Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Philippine Adventure (15-21 April 2007)




After went through some tedious process, to cancel or not, to postpone or not, we were finally able to get our holiday on the original scheduled time. I have to praise the agent also, for working hard to achieve that.

This trip is special in its own way, it’s not exactly our favorite, but there were many new things that deserve to be remembered that make Philippine diving unique.
Since the beginning of our history of diving, after our certification trip, we almost never went to the trip without our friends and loyal diving companions; Monster Divers. But because one and other things, our friends couldn’t join us in this trip.


Donsol, Philippine is one tiny area located in Sorsogon, Bicol, Philippine, some 600km away from Manila. It’s located in Luzon Island, one of the main islands in Philippine with majority of Christian. Donsol was a sleepy seaside town, but with the huge population of whaleshark, locally known as Butanding, it now becomes the World Capital of Whaleshark. Under the protection of government and WWF, this small fishing village of Donsol decided to protect this species and initiated the whaleshark based ecotourism.

To reach the town where the biggest fish on earth like to roam, tourist can take twelve hours bus ride from Manila or fifty minutes flight Manila-Legazpi, followed by one hour bus ride to Donsol. Legazpi have another attraction of Mayon Vulcano, the world's nearly perfect cone which stands majestically at 7,946 ft from the broad base about 10 km in radius. The crater is 2,451 meters above sea level and with a diameter of .5 kilometer. It has a notched rim where a pool or building hot lava boils and rich coal deposits could be found.



The best season for the whaleshark is around February to May, while the peak is during the month of April. There is also Butanding Festival on the week we were there, there were celebrations, contests, beach cleaning and fiestas. Many many fiestas.




15th April 2007


At the beginning of the Sunday, forty minutes after midnight precisely (although there was half an hour airline delayed), we took the Cebu Pacific flight from Singapore-Manila. It was the first time we took flight through the newly built Budget Terminal. The terminal was consisted of one hall for check-in and one big hall inside for waiting, shopping etc. The prices and place was good but the air conditioning was uncomfortable, it’s too ‘outside’ feeling but with indoor quality wind. Go figure.

We checked in early about three hours before departure but the queue line had already been formed, Eric the agent dropped by with his wife to say goodbye and help us with check-in hassle, it’s so kind of him. He warned us about current in Manta Bowl, one of the famous dive sites. If the current was too strong, don’t force it, let go and surface, there is nothing worth dying for, was his advice that we wholeheartedly agree.

Previously, he also shared his experiences with whale shark and dropped a line I never forget, Enjoy, after this trip, whale shark is just another fish.

During three and a half hour flight, we couldn’t sleep much, the leg space was so tight, it was very uncomfortable, then we were hungry. There was nothing given by the airline except a bottle of super sweet juice. We had to order food and wanted to settle for cup noodles, but there were no stock. Crap. So we bought package of peanuts and chewed it religiously.

Once we reached Manila, it was 4.40 am and it was dark of course. We had to take taxi to transfer to another terminal. Fortunately, the immigration process to enter the country went smoothly. We asked around for the counter where we could buy taxi voucher, the place and sign was also straight forward and obvious. For 150 peso, or around 5 Singapore Dollar, we could get one way taxi from one terminal to another; it was about five to ten minutes ride. The driver was speaking in Tagalog, he asked us whether we had exact amount of money or did we need a change and then proceed to talk in Tagalog again. I had an impression that he was cursing on us but he gave us a big smile when we handed him the exact amount. So, I guess the curse (if it’s a curse) was meant for tourists who use big money to pay. Fiuh, lucky we had a thought to change some small money last minute in the airport.

Flight Manila-Legazpi was done with Philippine Airlines at 7 am. We had breakfast in the airport, we didn’t have many choices and ate lasagna at Delifrance. It was quite heavy for the morning stomach, but we had check in our tidbits. Feeling tired, we accidentally dozed off on the chair, up to the last ten minutes before boarding. Philippine Airlines was on-time, and although the journey was only fifty minutes, they provided snack pack and hot drink. We had surprisingly good nap, holding tea on my hand and water on Hubby’s, we dozed off again, we didn’t even know when the flight took off, the next thing we realized was when the airline had descended to Legazpi.

There was a typhoon not long ago at end of 2006 hit Legazpi area, we could see the damage it did to the airport. The typhoon sent the sea water up to neck level on the roads. The airport condition was worse than Labuan Bajo, airport we did the domestic transfer to board Grand Komodo vessel on the previous trip. It was similar, but borderless and windowless. Learning from previous experience, we knew that we had to take our own baggage from the airline land vehicle.

