https://jack.sh/Underwater trip reports and tech notes by Jack Tamsen-GBThu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://jack.sh/trips/2026/philippines/https://jack.sh/trips/2026/philippines/Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000Twelve days at Scandi Divers on Big La Laguna Beach, Puerto Galera, diving the Verde Island Passage, one of the richest stretches of reef on the planet for marine life, and a macro paradise. The timing worked out, just. We arrived on 9 July as Super Typhoon Bavi (Inday locally) was turning away from Luzon. It never made landfall, but it pushed the southwest monsoon over Mindoro, so the first days were grey, wet and choppy. Mid-trip, Tropical Storm Haishen (Josie) slipped into the Philippine area on 14 July and fizzled into a low within the day, with no storm signals raised. We flew home on the 20th, three days before Tropical Depression Kiyapo brought the next set of warnings to northern Luzon. So: one typhoon either side, and a storm that never really arrived in the middle. https://jack.sh/trips/2026/japan/https://jack.sh/trips/2026/japan/Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000Thirteen days, five cities and a lot of shinkansen: Tokyo, Nagoya, Hiroshima, Kyoto and Osaka, from 25 May to 6 June. Tokyo first. Tokyo Tower from directly underneath, the red-brick station lit up at dusk, and an afternoon among the old shops and streetcars of the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum. Then down to Aichi for a day at Ghibli Park: Totoro behind the counter, Yubaba counting her jewels, and Howl’s Moving Castle against a perfect blue sky. https://jack.sh/trips/2025/meedhupparu/https://jack.sh/trips/2025/meedhupparu/Sun, 19 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000A week on Meedhupparu in Raa Atoll, straight after Fuvahmulah: slower, two dives a morning on nitrox, and a lot more reef. The highlight was a manta cleaning station, with reef mantas wheeling overhead close enough to see the spots on their bellies. Around that: giant and honeycomb morays, banded coral shrimp, anemonefish, a curtain of glassfish, and sharks cruising in the gloom below. On land the island had fruit bats hanging in the trees, lovebirds, and seaplanes crossing the sunset. https://jack.sh/trips/2025/fuvahmulah/https://jack.sh/trips/2025/fuvahmulah/Sat, 11 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000Eight days on Fuvahmulah, the lone island atoll near the equator famous for one thing: tiger sharks. Most dives started at Tiger Harbour, where tiger sharks patrol the shallows over a crowd of reef fish, close enough to count the teeth and spot the remoras riding underneath. Three dives a day on air, with the deepest mornings past 40 m out on the wall, and plenty of time hanging in the blue watching them come and go. https://jack.sh/trips/2025/seoul/https://jack.sh/trips/2025/seoul/Fri, 23 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000A long weekend in Seoul in May, flying KLM via Amsterdam on an airmiles run. The first night was spent around Sungnyemun, the great south gate, floodlit among the office towers. Then a full day on foot: along the Cheonggyecheon stream, where egrets fish in the middle of the city, up Gwanghwamun Square past King Sejong to Gyeongbokgung, with its painted eaves, the throne hall and the Hyangwonjeong pavilion on its pond. The afternoon was more palaces, peonies, and the old glasshouse at Changgyeonggung. On the last morning we climbed into the hills for the views back over the city, then headed home. https://jack.sh/2024/02/26/unifi-talk-gamma-sip-trunks/https://jack.sh/2024/02/26/unifi-talk-gamma-sip-trunks/Mon, 26 Feb 2024 22:18:21 +0000Getting Unifi Talk working with a Gamma SIP trunk - port forwarding 5060 to Talk’s static signalling port.