Let me first set the context for this report. The diving I've done has been mostly Caribbean with Hawaii, the Maldives and Socorro Islands as non-Caribbean trips. As I read posts here on the Philippines, I would say that Moalboal has lots to offer and is great in many areas, but may not be tops in any one category: Macro, big stuff, coral, walls, viz, etc. I do believe that for our LDS and my wife and me as divers, this trip was the best ever for the reasons stated below. Let's back up and start at the beginning. Writing trip reports is what I do when I am waking up at 4:30 am due to time zone changes, so this may be long. It's 8 degrees in Chicago and I'm trying to avoid walking the dogs until 6:30 am.
The Flight and arrival: How can you not love Cathay Pacific when you had enough miles to fly business class? Chicago to Hong Kong, stayed overnight at the Marriott nearby, free shuttle and perfect for one night. Left the next morning for about a 3 hour flight to Cebu City. Hong Kong airport is a great experience, one huge mall with tons to eat. Easy to get around. The business class lounges are a treat. The airport in Cebu City is easy to navigate and our ride was waiting for us, my wife, me, and two others from our group. Driving through Cebu City is, well, nuts. Two lane road used by 5 lanes of traffic. Motorcycles with 5 people stuffed on them, bikes with side cars and 8 people stuffed in, small, medium and large buses, and the yellow lines in the road are "advisory only" or so it seems. Dogs, kids, goats, cats, all of humankind are right on the sides of the road and you're convinced that any second you're going to hit them all. One of our group got car sick and made the last hour of the 3 hour drive to the resort intriguing.
The Resort:
Greeted at the entrance by the owners, Arie and Desiree, and the "chief of staff, Concheng, we received warm welcomes, refreshing drinks and met many of the staff. The rest of our group arrived at 2:30 am two nights later and received the exact same welcome. The staff were there at 2:30 am just the same as 3:30 pm for us.
Our room was wonderful with a four poster king bed, a desk, two night tables, a nice bathroom, and plenty of room to leave suitcases. etc. The outlets are US style with 220 volt electricity. There is a total of 10 cottages, so our 21 took the entire resort.
The resort was simply stunning. 9 years old and it could pass for newly built. The cottages ring the pool and the bar area. There are dozens of places to sit looking out at the ocean with nice comfy couches and chairs. The bar is perfect with a few tables and comfy chairs and comfy, padded stools at the bar. This is not a dive resort, it is a small, tropical, beautiful resort with diving.
Food: Breakfast is cooked to order, lunch and dinner are served family style. Vegetarians received amazingly well conceived meals that were just delicious. Glutton free cooking was easily accommodated. For the rest of us, every meal was a treat. Again, this was not good food for a diving trip where you would eat almost anything and say it was good, this was really great food. These opinions were unanimously
shared by all of our LDS group.
The staff: They spent the first day learning your names and used them throughout the trip. We voted this the best service we've ever had and there was nothing the staff wouldn't do for us. Example: one of our couples was up on their porch at 5:45 am watching the sun come up and chilling. Day staff arrive at 6 am. As one of the women arrived for her day, she was passing the couple, asked if they wanted their usual coffee and latte and then placed the order at the kitchen, dropped off her bag and grabbed her name tag and then brought the coffee and latte to their porch. All before really starting her day. We simply loved the staff.
The diving: Ok, mostly this is what you want to read, or you've already fallen asleep reading the preamble. Bummer alert: A rare typhoon made a direct hit at Moalboal's waterfront the night before we arrived. Result, 10-15 foot visibility...similar to our training quarry here in the Chicago area. Our first day we did 3 shore dives, one was to see the Mandarin fish mating. To say we were blown away by the poor viz would be an understatement. The shore diving is quite good in that you can get to the reef in about 100 to 150 yards and it's a good wall, while the flats to the wall has good stuff, especially for night dives. The next morning we did an attitude adjustment and chanted together, "You only need 10 feet to see all you want to see on a wall". This was true and the viz slowly improved to about 50 feet when we departed. First dive of the day had the best viz, afternoon dive after 3:00 pm had the worst due to light fading.
