FeBrina will be revisiting an old favourite in March 2015 with its popular South Coast itinerary. Departing Rabaul, this itinerary explores the fringing reefs and lagoons of the Southern Coastline of New Britain, including Waterfall Bay, Jacquinot Bay and Lindenhaven.

South Coast New Britain diving is a wonderland of rare and unusual critters. If you are a photographer and enjoy macro and critters, South Coast New Britain is sure to delight!

Around the Lindenhaven area, the contours of the Solomon Trench (the third deepest part of the world’s oceans) come in very close. In Captain Alan’s opinion, this is the reason that we get so many extraordinary critters in this area, some of which we can’t find in any resource books.

As many of the dives are not overly deep, FeBrina will often run an “open deck” as the reefs in this are area prolific and there are many, many reefs that have not yet been dived. The topside scenery is amazing with many small, uninhabited islands with white sand beaches. There are a couple of clean rivers that run from high in the rainforest down to the sea, one of which comes out of the side of a mountain. FeBrina’s crew often run a trip via the chase boat to the cave where the river comes out.. or for the more intrepid, a hike up to the “blue hole”, mysteriously eerie and thrilling to dive.

If you are looking for something a little different, FeBrina’s South Coast itinerary may be for you! There will be a limited number of these trips in 2015, so book early to avoid missing out!

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Almost completely covered in Protected Areas, Palawan lost 6.4 percent of its tree cover in just over a decade.

About an hour and a half plane ride from the Philippine capital Manila is a long, narrow island home to about a quarter of all the animal species found in the country. So unique is this island called Palawan that it hosts two World Heritage sites, the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River in the provincial capital, and the Tubbataha Reef in Cagayancillo.

Data from Global Forest Watch (GFW) reveal more than 6 percent of Palawan’s forest cover has been lost since 2001. But as humans raze the island’s extensive forests for development, many animals – including 27 endemic species of birds, 19 varieties of land mammals, and 24 kinds of reptiles – are facing huge population declines.

Read the Full story by Shaira Panela, mongabay.com correspondent, October 31, 2014

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The Eco Bungalow is a perfect retreat for families and travellers looking for a soft adventure that combines a visit to the famous Kuang Si Waterfall near Luang Prabang, with an overnight stay among the Hmong community which is supported by this FAIR TREK project.

Contact Symbiosis to start planning your visit to Laos.

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Here are some great special offers on dive liveaboards to mark the DIVE 2014 show that took place last weekend in Birmingham, England.

Galapagos Master: Special offer
10% discount on all trips departing June & July 2015

Siren Fleet
Bonkers Christmas & New Year specials – 25% discount on any cruise departing between Dec 1st 2014 & 15th Jan 2015… while spaces last! Destinations include Indonesia, Philippines, Palau, Truk and Fiji.

More special offers:

– Fiji Siren – 10% discount on any cruise departing before 1st June 2015
– Palau Siren – 10% discount on any cruise departing before 1st June 2015
– Truk Siren – 20% discount on any cruise departing in February or March 2015
– Philippine Siren – 15% discount on any Southern Leyte cruise in 2015

The Junk (Thailand)
20% discount on all cruises departing between 1st November 2014 and 2nd May 2015.

Bookings can be made today through Symbiosis Custom Travel… but hurry!

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…aboard the Maha Safari Dive Cruiser.

One week dive cruise in the Maldives to North & South Male Atoll, North & South Ari Atoll, Vaavu Atoll

Price: Just USD150 per person per day (sharing)
OR: exclusive full boat charter (16 pax)for just $2,300 per day
Valid for dates: 28th October 2014 to 30th December 2014. 

Price includes:  welcome from airport, return transfers, welcome drinks, 3 meals per day, all taxes included , night fishing trip, 1 BBQ dinner on a deserted Island, free coffee and tea, free drinking water, 3 dives per day plus 1 free night dive each week, 2 dive guides, belts, weights, tanks, compressor.

For more info contact Symbiosis Custom Travel asap.

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50% off Regular Price for Your Travel Partner

A 4 day/3 night cruising experience in Phang Nga Bay, Phuket, on board the lovely Suwan Macha sailing junk. Your travel partner pays only 50% from the regular price (32,250 Baht/person).

