Day 2
At the end of the first day, I signed up for the dive trips for Apo Island. Boat ride started at 8am sharp. Wake up at 630am to have breakfast and have equipment ready to be loaded on the boat. Again water was choppy but it got better when we got nearer to Apo. First site was Cogon (a variety of grass) that grew directly adjacent to the site. Max depth again was set at 22m and dive time to 55-60mins. Expect some current and a lot of tunas! Well we had a lot a Trevalis of about 18-24in long. We also saw a couple of morays, lush coral garden and some nudi branch… on the Second dive we went to Kan-uran East… Here we saw our first turtle. Since most of Apo Island is a sanctuary, the whole reef just seem so alive! I really need to practice on that wide angle shot. I just couldn’t take good shots of the tunas… =( Although happy with the dives for the day, I wasn’t too pleased with the photos I took. When I got back to the resort, I signed up for the Mandarin dive at the Atlantis resort house reef. Rules are very strict. We had to be out of the water no later than 6pm or we would pay a very high penalty for an un scheduled night dive. Dive time again was set for 60mins and max depth of 18m. Atlantis has a grassy area, coral area, a pineapple shaped pinnacle in the middle and an artificial reef area made of old tires. On this dive we immediately saw seahorses on the grassy area as soon as we descended… then heading to the pinnacle where there were a lot of lion fish and my first grey and red frog fish… What’s good about it was there were 2 frog fish right beside each other!!! I couldn’t just stop clicking away! At this point our guide Peter was wagging the flash light to call my attention to proceed to the Mandarin fish area. After 2 mins of looking, the Mandarin fish started coming out. Well, not really out out… They are still very shy fish. After taking some futile shots, I gave up. I couldn’t get a good angle on them and there was another dive group waiting for a chance to see the fish too. With my 2 frogfish sitting next to each other, I was happy even though I didn’t get a good shot of the Mandarin fish.
..anyways, I still have my supersale airfare..will join you next time you go to Dauin.