What did we see: For us it was our first sight of amazing soft corral formations of multiple colors, huge sea fans in perfect shape, wonderful, hard corral on the top of the walls for great safety stops and acres of table corral and stag horn coral with "billions" of different colored fish darting in and out. For our mostly Caribbean divers, it was a wonderland of coral colors, formations, and variety.
Fish: Some macro nudis, interesting small crabs, shrimp and fish. Sea snakes, blue ringed octopus, tons of anemone fish of many colors, lots of other fish that I'm still using my book to identify. Not a macro heaven, but plenty to hunt and find. Night dives were a treat with bizarre decorator crabs, cuddle fish, octopus, etc. We found the fish life plentiful and varied.
The sardines: A football field long cloud overhead meant, there they were. Jacks and tuna darting in and out trying to score, and just tons and tons of sardines. The safety stop was amazing because you just couldn't believe that they weren't going to smash into you at any minute.
Pescador Island: I liked the East-South route better than the cave route. It just seemed to have more life and better viz. As a night dive, just very cool with life crawling around everywhere.
Dive operations: The schedule was two morning dives with a surface interval usually at White beach which had huts and folks selling tons of stuff. One afternoon dive and then either a Mandarin dusk to night dive or a night dive. Unlimited shore diving which was well worth it. The boats are the small narrow type with the stabilizers on each side. Much more comfortable than it looks and easy back roll entry. We had max of 8 on each boat with a third with four. The dive center provides each diver a space for BC, reg and wetsuit with a basket underneath for additional storage. Dive guide knew the area. Great personalities. The only concerns were that maybe the guides tried too hard to position things for sight and photo and I prefer no touch. A shot not taken to avoid touching is a good shot. I did signal a few times to our wonderful guide, leave it alone, I'll live without the shot.
Conclusion: In discussions with our group, almost all said it was their best dive trip ever and many said it was their best vacation ever. It really is a dive trip wrapped inside a beautiful, relaxing vacation. I would recommend this resort to anyone, but strongly recommend it for local dive shop trips. They do a brisk group business, so individuals or couples might get caught is a group thing. However, we did have a few couples there when we arrived before the rest of the group and they were great and spoke very highly of their stay. For groups with a variety of diving preferences and skills, this is perfect. The owners are building a second resort on Bohol to begin operations in late 2015. They said this will have more varied diving with muck diving options a long boat ride away. We will seriously consider this for a future trip.
A few pictures for your perusal.
Rob
The Flight and arrival: How can you not love Cathay Pacific when you had enough miles to fly business class? Chicago to Hong Kong, stayed overnight at the Marriott nearby, free shuttle and perfect for one night. Left the next morning for about a 3 hour flight to Cebu City. Hong Kong airport is a great experience, one huge mall with tons to eat. Easy to get around. The business class lounges are a treat. The airport in Cebu City is easy to navigate and our ride was waiting for us, my wife, me, and two others from our group. Driving through Cebu City is, well, nuts. Two lane road used by 5 lanes of traffic. Motorcycles with 5 people stuffed on them, bikes with side cars and 8 people stuffed in, small, medium and large buses, and the yellow lines in the road are "advisory only" or so it seems. Dogs, kids, goats, cats, all of humankind are right on the sides of the road and you're convinced that any second you're going to hit them all. One of our group got car sick and made the last hour of the 3 hour drive to the resort intriguing.
The Resort:
Greeted at the entrance by the owners, Arie and Desiree, and the "chief of staff, Concheng, we received warm welcomes, refreshing drinks and met many of the staff. The rest of our group arrived at 2:30 am two nights later and received the exact same welcome. The staff were there at 2:30 am just the same as 3:30 pm for us.
Our room was wonderful with a four poster king bed, a desk, two night tables, a nice bathroom, and plenty of room to leave suitcases. etc. The outlets are US style with 220 volt electricity. There is a total of 10 cottages, so our 21 took the entire resort.
The resort was simply stunning. 9 years old and it could pass for newly built. The cottages ring the pool and the bar area. There are dozens of places to sit looking out at the ocean with nice comfy couches and chairs. The bar is perfect with a few tables and comfy chairs and comfy, padded stools at the bar. This is not a dive resort, it is a small, tropical, beautiful resort with diving.