Outside, we saw our dive operator, name not to be mentioned to protect some protocol, had waiting for us with a board with our names. We met our new friends, two nice guys, Gons was an energetic and very friendly guy and Jun was a thinner version of Timbaland the singer. He he he. The van was spacious for four of us and the diver. We had a good chat along the way, but the winding road left me feeling a bit car sick at the end of one hour drive. We saw cute public transport, a tricycle; it’s basically a roofed motorbike with ‘beca’ or roofed two-seater on the side. The more simplified and practical version is ‘tuk-tuk’ in Bangkok, or ‘bajaj’ in Jakarta. The other public transport is the bigger version of ‘oplet’ in Jakarta, they call it Jeep if I spelled it correctly.

The vegetation and surrounding along the road looked almost the same with Indonesia. I felt like home. The difference was there were many slogans and campaign poster for well, a lot of things, president, vice-president, major, congressman, governor, counselor and many other things. We saw all type of faces in the posters, seems to us, in Philippine, women are active in politic, there were many woman candidates for various positions.

Similar with Indonesia, we often find roads that only fit one car. So what happen is, there would be ‘road guide’ or ‘polisi cepek’ at the end of the road to arrange for the cars to take turn passing the road. At one point, our van was stopped, then we waited, waited, waited. I was half sick so it felt like forever, then after about two minutes, kucluk kucluk kucluk,, a slow motion tricycle appeared. I didn’t know whether to swear or to laugh.

Reaching Butanding Interaction Center, we had to pass by a bridge, also only wide enough for one car. We finally saw the sea, after the hilly and winding roads. Gons pointed to the mass of islands almost hidden in the mist, that we were going to dive there tomorrow.

We had to do some registration at the BIC before we were dropped in the resort at around 9.30 am. It was a very basic resort, twin sharing, bathroom and traditional air-con. I didn’t expect much for resort in Donsol, as from what I read, it’s indeed basic and the place we stayed is considered one of the better ones in the area. We told Jun we would be ready for whale shark around eleven. We relaxed for a while and prepared our camera.

We were introduced to Mike, he brought us to BIC, we walked from the rear of the resort, which is directly located next to the sea. We walked along the shore, it was a ten minutes walk, but with the sandy wet terrain it felt much longer. I wore short and sleeveless shirt for snorkeling. We were going to snorkel with…whaleshark..!

The boat, slightly bigger version of ‘jukung’ we took in Bali, can have up to six tourists. To interact with whaleshark, scuba diving is not allowed, and we are not allowed to touch or to ride the whale shark and to take flash photography, for the welfare of the whaleshark of course. We had one boat for us only. The boat consist of one BIOS (Butanding Interaction Officers), Navigator and Spotter. We had two Spotters that day. The spotters took position in front of the boat, or even clinging on the vertical column of the boat with one intention, to spot the Butanding.

At the spot where the concentration of the Butanding supposed to be more, the boat slowed down, we saw few similar boats along the way, some with snokelers swimming on the surface, apparently they had just seen whale sharks. Some were shouting excitedly, and my heart grew a little bit of envy. But beside that, I was kind of worry, excited but worry about meeting this huge creature down there. The biggest thing I saw underwater was manta ray or unidentified shark in Bali, nurse shark, black tip, white tip, but except manta, which was bigger, none of the shark was exceed two meter in length. So I was anxious.

We had one false alarm of the presence Butanding/whale shark, half an hour riding the boat, we hadn’t gotten wet, but I was very optimistic. Then suddenly, BIOS asked us to get ready. We donned our fins, masks and snorkels and sat at the side of the boat. At the sign of BIOS, we jumped down and followed him. There was another group in the water too.

With my head down into the water, snorkel in my mouth, I kept looking forward, the water was not really clear, as it was loaded with plankton, the shark’s food. This gentle giant only eat plankton (how much do they need to eat?!?). I couldn’t see anything, but BIOS was pointing to the direction in front of me. And suddenly, one big dark shadow appeared, and the next thing I know, the Butanding head was swimming to my direction, it was only about one meter away and I could see this huge thing with its mouth and it almost hit me.

I remembered shouting, surprised, excited and scared when the fish swam past me, the BIOS gave me sign to turn around, and I swam along above the fish. I was pointing my camera madly, but I couldn’t see anything on the LCD, it was too bright. But I kept snapping, regardless what I got. Jebret, jebret, then I realized, maybe I hadn’t turned on my camera yet. Then I pressed the power button, still couldn’t see anything, but I kept pressing like crazy. I couldn’t keep pace with the shark, and it was gone. We went back to the boat, tired and giggling all the way. It was huge, we say. No, BIOS said, it was the children whale shark, about six meter length, only.

Just when I started to browse my pictures, BIOS asked us to get ready again. This time we could see the shadow on the surface. I was not scared anymore this time, but still, when I saw the dark shadow and the thing emerged from the blue, I still didn’t know what to do. So, when a spotter spotted a whale shark, the boat would turn direction perpendicular with the swimming direction of the fish. We would then jump and swim to it, and come face to face, when it passed by us, we tried to catch up as long as we could.
The second one we saw was much bigger than the first, it was an adult, about nine meter length. When I felt I couldn’t swim anymore, the BIOS caught my hand and suddenly, he towed me to the shark again. He was a very very strong swimmer, I felt like I was pulled by a speeding boat.

