RikRaeder
Contributor
Mabuhay!
My gf and I just got back from Cebu (Maktan, actually) where we spent a busy three days diving. While in Maktan, we stayed at the luxurious yet affordable Plantation Bay Resort. It's a bit out of the way, but very nice indeed as a place to stay between dives. Room prices are much lower than one would expect, however food and beverages are 30-70% more than what one ("one" being me!) would expect to pay elsewhere (USD 8 for a very yummy cheeseburger, for example). It's a beautiful place with many amenities and I would certainly stay there again (most likely heading into town for cheap grubs). I highly recommend it to anyone who has the means. Hrmmmph.
We dove mostly on local reefs since our operator, El Aquario, was rather a rip off. We got a good package deal on airfare and hotel, and diving for two days. Their proffered prices for day three, however, were about DOUBLE the going rate so we said Sayonara (it caters to Japanese) and went elsewhere for our San Kai Mei (third time).
The weather was fair for the duration of our stay; partly cloudy with thundershowers at night and highs around 30C. Visibility on the house reefs was generally about 10m. The waters around Maktan were about 29C with a noticable yet comfortable thermocline around 15m which dropped the water temperature to about 28C. All of our dives were full service with deckhands doing all transportation, set up, etc. I prefer to set up my own rig, but it got a bit akward trying to battle through them to my gear so I finally put my feet up and relaxed, somehow, although I did make a point to check it all out before each dive. Divers usually disencumber themselves of everything but their wetsuits and hand their gear up to the deckhands before hitting the ladder, but after a couple of times of handling my weight integrated BC, they weren't even available to take my weight pouches after the second dive. Woe is me!
On the plus side for El Aquario, the bancas (outrigger boats) were not too crowded and the groups were nice and small; we maxed at four divers/dm and one day the gf and I had the whole boat, dm, three deckhands and captain all to ourselves. The guides were also very good at spotting interesting stuff and obviously knew the waters quite well. We averaged 45-50 minutes a dive (never less than 45).
Our first dive was at "Kontiki." Conditions were as above and we saw a pleothera of sea life, including a sea snake; very graceful, very beautiful. We drifted along a drop off at around 20m in a mild current and sighted many puffers of varying types, some Schultz's Pipefish, and my favorite, the seasnake (in the shallows).
After a short interval, we motored for about 10 minutes to "Marine Station" and explored at around 13m. Upon decending to the bottom, I saw an invisible fish! I don't know what to call it. It was boxy and small, maybe 5cm long. It had the basic composition of a jellyfish, but was definitely fish shaped (sans noticible fins or facial features). It seemed to have a proportionately large mouth that was working constantly open and closed. My guide looked at me like I was crazy when I asked about it, but I studied it for at least a minute before I had to catch up with my group. I know what I saw. The truth is down there!! Little help here? Anyone?
We also saw some sort of burrowing, yellow shrimp doing housecleaning on it's hole. That was fun to watch. Of course I didn't take my camera for the first day since I'd decided to focus on familiarizing myself with my new gear. Well, those are the breaks.
Our third dive was at "Coral Reef". Conditions were as per usual in the shallows, where our last two dives of the day took place (around 13m). The bottom was grassy with patches of white sand and there were some interesting rock formations and later corals developing as the gentle downslope led to deeper waters then a drop off. Shortly after submerging, we saw another yellow and black sea snake. We admired it from a distance, then swam from 5m to 13m depth to explore some more.
Believe it or not, the snake followed us! More specifically, it followed me!! Looking back after a few kicks, I saw it moving along with our group, which I was trailing. The next time I looked back, there it was still! We'd moved about 20m from where we first sighted it and when we stopped, it stopped, reared up a bit, and looked right at me from about 3m away. I got a bit nervous, but wasn't worried, yet. I sure did regret not having my camera, though. We were next to a large rock formation that overhung the sandy bottom slightly. As the rest of the group was eyeing this or that, I was keeping half an eye on our new companion. I was relieved when it headed under the overhang of the large rock. I'd decided that maybe we had spooked it, so it had moved to it's favorite hiding place. Yeah. That's it! It was hiding from us.
When we moved away, I looked back and the damned thing had swum around under the overhang and was once more following ME! It came to within nipping distance of my fin when I turned on the juice and got out of there. Turning again to look from about 5m distant, I saw that our guide was on his knees on the bottom pointing something out. I admit, I hadn't seen much of what he was showing since the blasted serpent decided to mess with my head. The snake had left me for the guide and I watched aghast as it swam between his legs from behind, then turned 90 degrees about 20cm from his nose. He tapped it in the mid-section gently with his probe and it took off. Geeze, did I feel brave.
