Philippines Eleven Day Dive Holiday Part 2

This is another Pura Vida Resort, a stunning place with beautiful gardens.

A variety of accommodation and Peter and I had a traditional bamboo villa with a thatched roof in the well laid out and cared for gardens. Very comfy with tea, coffee, fridge en-suite etc. We were hosted to dinner by the Owner Chris under the stars on the beach. We watched the huge red super moon rise out of the sea, 14% larger and 30% brighter than normal and not to be as close again to Earth until 2034. What a place to be able to experience this once in a life time occasion.
Getting very used to this life style, I like it, weather around 30⁰C each day, being pampered - everyone had one or more massages and the diving is amazing. The next day the 5th of our travels we headed out to Apo Island, around ½ hour boat trip from Dauin, the sea conditions calm. On the first dive we saw the whale shark, and the first time one had been spotted off this island. Consequently no one believed we had seen it, they thought the whole eight of us were pulling their leg. Chris Nipper got the encounter on video, and what an encounter. I swam along side of the huge animal for around five minutes as it was cruising very slowly.
We had three dives this day but nothing compared to that first encounter with the whale shark.

The guides make all the up to date signals and have plenty of their own, I will have to brush up on these as at times they are hard to understand, maybe they are in Filipino..!! There are plenty of dive sites around Apo Island with hundreds of species of fish and a huge variety of marine life. One dive in particular was full of bubbles rising out of the sand, bubbles for as far as you could see in all directions. Very much like bubbles around White Island in New Zealand. It is a volcanic island covering 74 hectares in land area, 7kms off the south eastern tip of Negros Island and 30kms south of the Negros Oriental capital of Dumaguete. The village has around 1000 residents. Tourism is their main income and most sell souvenirs, T-shirts etc. It would be a great place for a very quiet holiday with very friendly, happy residents and amazing snorkelling at your front door. The name ‘Apo’ was derived from a Filipino word for ‘grandchild’.

The following day we had three dives around Negros Island and not far from our Resort. Each dive is different with special high lights, this day we saw a variety of frog fish, a small orange one, one brown and white another all black. They don’t move when you get up close and eye ball them. There was also a very large coral snake and this one was blue and black striped, going about its business and not worried about us. A small dinghy wreck housed a number of lion fish one large black and white and one brilliant red. There was also a beautiful coloured flying gurnard with its wings spread out over the sand. We also found an abandoned fish trap that had many exotic fish trapped inside including an unusual bright yellow eel; we broke it apart to let the fish out. That is one complaint about the Philippines there is a lot of flotsam andjetsam in the water, a real shame for such a beautiful group of Islands. With a population on close on 103 million the people need to start to clean up and take care of their magic place in this World.

"We sampled the sea urchins, much smaller and more colourful than our kina, but similar inside and flavour, very salty and strong, not to my liking."

Getting very used to the turtles in the water on each dive, some very large, most have their own remoras attached and are tagged, they live in the sanctuaries and are protected, and very used to divers.
After three nights at the Pura Vida Dauin Resort we said goodbye to the wonderful friendly group of people and headed to the Dumaguete wharf to catch Mike’s private ferry to Siquijor Island, known as the ‘Enchanted Island’. We waited for Penny to arrive via Manila as she was joining us for the rest of the trip. Mike Butler is the owner of the Coco Grove Resorts and the Coco Grande in Dumaguete. He has lived in the Philippines for 40+ odd years, formally from Australia. He has set up an amazing place, the staff love him and the gardens along the 1km beach front resort are just stunning. What great hosts Mike and his wife were, we all had the executive suites on the beach front, with our meals set up on the sand with entertainment and live music to listen to and watch the show.

From Coco Grove we headed out on another of Mike’s boats ‘Coco Adventure’ well set up for diving, to the town of Oslob on Cebu Island. This was the first dive for Summer and Monique after finishing their course.The Filipino guys feed the whale shark at Oslob and they draw tourists by the thousands from all over the World to dive and snorkel with them. The whale shark is a slow-moving filter feeding shark and the largest known of all fish species, weighing up to 19,000kg and around 12m in length, although the ones we saw on this occasion were a little smaller. We had five around us and had to be very careful as they were so intent on getting a feed that they missed seeing us in the water. Not a natural encounter but one way to bring income to the Island and people, and one way for many to see this magnificent fish that you would otherwise not see. We had the most sumptuous lunch laid on for us; with a whole ham, every salad imaginable, chocolate log for desert, drinks etc. the girls on the boat did a wonderful job, just so much food.

Our second dive was not far off Cebu Island, a small island called Sumilon Island. It was very beautiful to just snorkel this area, which I did for an hour before we geared up. Then we drifted along a shear drop off with millions of brilliant coloured fish, sea turtles, snakes – the works..!!
The next day we headed back to Apo Island and had our last two dives, no whale shark this time but a gentle drift dive along the coral faced wall, and loving the last of our dives in the Philippines.

After so much diving we had some time off and toured around Siquijor Island, visiting the Cambugahay Waterfalls, the fish cleaning farm, old churches and a few other touristy spots.

We were ferried back to Dumaguete on Negros Island and stayed at the Coco Grande Hotel for our last night. We had time to look around Dumaguete, there was a carnival taking place with utter chaos with the traffic. We visited some of the old churches and shops, a great coffee shop, a flash mall, a tropical rain forest with an interestingForest Camp with waterfalls and water park. Then onto a stone carving place, the likes that I have never seen before, such amazing talent. All done with tiny pieces of natural coloured stone, set in and then resin over, you could buy all kinds of things from key rings to wardrobes. We had another flight back to Manila and our last dinner together as a group at the ‘La Fiesta’ in busy Manila.

Thanks to Ray and Penny from Pack ya Bags - for organising this wonderful trip and inviting us to share it with them.