On the third encounter, I brought back a souvenir. So far, I have collected stung and scar, stung by sea urchin, bitten by clown fish, stung by hydroid, stung by unidentified sea particle, presumably fire phantom, and this time, I collected a blue back from a whale shark tail.
I was busy catching up and taking pictures, I was above the fish, directly on top of its head. Anyway, regardless how I moved, on many occasions the fish would always be directly below me. I had kept in mind to move to the side, as I didn’t want to be hit by the dorsal fin. I was hovering above this huge one, when it came shallower and shallower and so near to me! I snapped few shots and moved to the side, the BIOS came to me and signed me to hand over my camera so he could take some good shots from the front. I handed him immediately, but forgot that I clipped an extra cord to my shirt, so when I concentrated on taking off the safety cord, I slowed down, successfully handed the camera, BIOS speed away with it, the whale shark caught up with me, and the tail hit me right below my knee. My, it was hurt, the tail was very very strong and the skin was rough like sand paper, it is said that the skin is literally bulletproof, and it was huge! We swam along for awhile before giving up, it was swollen a bit but nothing serious, at least this is the injury that I can proud of a bit. I was hit by a whale shark, rather than the one in Menado I had to shamelessly admitted, I was bitten by a nemo.

No shots from BIOS, we stopped bringin camera to enjoy the interaction more without stressing with camera.
In total, we encountered six whale sharks range from baby to adult, before the BIOS decided to go back, anyway, we were too tired to swim anymore, it was a major exercise and leg cramp, sometimes we swam very far away from the boat when the whale shark was slow and interact with us long enough. We were grinning from ear to ear on the way back, and suntanned on the boat front to get some warmth, forgetting that it was midday sun.

We went back to the Butanding Interaction Centre, the BIOS gave us certificate, it was very cute, I had the similar one with title ‘I had rode the world’s biggest bird’ when I rode Ostrich in the farm few years ago. This one, (name) had successfully encountered (number) butandings / whale shark / (Rhincodon typus), completed with the date and signatures of the BIOS.







It was a happy day. We walked back by the beach and the distance felt much longer because we were tired and it was hot. We washed up in the hotel and had lunch, we were so hungry we could eat a butanding, well half, a quarter, ugh.. a plate..
The lunch was marvelous. We ordered two packages of lunch and it came with so many dishes, fried prawn, roasted pig, vegetables, fruits, prawns again, chicken, many many things we can’t pronounced in Tagalog, and the food tasted good.

After lunch, we relaxed in the room, I remembered writing some key words for the journey and dozed off half way, we slept for hours like hibernate. It was the best nap. We were awake around seven and went to the dive center to assemble the gear for tomorrow. We met our DM Carlos in the dive center.




16-19th April 2007


We had four diving days in Ticao area, dives sites were around San Miquel and around Manta Bowl. San Miquel is macro dive site while Manta Bowl is famous for its pelagic.

For the first day, we brought lunch package from the resort and it was waaww.. it was like complete dinner course with our favorite, prawn, pork, veggie and even fruits, delicious pineapple. I had to praise this resort for the generosity of the food, we had never seen squid as big as the one we found on their plate. Although the resort was quite weird, all the men were so girly and all the women were so manly, but they were all very nice to us.

First day we did three dives in San Miquel, for the macro and caverns.
It suffers from bombing fisherman, Carlos told us he lost three dive sites to the bombing.
But despite the bombing, the coral life was beautiful and abundant; I can’t imagine how nice it would be without bombing.

There were many beautiful rock formations underwater, some scary and dark cave mouth, the terrain and the water life was similar with Komodo, but not as rich. There were abundant nudibranches and sea cucumber in different color and species. We were lucky to see frogfish and sea horse on the first day. In our dive center there, macro was a new thing to them, they were just growing fond of it, so we had more things to share than to learn, about what we can see and where we have to find the critters.
The things that I like about diving there was we had one boat for our own, one Divemaster for our own, we were supposed to be combined with other group with twelve Mat Soleh divers, and thank God it was cancelled, so we were free to explore and to go with our own pace.

In San Miquel we were able to do whatever things we like too, we geared up in the water (but I don’t like to do this as it was tedious), jump from the boat side, or giant stride from the front. As the boat was not originated for diving, it was the same type of boat for whale shark interaction, the entry method was quite challenging. I found my favorite way by gearing up and sitting at the boat side, not back roll, but side jump, almost similar with the snorkeling method.

