Trip Report Puerto Galera Philippines: March 23 - April 2, 2024 - SCANDI DIVERS - Part 2

[carono6333]

Why were you getting featherstars on you? They don't normally swim into divers

 

[Kimela]

Why were you getting featherstars on you? They don't normally swim into divers

I'm not sure, but there were a few of us who managed to get them attached to us. I have a video of a black one swimming through the water - and it wasn't particularly unusual to see them swimming (though beautiful). If you barely brush them they will stick to you (but not to a metal much stick).

 

[cetacean]

I kind of wonder if Cozumel is just very high in salinity. That is my home base so I have my weight very tightly dialed in for the waters there, but I seem to use less weight pretty much everywhere else I dive.

EDIT: Another thought/question I have had is if some places are really using kilos for making weights and then doing a lazy conversion to pounds (I.e. calling a 1 kilo weight a 2 pound weight when it is really 2.2 pounds —trivial for just one weight , but if you are using 5 kilos they might be saying 10 pounds when it is really 11). That still isn’t a giant difference but I can usually tell if something is one pound different than normal when I hit my safety stop

Actually - after having worked several summers in a dive shop - weights also "wear down" - a 10 year old 2lb weight will more likley be closer to 1.8lbs (after all the abrasions, sea water corrosion, etc.). I have a friend with one weight that is closer to 15 years old - it's stamped as a 5lb weight (used here in Northern CA, cold water, lots of neoprene). He weighed it last year, it was just over 11lbs.

 

[cetacean]

Was the light the lights were on substantial enough you could grasp it to aid in maintaining depth? From what you described both hands were tied up at times, but it would be nice to grasp the line at times to aid holding position.

Just one soda, or more? Any idea whether they had diet soda?

Interesting! I haven't used a muck stick, but one with measurement marks could be nice, since as you described it's often hard to know from a photo how large something was. Some people on ScubaBoard are good enough with macro to make something a centimeter long look dill pickle-sized.

You would never want to hold the down line on a black water dive... you will get jerked around for the entire dive (most of these dives are over deep water - there is some surface wave action on almost every dive). In addition, many blackwater dives have a down line that extends down to ~70 feet. So the goal is to usually stay between the last light (~70ft) and the top 15 feet. Having said this, a number of interesting animals will sit just on the periphery of the light, so you often dive on the edges of the light extending out from the line, or below the last light on the line. You will often find squid hunting at the periphery - so good place to find subjects.

Virtually everyone diving and shooting (video or stills) on a muck dive will carry a muck stick. Actually, most guides carry two - the larger one (sometimes with measurements on them) and then a much smaller one (usually a small zip tie or rigid wire) to point out the truly tiny critters that can be found. We carry our muck sticks on almost every dive, regardless of the type of diving.

 

[Johnoly]

... If I missed something you're curious about let me know.

Dive Tanks.............
I'm guessing the resort has & you were using AL80 (11ltr) ?
Were steel tanks available?
What was your normal starting PSI & did you have any low fills?
Any wide variances in nitrox mix from day to day.

Great writeup and future resource for helping divers decide on trip details !!

 

[Centrals]

My personal experience in PG:
1. Bigger Al tank is available in some resorts at no extra cost.
2. Low fill never happens because it will be changed immediately.
3. The technician would had analyzed the nitrox tank first so highly unlikely.

 

[Sure Squintsalot]

The dive master used his to hold apart the feather stars so we could take pics of the shrimp inside. If you try to use your fingers to hold it open they have these little sticky tips that stick to your skin!

View attachment 836837
Here's one that stuck to R's leg (lots of backscatter) - they seemed to be more apt to stick to neoprene. This was the original reason I bought the muck stick - after pulling this off with my hand I was then pulling little bits of it off my hands!!

I had brought my microscope to Puerta Galera and took a look at a small end of a feather star, here, at around 200x and noticed that each arm of the star holds hundreds of individual arms, which in turn hold hundreds more tinier arms, which in turn hold dozens of tiny bristles in a cool Mandlebrotian pattern. I'll bet dollars to donuts that touching enough of these tiniest bristles set off an internal chemical cascade that makes them curl inward in an ever expanding spiral. At that micron scale, the bristles are small enough to find and grasp any similarly small defect on your skin, wetsuit, rash guard, whatever. They're not so much "sticky" as they are "grabby".

 

[DrPhilF]

Dive Tanks.............
I'm guessing the resort has & you were using AL80 (11ltr) ?
Were steel tanks available?

I lived in the Philippines and taught in several places. In my experience, 13l aluminum tanks are common in many dive shops and can be requested for an added fee. Steel tanks are quite uncommon. The few that I saw were personally owned and imported.

 

[Centrals]

I lived in the Philippines and taught in several places. In my experience, 13l aluminum tanks are common in many dive shops and can be requested for an added fee. Steel tanks are quite uncommon. The few that I saw were personally owned and imported.

Steel tank is not common but I do know one operator in Subic has it and there is No extra charge for using it.
One operator in PG has 13L Al at no extra charge.

 

[Kimela]

Dive Tanks.............
I'm guessing the resort has & you were using AL80 (11ltr) ?
Were steel tanks available?
What was your normal starting PSI & did you have any low fills?
Any wide variances in nitrox mix from day to day.

Great writeup and future resource for helping divers decide on trip details !!

We were using AL80s. My fills were anywhere from 2800 to 3200. I never heard anyone speak of steel tanks so I'm not sure. We didn't do our own testing (didn't bring our tester bc it needs a new sensor) but they put the % on a piece of masking tape on your tank. I don't remember it being more than 1% off from 32.