Towards the end of our dive, as I was enjoying an unusual day of unusually good neutral buoyancy I got a big suprise. I was zooming over a sandy patch and looked down and back between my legs to check the effect of my frog kick just centimeters over the pristine bottom. As I looked up again, no doubt with quite a smug look on my face, I felt a burning sensation across my top lip. It continued to my right cheek and thereafter immediately along my bottom lip. I got my hand up fast to wipe away whatever it was but too late. The discomfort became pain and I almost gave up on the dive but it stopped getting worse, and was only agonizing. The best I can guess is that I took some kind of box jelly under the nose and it wrapped itself around my regulator mouthpiece. Note to self: don't kiss the box jelly. My gf took a hit in the neck, but hers wasn't so bad. Another diver got it in the hand and he was red and swollen the next day. Fortunately, my gf and I had no evidence of being stung and the pain receeded in a couple of hours.
Day 2 we dove "Greenhouse" to 24m, and "Tambuli" to 15m. Our Philippino guide, Oempa (Oompa) had great eyes and was really friendly, although his Japanese was much better than his English. My gf and I had the banca (plus dm, captain, and three deckhands) to ourselves since the other four Japanese divers had paid the 80 USD each to hit the nearby Helotongon Sanctuary. Again, walldiving at the 20m drop off followed by explorations of the shallows.
I've heard that the reefs around Maktan aren't so great, but conditions are good and there is an abundance of life in many varieties. Locations require a short boat ride, the water was very smooth, and there seems to be a nice wall running along the west side of the island.
We finished day two by rejoining our companions from day one at "Parker", diving to around 12m and enjoyed the same conditions and denziens as have been mentioned above. Parker is just off of El Aquario's locale and required a two-minute boat ride with a one-minute return trip. After our exit, the boat moved maybe 100m towards shore, then dropped anchor. The divers were sitting around waiting to be taken to the jetty as I dropped off the bow into about 70cm of water and waded 100m ashore. They finally caught on after I had my suit off and was cracking a beer on Aquario's veranda. I guess the boat diving specialty wasn't included in their AOW course.
While the operator offered the usual Japanese style prices, our erstwhile dive companions were uncommonly friendly, non-xenophobic, and weren't strutting around like they owned the joint. While one did carry a bit of a swagger since they were the AOW class, he was bearable (like a box jelly to the face). After all, with a whopping 25 dives to his credit, who could blame him. It was probably due to all those dives that he couldn't remember what specialties he'd worked on at the end of the day. Overall, it was a good group.
Another unexpected suprise was that my gf actually had pretty good control over her buoyancy and, dare I say it, trim! While she wasn't exactly Jaques Cousteau, neither was she a danger to herself and others, nor was she Ginger Rogers on the reef. Hurray for me! Maybe that was one of the things that made Cebu so enjoyable (besides the good conditions, beautiful hotel, daily massages which really made her butt, tsuru tsuru, or smooth). <--she wanted me to write that
My gf and I just got back from Cebu (Maktan, actually) where we spent a busy three days diving. While in Maktan, we stayed at the luxurious yet affordable Plantation Bay Resort. It's a bit out of the way, but very nice indeed as a place to stay between dives. Room prices are much lower than one would expect, however food and beverages are 30-70% more than what one ("one" being me!) would expect to pay elsewhere (USD 8 for a very yummy cheeseburger, for example). It's a beautiful place with many amenities and I would certainly stay there again (most likely heading into town for cheap grubs). I highly recommend it to anyone who has the means. Hrmmmph.
We dove mostly on local reefs since our operator, El Aquario, was rather a rip off. We got a good package deal on airfare and hotel, and diving for two days. Their proffered prices for day three, however, were about DOUBLE the going rate so we said Sayonara (it caters to Japanese) and went elsewhere for our San Kai Mei (third time).
The weather was fair for the duration of our stay; partly cloudy with thundershowers at night and highs around 30C. Visibility on the house reefs was generally about 10m. The waters around Maktan were about 29C with a noticable yet comfortable thermocline around 15m which dropped the water temperature to about 28C. All of our dives were full service with deckhands doing all transportation, set up, etc. I prefer to set up my own rig, but it got a bit akward trying to battle through them to my gear so I finally put my feet up and relaxed, somehow, although I did make a point to check it all out before each dive. Divers usually disencumber themselves of everything but their wetsuits and hand their gear up to the deckhands before hitting the ladder, but after a couple of times of handling my weight integrated BC, they weren't even available to take my weight pouches after the second dive. Woe is me!
On the plus side for El Aquario, the bancas (outrigger boats) were not too crowded and the groups were nice and small; we maxed at four divers/dm and one day the gf and I had the whole boat, dm, three deckhands and captain all to ourselves. The guides were also very good at spotting interesting stuff and obviously knew the waters quite well. We averaged 45-50 minutes a dive (never less than 45).
Our first dive was at "Kontiki." Conditions were as above and we saw a pleothera of sea life, including a sea snake; very graceful, very beautiful. We drifted along a drop off at around 20m in a mild current and sighted many puffers of varying types, some Schultz's Pipefish, and my favorite, the seasnake (in the shallows).
After a short interval, we motored for about 10 minutes to "Marine Station" and explored at around 13m. Upon decending to the bottom, I saw an invisible fish! I don't know what to call it. It was boxy and small, maybe 5cm long. It had the basic composition of a jellyfish, but was definitely fish shaped (sans noticible fins or facial features). It seemed to have a proportionately large mouth that was working constantly open and closed. My guide looked at me like I was crazy when I asked about it, but I studied it for at least a minute before I had to catch up with my group. I know what I saw. The truth is down there!! Little help here? Anyone?