Food: Breakfast is cooked to order, lunch and dinner are served family style. Vegetarians received amazingly well conceived meals that were just delicious. Glutton free cooking was easily accommodated. For the rest of us, every meal was a treat. Again, this was not good food for a diving trip where you would eat almost anything and say it was good, this was really great food. These opinions were unanimously
shared by all of our LDS group.
The staff: They spent the first day learning your names and used them throughout the trip. We voted this the best service we've ever had and there was nothing the staff wouldn't do for us. Example: one of our couples was up on their porch at 5:45 am watching the sun come up and chilling. Day staff arrive at 6 am. As one of the women arrived for her day, she was passing the couple, asked if they wanted their usual coffee and latte and then placed the order at the kitchen, dropped off her bag and grabbed her name tag and then brought the coffee and latte to their porch. All before really starting her day. We simply loved the staff.
The diving: Ok, mostly this is what you want to read, or you've already fallen asleep reading the preamble. Bummer alert: A rare typhoon made a direct hit at Moalboal's waterfront the night before we arrived. Result, 10-15 foot visibility...similar to our training quarry here in the Chicago area. Our first day we did 3 shore dives, one was to see the Mandarin fish mating. To say we were blown away by the poor viz would be an understatement. The shore diving is quite good in that you can get to the reef in about 100 to 150 yards and it's a good wall, while the flats to the wall has good stuff, especially for night dives. The next morning we did an attitude adjustment and chanted together, "You only need 10 feet to see all you want to see on a wall". This was true and the viz slowly improved to about 50 feet when we departed. First dive of the day had the best viz, afternoon dive after 3:00 pm had the worst due to light fading.
What did we see: For us it was our first sight of amazing soft corral formations of multiple colors, huge sea fans in perfect shape, wonderful, hard corral on the top of the walls for great safety stops and acres of table corral and stag horn coral with "billions" of different colored fish darting in and out. For our mostly Caribbean divers, it was a wonderland of coral colors, formations, and variety.
Fish: Some macro nudis, interesting small crabs, shrimp and fish. Sea snakes, blue ringed octopus, tons of anemone fish of many colors, lots of other fish that I'm still using my book to identify. Not a macro heaven, but plenty to hunt and find. Night dives were a treat with bizarre decorator crabs, cuddle fish, octopus, etc. We found the fish life plentiful and varied.
The sardines: A football field long cloud overhead meant, there they were. Jacks and tuna darting in and out trying to score, and just tons and tons of sardines. The safety stop was amazing because you just couldn't believe that they weren't going to smash into you at any minute.
Pescador Island: I liked the East-South route better than the cave route. It just seemed to have more life and better viz. As a night dive, just very cool with life crawling around everywhere.
Dive operations: The schedule was two morning dives with a surface interval usually at White beach which had huts and folks selling tons of stuff. One afternoon dive and then either a Mandarin dusk to night dive or a night dive. Unlimited shore diving which was well worth it. The boats are the small narrow type with the stabilizers on each side. Much more comfortable than it looks and easy back roll entry. We had max of 8 on each boat with a third with four. The dive center provides each diver a space for BC, reg and wetsuit with a basket underneath for additional storage. Dive guide knew the area. Great personalities. The only concerns were that maybe the guides tried too hard to position things for sight and photo and I prefer no touch. A shot not taken to avoid touching is a good shot. I did signal a few times to our wonderful guide, leave it alone, I'll live without the shot.
Conclusion: In discussions with our group, almost all said it was their best dive trip ever and many said it was their best vacation ever. It really is a dive trip wrapped inside a beautiful, relaxing vacation. I would recommend this resort to anyone, but strongly recommend it for local dive shop trips. They do a brisk group business, so individuals or couples might get caught is a group thing. However, we did have a few couples there when we arrived before the rest of the group and they were great and spoke very highly of their stay. For groups with a variety of diving preferences and skills, this is perfect. The owners are building a second resort on Bohol to begin operations in late 2015. They said this will have more varied diving with muck diving options a long boat ride away. We will seriously consider this for a future trip.
A few pictures for your perusal.
Rob