The things that I don’t like about diving in San Miquel, there were so many jellyfish, different types, different sizes and different species. I guess that happens because it is a good breeding ground for them and also, the water was lack of turtles because of illegal fishing. There were the transparent ones, oval shapes, common jellyfish shape or the one with the bones, but except the stung, the jellyfish were not life threatening, unlike one of the cousin, the box jellyfish. The one with the transparent bones was easier to see, it was actually hard. I found out when I tried to get rid of one swimming to my face with pointer. It was hard and it was strong as it stood unmoved for a while. The was the long one, reached up to more than one meter, transparent with many dots, and the ones with one orange dots which could grow very big too, the orange dots could be the brain, this species like to cuddle up with their own species up to a dozen or more and made a belt of jellyfish. The irritating ones was the small sized and almost transparent type., they were everywhere and it was difficult to spot them. We had to don our hood tight and protected our faces from the sting, the jellyfish occurred mostly on shallow water while we did the safety stop. Even with the hood on, basically we only had cheek unprotected, the jellyfish still managed to give us one or two stings. When we got hit, it was painful for a while and then the affected area became itchy. During the dive, sometimes we had to put our arm like fighting position to protect the faces. I bought the crème I got from doctor from last week’s trip injury, and it relieved the stung fast and good.

Except jellyfish, the other thing we scared of was the bombing fishing itself. Since the first dive, we heard an explosion sound and it surprised the crap out of me because we didn’t know what was going on. Then Carlos signaled us that everything was okay, he explained on the surface that it was illegal bombing, although it was loud, it was actually far away from us.

But speaking about far away bombing, we had experienced the quite direct impact too. So we descended to this particular dive site in San Miquel, something called The Channel. When we went down, as usual, I was looking for interesting stuff to shot. I came over a silvery shape near at the bottom and thought it was a white nudibranch. When I came into a closer look, to my horror, it was a dead fish. Silver fish we saw dancing somewhere else. When I swam forward I found more and more dead fish, and on top of my sadness, many dead nemos, the playful clownfish. The site was bombed before, and from the fresh dead fish, it must not be too long ago, the fisherman might saw the school of silverfish and dropped a bomb, as bigger nemo liked to hover high above their anemone, they were struck too, and so other reef fish. Whatever the fisherman could grope, they took away and left behind the dead fish that we saw.
Feeling with sadness, I had to puff some air into the BCD so that I wouldn’t be too near to the bottom to see it all. Naturally, I’m scared of fish, as I often see them dying in manmade environment, but I had never seen dead ones during my diving history, except one dead turtle in Sipadan because of broken shell. So looking at them in that condition in my favorite environment, it really saddened me. I wasn’t aware about the worse possibility, that the illegal fisherman didn’t hesitate to bomb a place known as dive site. It’s dangerous, stupid and irresponsible. I could see the sadness of the people like Carlos when they said there were not much things they could do because the government in power itself was so corrupted to do something about it. Sound very much like my country, but thank God, so far, I have never heard a single bomb while diving in Indo.

Fortunately, not far from the place we found nemo, even on the very site, the coral was nice and beautiful, we soon found the peace in looking at beautiful surrounding. As a channel, the current was pushing and soon, we were carried away and we found paradise.
It was a rocky terrain, clean, free from jellyfish or sea urchin, and it was shallow in 6-7 meter depth. Soon, we were busy hunting. It was fun because it was safe to park our belly or knees anywhere without afraid of damaging anything or stung by anything. The terrain was similar with Tulamben, but the rock was bright and clean. Without signal, we had same thing in mind, we were looking for our old friend, the boxer crab, it was a perfect terrain. But we were not really experienced like our DM in Bali, we couldn’t find the fellow, or they escaped too fast, but we found other various crabs, nudibranches, flatworms and even flatworm’s eggs. We spent almost an hour in that terrain until we heard something very weird. It was a whooshing sound, felt like it was on top of our head, so loud that I almost shivered. I looked around but couldn’t see anything, and then I realized I didn’t see Carlos. It was intense but less than one minute scare, Carlos showed up and told us it’s okay and to stay around there, he had gone up awhile to alert the boat to come to us. We spent around ten more minutes and went up.

Except some common dives, we did some exploration dives. With Carlos, we went to a new sites and dropped down hoping to find a new paradise. His briefing was priceless, We jump here and see what we find. I can’ tell you anything more than that because I also don’t know..,It didn’t have any names, and Carlos told us he could name it after us. He he he. It would be cool if it happened. The place that we dropped down had very nice coral life and the best thing, it had shallow beautiful reef and some deeper ocean crack for further exploration. It was a nice adventurous dive and when we surfaced, we realized that we had reached the other island. The boat looked very far away, that was how far we roamed, but the best thing was, it means the whole reefs connecting the two islands are diveable.