Valid for Departure Dates:
• 02 December 2014
• 09 December 2014
• 13 December 2014
• 16 December 2014

Remarks:
The first person pays full price. The second person pays only 16,125 Baht.
The offer is based on 2 persons sharing a cabin.
Bookings are subject to availability.

Contact Symbiosis Custom Travel to start planning your December visit to Thailand today

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The Elephant Conservation Centre (ECC) in Sayaboury, Laos, is a program dedicated to helping protect the endangered Asian elephant, helping to preserve this endangered species. Launched in connection with the NGO ElefantAsia, the ECC is creating an elephant nursery, offering access to veterinary care at a permanent hospital and training mahouts while protecting the existing population of wild elephants.

The centre prides itself on their natural and ecologically aware approach to working with these animals. The elephants inhabit a 106 hectare protected forest set by the Nam Tien Lake where there is sufficient natural food and visitors can watch them in their natural habitat without causing a disturbance to their daily activities.

Facilities at the Elephant Conservation Centre are also ecologically friendly, utilising solar power and water from the lake for filtration. To reduce the use of new building materials, ECC’s infrastructure uses traditional Lao houses that have been relocated to the centre.

A trip to the Elephant Conservation Centre will compliment any visit to Laos, providing the opportunity to see up close and gain a greater understanding of these endangered animals.

Contact Symbiosis Custom Travel to start planning your visit to Laos.

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50% Discount for your travel partner

• The promotion is available for stays at Lisu Lodge, Khum Lanna and Lanjia Lodge.
• Not applicable to lunch programs, half-day and full-day programs where no overnight accommodation is involved.
• Valid for travel dates between 1 and 20 December 2014.
• The promotion is applicable for a minimum of 2 persons travelling together.

Contact Symbiosis Custom Travel to see how a stay at one or more of these wonderful mountain lodges can be included in your visit to Thailand.

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1 week liveaboard diving trips on Ocean Rover starting from just USD3,000

Dates available:
Sat, 01 Nov to Fri, 07 Nov – Raja Ampat – 6 nights – Special Offer – USD3,000 #Available for charter too.
Sun, 9 Nov to Sat, 15 Nov – Raja Ampat – 6 nights – Special Offer – USD3,040 #Only 4 spaces available.
Sat, 20 Dec to Fri, 26 Dec – Raja Ampat – 6 nights – Special Offer – USD3,040 #Available for charter too.
Mon, 9 Feb to Sun, 15 Feb – Raja Ampat – 6 nights – USD3,375 – #Available for charter too.

Departure and Arrival at Sorong. Explore the “most biodiversity reefs of the world”, in central Raja Ampat.

Bookings: contact Symbiosis Custom Travel

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End of November: Ambon, Banda Sea & Raja Ampat with Ocean Rover in a 12 day trip for just 4,455 US$ (was 4,950 US$, based on luxury cabin)

Trip confirmed, only 4 cabins available!

Special offer:
• 10% discount from normal price.
• Get 2 FOC (Free-Of-Charge) for an 8 pax booking.
• Only photographers and videographers booked until now!

Departure from Sorong on 22 Nov, arrival to Ambon the  05 Dec. Explore the “most biodiversity reefs of the world”, Raja Ampat Central & South, Kon Island, Bandanera and Ambon, enjoying the small critters and big life encounters of the ancient spices route.

Book now: Symbiosis Custom Travel

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For an original elephant experience, visit the Elephant Valley Project. The project entices local mahouts to bring their over‐worked or injured elephants to this sanctuary, where, in the words of project coordinator, Jack Highwood, ‘they can learn how to act like elephants again.’ A Briton with a contagious passion for elephants, Jack is on a mission to improve the lot of Mondulkiri’s working elephants. While Bunong tradition calls for giving elephants a certain amount of down time, Jack says that economic incentives to overwork elephants prove too great for the impoverished mahouts of Mondulkiri. In addition to toting tourists around on their backs, elephants are hired to haul around anything and everything, including illegally cut timber. Most tour companies in Mondulkiri stress that their tours employ only humanely treated elephants. Jack commends this, but says it’s the exception rather than the rule. “Most elephants in Mondulkiri are in a highly abused state. They are beaten on the head and made to do things they aren’t meant to be doing.’