We also saw some sort of burrowing, yellow shrimp doing housecleaning on it's hole. That was fun to watch. Of course I didn't take my camera for the first day since I'd decided to focus on familiarizing myself with my new gear. Well, those are the breaks.
Our third dive was at "Coral Reef". Conditions were as per usual in the shallows, where our last two dives of the day took place (around 13m). The bottom was grassy with patches of white sand and there were some interesting rock formations and later corals developing as the gentle downslope led to deeper waters then a drop off. Shortly after submerging, we saw another yellow and black sea snake. We admired it from a distance, then swam from 5m to 13m depth to explore some more.
Believe it or not, the snake followed us! More specifically, it followed me!! Looking back after a few kicks, I saw it moving along with our group, which I was trailing. The next time I looked back, there it was still! We'd moved about 20m from where we first sighted it and when we stopped, it stopped, reared up a bit, and looked right at me from about 3m away. I got a bit nervous, but wasn't worried, yet. I sure did regret not having my camera, though. We were next to a large rock formation that overhung the sandy bottom slightly. As the rest of the group was eyeing this or that, I was keeping half an eye on our new companion. I was relieved when it headed under the overhang of the large rock. I'd decided that maybe we had spooked it, so it had moved to it's favorite hiding place. Yeah. That's it! It was hiding from us.
When we moved away, I looked back and the damned thing had swum around under the overhang and was once more following ME! It came to within nipping distance of my fin when I turned on the juice and got out of there. Turning again to look from about 5m distant, I saw that our guide was on his knees on the bottom pointing something out. I admit, I hadn't seen much of what he was showing since the blasted serpent decided to mess with my head. The snake had left me for the guide and I watched aghast as it swam between his legs from behind, then turned 90 degrees about 20cm from his nose. He tapped it in the mid-section gently with his probe and it took off. Geeze, did I feel brave.
Towards the end of our dive, as I was enjoying an unusual day of unusually good neutral buoyancy I got a big suprise. I was zooming over a sandy patch and looked down and back between my legs to check the effect of my frog kick just centimeters over the pristine bottom. As I looked up again, no doubt with quite a smug look on my face, I felt a burning sensation across my top lip. It continued to my right cheek and thereafter immediately along my bottom lip. I got my hand up fast to wipe away whatever it was but too late. The discomfort became pain and I almost gave up on the dive but it stopped getting worse, and was only agonizing. The best I can guess is that I took some kind of box jelly under the nose and it wrapped itself around my regulator mouthpiece. Note to self: don't kiss the box jelly. My gf took a hit in the neck, but hers wasn't so bad. Another diver got it in the hand and he was red and swollen the next day. Fortunately, my gf and I had no evidence of being stung and the pain receeded in a couple of hours.
Day 2 we dove "Greenhouse" to 24m, and "Tambuli" to 15m. Our Philippino guide, Oempa (Oompa) had great eyes and was really friendly, although his Japanese was much better than his English. My gf and I had the banca (plus dm, captain, and three deckhands) to ourselves since the other four Japanese divers had paid the 80 USD each to hit the nearby Helotongon Sanctuary. Again, walldiving at the 20m drop off followed by explorations of the shallows.
I've heard that the reefs around Maktan aren't so great, but conditions are good and there is an abundance of life in many varieties. Locations require a short boat ride, the water was very smooth, and there seems to be a nice wall running along the west side of the island.
We finished day two by rejoining our companions from day one at "Parker", diving to around 12m and enjoyed the same conditions and denziens as have been mentioned above. Parker is just off of El Aquario's locale and required a two-minute boat ride with a one-minute return trip. After our exit, the boat moved maybe 100m towards shore, then dropped anchor. The divers were sitting around waiting to be taken to the jetty as I dropped off the bow into about 70cm of water and waded 100m ashore. They finally caught on after I had my suit off and was cracking a beer on Aquario's veranda. I guess the boat diving specialty wasn't included in their AOW course.
While the operator offered the usual Japanese style prices, our erstwhile dive companions were uncommonly friendly, non-xenophobic, and weren't strutting around like they owned the joint. While one did carry a bit of a swagger since they were the AOW class, he was bearable (like a box jelly to the face). After all, with a whopping 25 dives to his credit, who could blame him. It was probably due to all those dives that he couldn't remember what specialties he'd worked on at the end of the day. Overall, it was a good group.
Another unexpected suprise was that my gf actually had pretty good control over her buoyancy and, dare I say it, trim! While she wasn't exactly Jaques Cousteau, neither was she a danger to herself and others, nor was she Ginger Rogers on the reef. Hurray for me! Maybe that was one of the things that made Cebu so enjoyable (besides the good conditions, beautiful hotel, daily massages which really made her butt, tsuru tsuru, or smooth). <--she wanted me to write that
) huge variety, and best of all the prices are right! I certainly give Philippine diving a thumbs down! (Divers: you know what I mean)