The other exploration dive, we did on our own, for four day and three nights, we stayed at Ticao Island. Everytime we came back form day dives, we had to jump from the boat and walk to the shore because the tide was too low. We had noticed the clear water since the beginning, and some coral growth, until one day, we decided to ask permission of Carlos to do the shore dive and explored the underwater life. He had grown a lot of trust in us and allowed us to do so, and gave us free tank. We happily geared up and walk to the shore. The entry was rough, as it was very shallow. We then proceed to deeper, although the deepest we went was only around five meter, because there were no drop off. But it was an interesting and rewarding dive. We found nudibranches, ring-piped fish, and garden full of shrimp gobies. If we held still, we could see many many heads peeking out from the hole, sometimes one, two or three in one hole together with the shrimps. There were various species and color, if we were to name the site, we would call it Goby Garden. The other very very special thing was, thirty minutes into the dives, we decided to head back as it was getting darker and we didn’t want Carlos to worry with us. Then we saw school and school of silver fish, each fish was only about ten cm length, but there were thousands of them. They were circling us, playing, dancing and waving with us, we were fascinated and enjoyed the sight for few minutes. We had never seen something so beautiful and felt so special before. I could hear them telling me to stay and never go up again. The feeling was very strong that I was asking myself, is it how a mermaid calling sailors to jump into the sea?

There was a big rock not far from us and we decided to explore it and then head back to the shore. The silver fish was still following us, it was a good decision to explore the rock, we found a weird never seen before fish, looked like juvenile of a wrasse, we found many banded or ring piped fish, some was very tiny, juvenile sweetlips. We didn’t circle the rock as we really need to go back, so we proceeded to turn around. There were many things we could explore but we had to pass, we swam slowly to the shore and met school of catfish when I found an anchor. I followed the anchor line, we were very shallow that time, Hubby busy taking picture of big normal jelly fish, since it was less than two meters, I decided to peek on the surface. When I slowly emerged from the water, to my surprise, I was face to face with at least half a dozen of boatmen all standing at the dock looking at me! I knew I was following an anchor but I hadn’t seen the boat. It was the boat of the twelve diver’s group, who stayed at the same resort with us. I was so embarrassed than I submerged again. They must had seen us from far and curious to see what big fish we were. I signaled boat sign to Hubby, he looked around for a while and decided to peek too, he was also surprised. We had a good laugh and then we walked back to the shore.

The other thing, in Philippine, at least the place we visited, the resort was far beyond Bali’s standard. In Ticao island, we were told, and I read, that the resort was beautiful, so I came with high expectation. We arrived after the first day diving around five o’clock. At first, we were led to the ‘Big House’, it was indeed beautiful, located above a small hill looking out to the sea, there was a big deck in front and behind, and the house was very artistic and beautifully decorated, then they led us to the room. ‘The room’ was a huge room with one, two, three, four, five beds, it was doorless as it occupied the whole floor. It had library and TV! It was beautiful and nice. And this all for two of us? Yes, the girl said. So we happily dropped our bag. It was too big, and doorless, but at least, it was for us only. Then we walked around happily.
When we were fiddling around with our wetsuit, the girl told us that actually they didn’t know we were coming, until that morning, they were expecting twelve guests tomorrow. Alarmed, I asked, where the guesses are going to stay. Are they going to stay with us in the big house? She said, Yes, it’s okay with us, no problem. Startled, I didn’t know what to say, cursing silently, the problem is not with you. But how we are going to stay with three or four strangers, especially big loud Mat Soleh, in one room with no door and share one bathroom? In Dayang and Tioman, it was common, but even then, we at least know each other or from the same group.

We were then requested to stay in private room, which was the cottage we passed by when we were walking to the Big House. Every one still mentioned about how beautiful it was, until we saw it. It was, uhm, bunk. The single beds were cramped inside tiny room, almost like live onboard. It was hardly half a meter between the beds and half a meter in front of the bed where the door and the deck were. The best thing was, we saw a standing fan at the corner of the room, meant it had no air conditioning. The girls were taking their own sweet time. There were bedsheets ready, but the towels were not there, and she couldn’t initiate to start to put on the bedsheets but she had to wait for the towel, while we were standing there, wet and tired. When the towel finally came, they took at least half an hour to make the beds, while chatting noisily between themselves and told us that we had to wait because we were supposed to stay in Big House, so they didn’t prepare the cottage. I couldn’t help waiting and decided to take shower, then I found one more surprising thing and one super idiot thing. The generator was not up, so there was no electricity, the generator would up only from 7 pm to 5 am. I could take shower as long as the water in the tank hadn’t dried up, I was lucky.
We knew that we had to share the bathroom with people staying in the next bedroom. One cottage was consisted of two bedrooms and one bathroom, but what we didn’t know was...: Usually, commonly, in shared bathroom, people using the bathroom should be able to look both doors, the one connected to own bedroom and the conjoined neighbor. But this one, ^$%%@#, the locks was on the wrong way, so people using the bathroom can’t lock any doors! Even from the strangers staying next door. Another priceless thing was, the bathroom window was so low, and the land next to it was one meter higher, so it’s almost perfect place for perverts.