Enter the Elephant Valley Project. Mahouts who bring their elephants here are paid a competitive working wage to retire their elephants full time to ecotourism. Mahouts continue to work with their elephants, feeding and caring for them and making sure they don’t escape into the wild. The elephants, for their part, can spend their days blasting through the forest in search of food, uprooting saplings to get to their yummy roots and hanging out by the river spraying mud on one another. You are not allowed to ride the elephants here. Instead, you simply walk through the forest with them and observe them in their element. In the process you learn a lot about not only elephant behaviour but also Bunong culture and forest ecology. Other project components include health care for the Bunong communities in the project area, and health and veterinary care for the mahouts of Mondulkiri. The Wildlife Conservation Society lauds the EVP for helping to protect the eastern reaches of the Seima‐Protected Forest.

The main option for visiting the EVP is a day trip in which half the day is spent observing the elephants, and half the day is spent washing the elephants and doing other tasks around the project site. There are a few exquisite bungalows at EVP but at the moment they are not able to accept overnight stays. Access to the site is strictly‐ controlled so don’t show up unannounced and the maximum number of day trippers allowed per day is 12. The site is not open to visitors on Saturday and Sunday, however there are plans to open six days a week in the future.

Ask us at Symbiosis Custom Travel how you can include a visit to the Elephant Valley project in Mondulkiri during your Cambodia visit.

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The freshwater Irrawaddy dolphin is an endangered species throughout Asia, with shrinking numbers inhabiting stretches of the Mekong River in Cambodia and Laos, and isolated pockets in Myanmar. The dark blue to grey cetaceans grow to 2.75m long and are recognisable by their bulging foreheads and small dorsal fins. They can live in fresh or salt water, although they are seldom seen in the sea. Before the civil war, locals say, Cambodia was home to as many as 1000 dolphins. However, during the Pol Pot regime, many were hunted for their oils, and their numbers continue to plummet even as drastic protection measures have been put in place, including a ban on fishing and commercial motorised boat traffic on much of the Mekong between Kratie and Stung Treng. The dolphins continue to die off at an alarming rate, and experts now estimate that there are fewer than 85 Irrawaddy dolphins left in the Mekong between Kratie and the Lao border.

The place to see them is at Kampi, about 15km north of Kratie, on the road to Sambor. Motorboats shuttle visitors out to the middle of the river to view the dolphins at close quarters. Encourage the boat driver to use the engine as little as possible once near the dolphins, as the noise is sure to disturb them. It is also possible to see them near the Lao border in Stung Treng province, at Preah Rumkel, which also boasts a community homestay. Another serious threat to the lifespan of the dolphins is the environmental impact of a series of hydroelectric dam projects that are in the works in both Laos and Cambodia. No‐one really knows the impact on the Mekong River and its tributaries or the knock‐on effect on the dolphins and fish stocks that inhabit the rivers, but environmentalists fear the outcome will be nothing short of catastrophic. Our message is simple, see them while you can.

How do I get to see freshwater dolphins? Contact Symbiosis Custom Travel

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Where: Mapia Resort, Bunaken National Marine Park, Manado, North Sulawesi

What:

• 7 nights Mapia Resort

• 5 boat dives

• 1 midnight dive rewarded with a delicious onion soup and Prosecco

• 1 Minahasa volcano tour
Plus: If you book soon for Christmas and/or New Year…

• Christmas Eve 5 course candlelit dinner

• New Year’s Eve 5 course dinner with Fireworks 


Price: EUR 690.- per person based on double occupancy (single occupancy EUR 790.-) 
Additional night EUR 60.- (Single EUR 70.-)
Valid for stays from 01 November until 15 January 2015. 
 


Bookings through Symbiosis Custom Travel

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The curfew on the East Coast of Sabah, involving the sea area starting three nautical miles from shore up to the international borders with the Philippines, has yet again been extended to the 21st of October 2014. It will be a 10-hour daily sea curfew from 7pm to 5am. This encompasses an area of some 121,270 sq miles. The length of the curfew area is about 362 nautical miles from Tanjung Pundaras in Sandakan to part of Pulau Sebatik near Tawau.

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Stay and dive at Raja4Divers on the stunning island of Pulau Pef (see picture below) in 2015 but pay 2014 prices. Book now.

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