Apo Reef With the expedition team complete with our writer Alya Honasan, our first Philippine journey for this leg was to Apo Reef.  We spent a few days and nights on a quaint Philippine style liveaboard named […]

18 March 2010 N12 50.447 E120 46.465 We spent a whirlwind day traveling Mindoro on rocky roads from Concepcion to Mamburao to Sablayan back to Concepcion. It was from an early tuna festival activity at 7 in the morning to visiting Sablayan villages affected by climate change. Mindoro is the seventh-largest island in the Philippines. It […]

26 March 2010 Today, I received a birthday greeting from our dear Paul Sunters, the Managing Photo Editor of the WWF Global Photo Network! It is my one year blog anniversary since writing my first entry! Imagine that! I went back to that first entry and thought, “where has the time gone?” And yet we’ve done […]

9 March 2010 Sometime August last year, during our trip on the Seven Seas diving around Komodo National Park, we met Jack Shargel, an animated American jeweler based in Bali.  Jack, upon hearing what it was we were doing, showed us a somewhat different coral triangle!  He opened his magic jewel pouch and brought out […]

8 – 28 February 2010 S0 33.344 E130 41.075 – Sorido Bay Resort All too soon, it was time to say our farewells to everyone from this lovely resort. We spent quality working time here often leaving the resort at eight in the morning and coming back, still dripping wet, at seven in the evening […]

8 – 27 February 2010 S0 33.344 E130 41.075 – Sorido Bay Resort S0 25.645 E130 33.704 – The Passage between Gam & Waigeo S0 30.920 E130 27.736 – Yambraimuk blue water mangroves While we were in North Raja Ampat, we were incredibly fortunate to have professional photographers and videographers Claudia & Leon Joubert document […]

27 February 2010 After days of grumbling about the weather, Yogi finally found his smile again. Max Ammer was bringing him along as co-pilot to his truly photogenic yellow aircraft. Conservation International needed to do regular surveys to Raja Ampat by land, sea and air. They were fortunate enough to have Max Ammer firmly situated […]