I was feeling very annoyed with the bathroom situation. On the first day, we shared the cottage with Carlos and he was very polite and courteous, the next day he was moved to the Big House, apparently the twelve guests didn’t find the sharing idea of Big House very amusing also, so we had to share the cottage with two Mat Solehs/bules. Luckily, they were not the gross type, but they liked to leave their bathroom door opened wide.

Before we thought the worse had come, we had another surprise. When the darkness fell, we couldn’t see the way leading to the Big House where we had our meals. It was completely darkness and we had to climb the small hill. Fortunately we had our torch so we could avoid stepping onto huge frogs along the way. They did have some sort of way to lighten up the path, tribal council type of torches. But they didn’t bother to light it on until the guesses were requesting for it everytime.

The peak of all the surprises, was when we came back to cottage from our dinner, we found that our bedsheets were full from all sorts of bugs falling from the roof. There were bamboo roof and no false ceiling. So we could find moth, butterfly, small bugs, ants, lizard, and cockroaches roaming in the room, on the wall, on the bed. It was almost nightmare. The peak was when I woke up one morning with big worm next to me, and we crushed a huge butterfly who parked outside the door.
I woke up with a worm much bigger than that and centipede before, but it was happened when I camped in the Thousand Island, in a tent, in a hiking expedition where those things are normal, not in a ‘beautiful’ holiday resort.

But before I cursed everything out of my gut, there were great things in the island. While the Big House was indeed very beautiful, we also saw playful surrounding. There was a pair of horse that we could ride, a cheerful friendly monkey named Chiquitita, pigs that wandered around who liked to disturb the monkey and the horses. We pity the horses and the monkey for being tied up, but they were well taken care off. There were chickens and cows too, it was almost like a little farm. The land was spacious with palms and coconut trees and it had one of the best beaches, the white sand was consisted of beautiful sea shells. We had the best (again) nap in the beach sleeping on the bamboo hammock. It was really really siiiiiiiiiiiioooooook.
At night, the sky was full of sparkling stars, I couldn’t remember seeing the stars so clear anywhere else. And although they put very high price to the extra soft drinks, the resort owners were also very friendly and the food was great too. Every meal we would share storied with them or Carlos, he has a very good sense of humour and always made us laugh with his stories, about all kind of divers he met from around the world.










Nearby the resort, there were some places we could dive. The Goby Garden (shamelessly named) and one particular corner where we saw eagle rays breached or jumping vertically from the water. Only Hubby saw it the first time, the boat man saw two second time while we were diving down there, and the third time, everybody happened to look at the same direction while the eagle ray decided to show off. It was glorious and it had big round of applause from us as reward.
The dive sites doesn’t have particular name, Carlos called it Rente’s Reef, as the courtesy of one nice fisherman who showed him the reef. We passed by it every time we went to Manta Bowl or san Miquel. It was a beautiful reef, the scenery I remembered the most was the reef full of corals sea whips, I had never seen so many sea whips before in my entire dives combined. We only explored it once; I believe there are many macro creatures hidden to be discovered.
Carlos was one of the very first guys to dive the site and Manta Bowl.

Manta Bowl was a famous dive sites, half an hour away from the resort. It is reputable with its pelagic and ripping current. Divers saw thresher, whale shark, manta and hammerhead there before, but the consequences were the crazy current.
When we dived there, we had weak current; it was almost like ordinary dive site. But lack of currents means lack of pelagic too. Like Manta Point in Bali, we were supposed to hook our selves to the rock and waited for mantas. We were able to move around and even found small things like snowflake moray and pipe fish we had never seen before. The terrain was beautiful, it was clear, rocky and spacious. At the end of the dives, a huge manta passed by very close to us. We also saw some big chevron barracudas and jacks. In Manta Bowl, there is no shallow reef, so we just did the dive until the deco time didn't permit us to stay anymore and then did the safety stop in the blue.

The nature of pelagic, it is hard to predict. Unlike macro, for pelagic, we have to count on our luck. But we were very lucky compared to the dozen group. They didn’t see a single manta until the last dive of the second day they visited Manta Bowl, they saw one small Manta and not everyone saw it. We only did two dives in Manta Bowl and headed back to the place where we saw Eagle Ray, and the next day, we explored San Miquel again because we enjoyed macro more.



The other nice thing about San Miquel was the caves. It was not an overhead cave. We were able to enter the cave from below and surface inside the cave, and went out from below again. It was beautiful caves with nice rock formations full of magenta algae and school of triangle fish. San Miquel also full of sea snakes, especially the caves area, but they never disturbed us, although it was quite creepy to see them crawling into or in between the cracks of the rocks. But unlike jellyfish, they are peaceful and choose to avoid divers.
Along the way to the dive sites, there were a lot of places possible for future exploration. We saw many shallow reefs, with crystal clear water and beautiful coral. They had yet been explored yet. Despite the environment awareness deprivation, there are a lot of paradises waiting to be discovered.

