Trip Report- El Galleon/Asia Divers in Puerto Galera/Sabang in March 2014

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WOODMAN

Contributor
Messages
883
Reaction score
173
Location
Minneapolis area, Minnesota
# of dives
500 - 999
Well, here it is, as promised. My report and impressions from my recent dive trip to El Galleon/Asia divers. But first, a little housekeeping: First off, as many of you know, my reports are long and (some say) insanely detailed, so if that puts you off, be warned. Second, from this point on I shall refer to the place as Sabang. I know everyone calls it Puerto Galera, or PG for short, but that is actually a town about 1/2 hour jeepney ride south of this area, and this place is properly called Sabang, so that's what I am gonna call it. If that bothers you, you may go pound sand.:D Lastly, please realize that this was my first trip to Sabang, and as such it was my first exposure to this unique place. I tried to be accurate and objective in my observations, but if any of you seasoned veterans of the area find fault with any of my statements, please cut me some slack. Sabang is a complicated place, but I tried to do justice to it. Now, if none of all that puts you off, then let's go exploring...:)
The trip over was uneventful- we used Delta via Tokyo, and the optional 'comfort seating' we opted for was really nice, with 4" more legroom, among other things. We got into Manila at midnight, and used the Remington hotel to crash until morning. Pretty generic chain hotel, but good enough for a few hours rest, and they included free breakfast. This was at "Hawker's Market", and I was a little apprehensive about this, not having any idea what or where this might be. It turns out that this is a restaurant on the main floor of the hotel which is basically a breakfast buffet, but oh man- what a buffet! This was easily the biggest breakfast buffet I have ever seen, with dozens of hot entrees of both western and asian persuasion, with several Philippine entries thrown in. Lots of cold stuff, breads and cereals and fruits, and don't get me started on the dessert items! Various hot soups and congee with all the fixings also! Incredible! If you couldn't find something to your taste there, then you have serious issues. Be sure to get an entrance ticket for each diner when you check in, however, as everyone needs his own.
After we stuffed ourselves, we were picked up by the private transfer arranged by the resort, and driven down to Batangas. Our driver was pretty aggressive, and passed everything like it was standing still. Traffic got terribly snarled when we neared Batangas, but he seemed to know every back alley and shortcut in the place, and dodged around most of the mess, We were delivered to the private marina a ways east of Batangas which all the big resorts seem to use, and were handed off to the large transport banca which was waiting for us. This was much bigger that the little dive bancas, and completely enclosed and roofed and could hold about 20 passengers, although we were the only customers on this trip. This carried us across the channel in about an hours voyage, and delivered us to the private dock which is the only private dock in Sabang. I first thought this dock was a big advantage, but I soon learned that bancas and docks do not play well, due to those big outriggers on both sides that prevent you from siding up to a dock. You are reduced to nosing the boat up to the dock and then stepping (or crawling) over that nose onto the dock. Add in that both the boat and dock were pitching and moving up and down, and this made for some rather entertaining boat entries and exits. Oh well, nobody actually fell, but a couple of us came really close. :no: They collected all our luggage and carted it up to the reception desk, which was at the back of the large open air restaurant behind the restaurant bar. Check in was a breeze, and we were escorted up to our room. We had a poolside deluxe room, which was on the second floor of the two tier semicircle of rooms surrounding the small but nice pool. The room was small, but I knew this going in. There was a full sized bed and a large armoire to put all our clothes and junk in. There was an electronic safe in the armoire, and a small fridge and a TV. The fridge was half full of drinks and snacks for sale, but there was enough room for our own drinks and such, and we never used their snacks. A private bathroom was up a short flight of stairs, with sink, toilet and shower. Hot water was very pokey in the morning, but once it arrived it came with a vengeance. The room had good air conditioning, and we used the balcony railing outside our door to dry off our suits and towels, etc.
We had the breakfast only plan, and breakfast was a small buffet with a cook to do eggs & grilled sausages and meats for you. She also would slice up fresh mangos and such on request, and there were little filled croissant rolls and breads for toasting. along with juices, cereals, and the everpresent congee. Lunch and dinner were extra, and we did order some from the menu at times. The food was very good, but a little expensive. We found that there were a myriad of other restaurant options, and a 10-15 min walk along the beach to the east put you into central Sabang, where things were generally cheaper. Sabang is a honeycomb of little alleys and walkways, almost none of which could support vehicular traffic. It reminded me strongly of the older chinatowns, and I will upload a gallery of Sabang pictures here later when I get time. We explored a lot, but didn't see all of it. There were several alleys that went east and west from the main road that split Sabang in two from the municipal dock to up the hill and out of town (and about the only one which could support cars), with shops and restaurants and such densely lining all of them.
Much has been made of the "girly bars" which Sabang is supposedly famous for, but we found this stuff pretty much contained to one alley which ran parallel to the beach behind the beachfront resorts and diveshops, and a few noisy floating bars which were anchored out in the harbor and ran constant little shuttle boats back and forth after it got dark. There were several beachfront bars also, but these looked more conventional. If you didn't go back in there where they were, you really wouldn't notice them, and they didn't bother anyone just passing by anyway. One of my favorite restaurants was back in close to them, but I never had a problem. It got pretty loud back in there at night, but few traces were noted over at our resort, which was very quiet. There were more resorts and diveshops off to the west from El Galleon, with a few really nice restaurants there also. There was another beach with even more resorts and such around the point off to the west, but we never penetrated over there so I can't comment on that area.
End of part one.
 
