Enjoying underwater gardens

JAKARTA (JP): Talk of wanting to dive, and Nunung Hasan, head of Dive Indonesia, will perk up. She will not even try to persuade you to take it up. She will, in turn, speak of diving as if she were reliving her countless underworld experiences.

"Imagine you are in a beautiful garden," says Nunung.

Nunung, 44, recalls with passion her swimming in between hammerhead sharks in the port of Sudan. Sharks, she assures, are "quite shy" as long as they're not provoked.

Diving advocates like Nunung lament the lack of interest in the sport here. She would do better to omit her shark tales or she will have to campaign harder.

"Good reefs are where sunlight is abundant, and Indonesia lies on the equator. Besides, this is an archipelago..."

Interest had grown slowly since 1985, and the holiday months of November and December became peak seasons for dive shops.

"People wanted to learn, travel and buy new equipment. We could still smile, then," Nunung said.

"And then, boom! In January, everything became four times more expensive. January, February and March are bad anyway, they are the first working months of the year."

And now: "Compared with the January, February and March months of the past few years, they (diving students) have decreased by a quarter. It's almost like... no new students at all."

The 16-year-old Dive Indonesia offers merchandise, diving courses, diving vacations and for those interested in opening or expanding their diving resort business, a business consultancy.

With courses affiliated with the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) in Sentana, California, and imported equipment, Nunung explained the effects of the crisis on the diving business.

She said that the dive center sold merchandise and courses using the market exchange rate because everything is imported.

"One cannot stock much because designs keep changing... Imagine if we went by a fixed rate, we wouldn't be able to buy anymore," Nunung said.

"Some (equipment) are high-tech products which cannot be produced in Indonesia. The scuba equipment lent to students needs maintenance. Spare parts are bought in U.S. dollars."

For the past two years, there have been an average of up to 400 people taking the diving courses. Basic courses take 24 hours. The US$325 basic course is split into six lessons.

The course includes a tuition fee, a PADI Open Water Manual, a dive planner, a logbook, and a worldwide gold certification card.

Extra costs include paying for the mask, snorkel, fins, exposure suit, gloves, an additional $155 trip to the Seribu Islands and $16.50 for air fills.

The dive center's turnover for the year 1996/1997 was Rp 2.4 billion. Nunung said that she loved having Indonesian students, who were more eager to invest in equipment.

On the other hand foreigners would need different equipment once they returned to their cold climates.

Shallow-water diving, she said, provides better viewing of "underwater gardens" because of direct sunlight. If one could disregard the costs, diving sounds like a wonderful heal to these stressful times.

"I've heard of people pouring half a cup of salt into a bathtub, soaking themselves to relax their muscles," Nunung said.

"I go diving ...Seaweed does wonders for your skin ..." (02)