Last day, we did two dives at San Miquel, then we stopped by fishing village to reunite with the other boat, there was one angmoh diver wanting to join us. It was fun to see children playing on the water, it was hilarious also. Those children were having their own fun time but it was not ‘mild’ playing. Sometimes one of the children cried when the sprained their ankles between the boat, yes, they were jumping from the boat here and there. There was one little child cried and led by older children to the village, when he came back, he brought a fish. Apparently, it was a reward for being injured. We were watching him, mixed feeling of funny, cute and disgust that he had dead fish as a ‘toy’, then, suddenly, he bit the fish. Three of us, with our newly joined diver, shouted together with surprise. Lucky he didn’t try to have a sashimi, after a bite, he threw the fish to the water, and everyone was playing with it as if it was a ball.

We were also bite our fingernails when the ‘bottomless’ children were playing and sitting ‘widely’ in between the bamboo legs of the boat with their ‘birdies’ exposed, afraid it would get caught in between and created a tragedy. I had a good ten minute laugh when Hubby first expressed his concern.



On the beginning second dive, I realized that my camera was foggy. No wonder I kept on taking foggish picture until I was fed up and hung the camera on the BCD since the first dive, but only on this dive that I realized it was actually fogging and misty inside the casing, so I decided to go up and left the camera in the boat and let it rest totally for the rest of the trip.

That day was special, because we also had two small new companies with us, two roosters. The boat men brought them from the island for cock fighting. We didn't know until we heard them 'O-O-OOooooooo' or 'Kukuruyuuuuk' and saw them standing gloriously on the back of the boat. I even heard them during the shallow part of my dives that day. The roosters also communicated with roosters from the islands around us. Every time they made sound, the other chicken replied them.

The last dive of the trip, we went on our own because Carlos needed to pay attention to the diver and anyway, we almost always had our own sweet time. We did the cave again, but this time, we didn’t go deep to the place where we found the frogfish and the seahorse. Carlos wanted to show the seahorse to the angmoh but it was gone. It had stayed on the same spot for weeks and now it’s gone. Poor angmoh.

After the last dive we headed back to Donsol. While we were busy checking in, the operator had washed the gears for us, what a service. Even more, because the aircon room was not available anymore, they let us stayed at the dive center, with air con and private bathroom. Yeeha.




20th April 2007


Today we woke up very early, for the last day whaleshark snorkeling. The last BIOS told us, early in the morning would be the best time to encounter the whale shark. So, we departed on 7 am.

This time, Mike would be our BIOS. Again, we have our own boat, I wore rash guard and it proved to be good decision, because this time, we found many jellyfish in the water.
No camera for me today, because yesterday the camera casing was misty, lucky it didn't leak but we found drops of water, so I rested it.

Although we knew what to expect, I still felt dig dag dug. The last BIOS was right, once we reached the location, we immediately jumped to meet the whale shark, and it was huge! We didn’t feel so tired this time, either we were well rested, or we knew the procedure already, but the Butanding didn’t wait. Except one.

Regardless how many times I experienced it, I still preferred to swim behind Mike before we saw the Butanding, as the moment it emerged from the blue still made me 'kanchiong' or nervous. But when I saw them and be sure of their position, I'd swim my brain out to catch up with them.

Every time we went back to the boat, before we put down the mask, Mike would tell us to get ready again, because we saw another Butanding. It was indeed so many of them in the morning. We met one very special one, because it stayed to interact with us.

So the huge Butanding, length about ten meters, was having its breakfast. It would open the mouth, jerked and then the side gills would open while it was filtering the plankton. So this shark stayed very shallow and it let us go very very near, I swam next to it almost touchy, side by side, so close and so huge! Sometimes its dorsal fins would come out to the surface, it also swam slow but still, we were not fish enough to follow it, especially when I swam next to it, I could feel the strong surge because of the fish movement. Mike towed me once, but still, we were too tired, especially when the snorkel started to work up and we inhaled water. So we went back to the boat, and surprisingly, the whale shark was still there, so we jumped again, interact for minutes until we lost it, went back to boat, it still there, jumped again and so on..
Until we called it quit, the whale shark was still there, but we couldn’t move anymore muscle, how we wish we could don scuba gear and dived with it down there instead of snorkeling. We had to say bye bye to the friendly Butanding.
In less than two hours including journey we met around ten Butandings that morning.

Stung by jellyfish, leg cramp, drinking sea water, we did more of it while snorkeling with these giant compared to our three years diving.
I think Eric was wrong, Whale shark would never be another fish.

Went back to the resort, we washed up and had lunch, it was raining hard once in a while so we couldn’t dry up the gear properly. We wanted to go to Butanding Interaction Centre, so we borrowed umbrella from the resort. We couldn’t walk by the shore because there was high tide, so we walked by the road, small half soiled and half paved road. It was quite long walk, and the weather was very humid. We bought T-shirt and Butanding necklace form BIC and enjoyed some cool drinks. On the way back, we were tempted to ride the tricycle. It cost us a mere 10 Peso to enjoy the bumpy ride to the resort.