Let me talk about food for a little while. Food was generally more expensive here than, say, Batangas or Manila, but many others have noted this also, and there are lots of cheaper options available if you look for them. A place I found buried in central Sabang did a knockout fried rice (molded into a large square brick with a fried egg on top, which seems to be the Philippine custom) for about 150 pesos. There were also innumerable sari-saris, which are tiny little convenience stores (some no bigger that 6 feet by 6 feet) which sold snacks, sundries and water. Water is always at a premium here, and is almost never free. You are better served by buying a 4 or 6 liter bottle of purified water (about 65-80 pesos, respectively) and keeping it in your room and then saving and refilling those multiple plastic 500cc bottles you seem to accumulate and popping them in your fridge. I also bought big bottles of soda and did the same thing. Much cheaper.:eyebrow: As to particular restaurants, far to the west is the Full Moon restaurant, which is superb and boasts a truly diverse menu, with entries from many countries and cultures, including Italian, German, British, Chinese, and of course, Philippine. My wife Judy had chicken alfredo, for example, and she pronounced it some of the best she had ever had. The excellent lumpia springrolls came with interesting dipping sauces, and a large scoop of incredible philippine coleslaw, which had a sweetened creamy dressing with raisins, shredded carrots, and cubed cream cheese. Wow! Noticeably cheaper overall than El Galleon, also. Next door to the resort was the Blue Ribbon resort, which also had an excellent restaurant with many, many offerings. Here we discovered Bulalo, which is a Philippine institution, and is essentially beef soup on steroids. They simmer large beef leg bone chunks still covered with meat for hours, and then serve it up to you in a large pot, bone and all, along with several local vegetables they throw in at the end. Easily enough for two people, if you don't mind digging off all that delicious meat yourself. We also liked Rudolph's Gastropub, which was in the Tropicana Castle hotel right in the middle of downtown Sabang, and about a block or two up the main road from the pier. Relatively inexpensive, and they did a mean Pancit Bihon, which is another Philippine standby, but our favorite was a Korean dish called Chap Chae. This was shredded beef and veggies with Korean cellophane noodles in a sauce that I won't even try to describe. :drooling: We had it made without the hot chili paste, however, as we can't take much heat in our food. They were only too eager to comply, and the stuff was wonderful. They also made REAL iced tea for Judy, not the powdered Nestea c--- you get everywhere over there, and served it with brown sugar (!) Judy pronounced it the best she had gotten in the Philippines.
Special mention must also be made of Tina's Restaurant, which is way over on the east end of the beach of Sabang harbour, and sort of off the beaten track. It seems to be a favorite with backpackers and such, and I can see why. The food is extremely good with large portions, and about half the price (or less) of a lot of places farther to the west on the beach. I especially liked their soups, and a large bowl (easily big enough for two) of excellent chicken vegetable soup with lots of cellophane noodles was 125 pesos.:shocked2: That's less than $3 US, given current exchange rates. There were also a couple of bakeries and such we liked, one of which sold interesting Philippine fresh baked cookies for about 2 cents US each, and there were lots of streetside vendors selling everything from hot dogs and hamburgers to who knows what, all grilled up right in front of you. The best bet for snacks and sundries was a large store on the corner of the main street and the alley which went back towards the girly bars, and they had the largest selection of everything at some of the lowest prices I found down there. As to booze, you will find that alcoholic beverages are some of the cheapest things you can get over here. I brought a couple of liter bottles of 5 year aged locally made dark rum and a liter of "White Castle", which is a locally made blended and aged whiskey back for my neighbors, and the total for the 3 bottles was about $10 US!:crazyeye: I don't drink, but the neighbor I gave the whiskey to said it was incredibly smooth and reminded him of Crown Royal(!) There are also innumerable street hawkers who are selling everything from genuine Rolex watches:no:, to strings of pearls of uncertain origin, to postcards, music players, etc, etc, etc. They are everywhere on the beach, and you have to be careful at some of the restaurants not to sit too close to the front by the beach, as they will sometimes lean in and try to hit you up until the management chases them off.
End of part 2
 