Around 6pm, we had another program, fire fly watch. We took twenty minutes boat ride to the island near the Butanding area. It was a relaxing ride and we were greeted with beautiful sunset. We landed on the island, and it was already dark. We had to take another boat in the river where the fire fly was.
We had similar experience few years ago in Kota Tinggi, Malaysia. The fire fly was a bit different here. If in Kota Tinggi we could see fire fly along the river, everywhere, here we could only see them in some trees. But they appeared from time to time, they looked different because they were like born from the heart of the tree. There were pink aurora from every fire fly, and they were concentrated in the center, then they spread out away, it was like small sunshine in every tree we found them. Once in a while, we found ‘new born’ of fire fly from the tree we had just passed by without any sighting.
With the background of similar sparks from the star, it was breath taking, but our cameras were not good enough to capture it in pictures.



After firefly, we packed up our things as Gons and Jun wanted to meet us for dinner and drinks in town and we were going to stay in Legazpi on the last night. The van was late, because almost every driver was attending the local fiesta.
We finally reached the town around 10.30 and checked in to an inn. We had to cancel the dinner because we were tired. So we ordered room service for dinner and breakfast. This operator was very generous, they always said, Order everything you like. Waaahoooo again, but of course, we didn’t take it for granted.

The inn was nice, it was spacious, air-con, with bath tub etc, just like hotel. Although in this country, we found everything in one ply. One ply toilet paper, one ply towel, one ply blanket and hard bed, but it still, the best place we stayed for this trip.




21st April 2007


We had good lunch with Gons, Jun, Noel and Albert, nice people we happened to know during our stay. Too bad Carlos couldn’t join us because he had another herd to guide. It was a great lunch with a lot of pork! If you liked pork, this is the place to be. Anyway, diet starts tomorrow. There was also one dish I like very much, Spanish Mackerel cooked with some vinegar and it tasted very shiook. We also tried Bicol Express, one thing we didn’t dare to try before. It was tasty but very spicy. Previous day, we had tried Tosilog and Longsilong and we liked it. It was actually something like steak and something like sausage.

We like the food, we like the people, we like the dives, it really feels like home to be here.

We were supposed to take 2.30 pm Cebu-Pacific flight to Manila. We had to wait at the windowless, fanless and airconditionless airport. It was damn hot and humid and the room was full of people taking the same flight. At 2.30 pm, no plane to be seen. So 3 pm, 3.30pm, and the airlines didn’t bother to say a word to explain, when I asked, they only said Four, the plane would arrive at four.
It was very crappy, we had to go outside to get some fresh air. The scenery was good, with Mayon Volcano on sight, but we couldn’t enjoy it. At least, they should put some electric fan to get more friendly air, some announcement of course, would be basic courtesy of the airline.



Finally, at 4.30pm, we departed. Transferring to another airport, this time we had the chance to see Manila. The steet was busy just like Jakarta, the buildings looked like Serpong, hehehe..

Again, the crappy airline messed up. It was almost three hours away to 8.30pm, our flight to Singapore with the same *^&+* @%% airline. The check in line was crooked and everything was in mess. We finally able to check in and went to immigration process.
The unique thing was, they wanted everything from us. Whoever wore shoes, had to take out their shoes and socks, and the smelly fellow would travel through the X-ray machine. For us, with slippers, it also had to experience X-ray machine. I found out my slippers were not in good condition only when on the first day, it was almost broke. So, the last day, on its last breath, I tied cable tie to make sure I could wear it until I reached to Singapore. So, the glorious slippers were seen by many airport officers and passerby.
We also had to take out our belt. The line was different from man and woman, because the related gender officers would search everyone from head to toe, not detailed search, but touchy enough.



We had quick dinner at the airport and bought some special Philippine tidbits back.
Again, Cebu Pacific late for almost two hours. Crap!
But we had good sleep and reached Singapore around 2 am, so people flying back to Manila would have to board at least 2.30 am flight. Lucky it didn’t happen on our first day. It would be hellish to run to catch 7 am flight once they reached Manila around 6am, still have to do some airport transfer etc etc. It’s a thing to remember in the future about this airline.


Overall, we had good time and met great people.

For now, Adios Philippine..








Johanna : Talk to me some more.

Jacques : It's hard, you know. I don't know what else to say. You're so far away.
Johanna : Tell me a story.
Jacques : A story? Do you now how it is- do you know what you're supposed to do, to meet a mermaid?
Johanna : No.
Jacques : You go down to the bottom of the sea, where the water isn't even blue anymore, where the sky is only a memory, and you float there, in the silence. And you stay there, and you decide, that you'll die for them. Only then do they start coming out. They come, and they greet you, and they judge the love you have for them. If it's sincere, if it's pure, they'll be with you, and take you away forever.

Jacques Mayol – Le Grand Bleu / The Big Blue Movie






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