But enough on all that- on to the diving! We used Asia Divers, which is the in-house diveshop at El Galleon, and easily the biggest and most professional-looking outfit down here. They have several dive boats, including at least 4 large dive bancas and a couple of western style motor launches with twin 115 merc outboards on the back, and complete suncovers. These were much faster than the bancas, but they tended to reserve these for trips to Verde island, which is a special destination not far away. The operation is extensive, and has it's base, repair shop and dive store on the shore, with most of the rest out on the dock. The compressor room is also on the shore next to the dive shop, and is impressive. It sits in a glass walled enclosure with lots of vents, and has multiple compressors, motors, filters and whatnot out in full display in what is almost a surgically clean operating area. I've never seen anything like it, and it's sure a far cry from the compressor rooms I have seen elsewhere. DandyDon would love this place.:eyebrow:
They have a huge locking storage shed out on the dock for all our gear, with a very large open area with benches out in front of it for gearing up and wandering around. There are also 2 enormous drying racks out there for wetsuits and such, with plenty of hangers available. There is a fresh water shower off to the side of the gearing up area, and a large fresh water tank for rinsing wetsuits and gear. The camera tank is separate, and over by the wall of the shed with maps and chalkboards hung next to it. The chalkboard lists who is diving when, and with who else, and on which boat, and with which divemaster, and the tenative dive site. You make your wishes known to the dockmaster and your divemaster, and they do their best to accommodate you. Several times we had the banca and divemaster to ourselves, but it was never more than 6 divers to a boat. They try to keep the same divemaster with the same divers when possible, which is always appreciated. They have a large counter in the diveshed which is nice for basic gear manipulation, such as changing camera batteries, and a much larger dedicated camera room back on shore up next to the Point bar, and this has air jets, multiple plug outlets for charging (Even some 110 volt outlets were available here. Everything else is 220v outlets, as is the norm here in the Philippines), and a few computers for those who didn't bring their own. Very nice. (A quick aside- WIFI is available here for free, but it is pretty slow and only reaches as far as the restaurant tables. Ask for the codewords when you check in) They had lots of aluminum 80cf tanks, along with a few 60cf tanks, and also several 100cf tanks, which are not common in the Philippines. Nitrox was also readily available.
The weather was not too cooperative for the first half of our stay, with rain and winds making diving difficult, and those bancas are not easy to get in and out of at dockside when they are bouncing around like mad, as I have previously noted. Currents were quite variable, and as usual, surface current was often very different from that at depth. Once I backrolled in, and the surface current was so strong that it snatched me away from the boat so fast that they had to bring the boat around and come back just to give me my camera. Visibility was generally rather murky, which went along with the weather, and water temps were around 76-80 degrees for most of our trip. The weather got better and the temps started coming up towards the last of our trip, which is par for the course.:coffee:
There are about 30 named divesites out along the Sabang coast, with several out in the Sabang harbor. I will not try to list all of them here, but a few deserve special mention. The Boatyard, over around the far western edge of the headland and in a protected channel across from the Coral Cove resort was full of macro stuff, and was similar to the town pier over at Anilao. It made a superb night dive, and several prizewinning photos have come out of here. Lots of leafy sea dragons, which my divemaster Reuben was adept at spotting, and several nice frogfish and scorpionfish. Over on the other side of the same area are the giant clam beds, which are always popular. Around the eastern side of the Sabang area are several more sites, including Monkey Beach, Hole in the Wall, and The Boulders (one of my favorites). These are typical coral reefs which are open to pelagic depths, and anything can swim in from out there. We had reports of thresher sharks visiting these areas a few weeks earlier, but we saw none of that. We did see turtles, lots of the usual tropical fish, eels, and several banded sea snakes. One of those guys had to be 8 feet long! And of course, nudibranchs. They were not as plentiful as at Anilao last year, but there were still a lot of them, in their usual myriad shapes and colors. We also saw the biggest nudibranchs I have ever encountered, and those fellows must have been 8" long.
Mention must be made of the wrecks. There are several of them scattered about, but the good ones are rather deep. The biggest is the Alma Jane, which is right out in front of the resort and sitting in about 90-100 feet of water. There are others even deeper, but we didn't bother with those. Much shallower and more accessible are the Sabang Wrecks, which are 3 badly battered and sort of small wrecks right out in the harbor and not far from the anchored girly bars. Lots of nice activity on these wrecks, and they make a delightful night dive. I saw my first stargazer here, which was a blast. They are pretty close together, so you can do all three on one dive rather easily.
And then we have Verde Island. Everyone says you have to get out to Verde at lease once, and I have to agree. The water clarity is the best in the area, and it is incredibly nice for wide angle photography. It is also about the fishiest place I found here, with an immensely diverse population everywhere around you. But, the currents are very unpredictable and can be very strong, and it is not really a place for close-up photography. You tend to get pulled around a lot, and while it is usually manageable, the potential for wild rides is always there, especially if you let it snatch you away from the walls. One spot that I knew was going to be trouble had several Jacks wheeling and soaring over it, reveling in the current. The place can be a lot of fun, but be warned. Asia Divers always goes to the east end of the island, to a site called Pinnacles. They do this as a 2 dive trip, with one dive on one side of the site, a surface interval on the beach, and a second dive on the other side of the site. They say this works out the best for everyone. Everywhere else they come back to the dock between dives, as the sites are not really that far apart. You can relax over at the restaurant with a cup of tea, which beats a lot of surface intervals I have done.
So there you have it. My impressions of the Sabang dive experience. Please forgive the length, but this is a complex place with lots of data to cover. I hope this proves useful to those of you who are coming here for the first time, and I trust those Sabang veterans who read this are not too badly miffed by my opinions. This is the way we saw it, and YMMV. Until next time-
 
Thanks for the vivid description: it's almost as good as going back there ourselves. You did a great job of restaurant-spotting. Excellent guidance all round.
 
A very detailed report, thank you Woody. I believe you replied to my trip report earlier this year, but you have filled in many details which I omitted; nice job. Based on your (weather related) observations, my own in January, and others we have spoken with, I believe the best time to visit this area and/or other parts of the Philippines might be April, May, or June. I would be interested in what others have to say on this, as I would like to make a return trip (which would be our 2nd) to dive destinations in the Philippines. We are going to Scuba Show in Long Beach this June and looking for deals.
 
In Sabang/PG May is the hottest/most humid month, June is start of wet season and can be subject to low pressure/typhoon activity, and usually the quitest month for tourism. The 'high season' is Nov-Mar when it's less humid and fairly dry. Water is cooler (24C) but also best viz.
 
In Sabang/PG May is the hottest/most humid month, June is start of wet season and can be subject to low pressure/typhoon activity, and usually the quitest month for tourism. The 'high season' is Nov-Mar when it's less humid and fairly dry. Water is cooler (24C) but also best viz.

My only trip to PG and Dauin was back in January and this was my first trip to the Philippines so I'm not an expert. This January was unusually cold (according to dive staff at each resort we visited). There was a low pressure disturbance further south which impacted conditions. In PG, it was too windy to make the trip to Verde Island. Except for that, the diving was fantastic and my wife and I would like to return to the Philippines for another dive trip. Some of the dive shop staff also told us that conditions can be very nice for at least 2 months after the high season, i.e. April, May, and the water a bit warmer. On our January trip, the water was down to 23C a for a couple of days; also lots of clouds. After the low pressure area finally moved off (it took forever), the conditions improved; they were best in Dauin where the water temp was 25 to 26. My wife wore a 5 mil suit the entire time, and was still cold when it was 23C. I got by with my 3 mil suit, but did rent a shorty to put over it for the coolest days. I pass this info along for what it's worth (I also did a report on 2/11 of my trip). I guess my wife and I are sort of wimps when it comes to water temp. However, I used to dive the Northern California coast regularly with a 7 mil. This was comfortable, but vis usually poor; 15 feet was considered good.
 
Yes I was also in the Philippines in January when it was freezing cold , wet and windy. This was part of much longed for sabbatical from work ....so after about 10 days I jumped onto a plane to Thailand for some Sun. I agree that the diving was superb in Balicasag and Apo. I would avoid January in future.
 
The operation is extensive, and has it's base, repair shop and dive store on the shore, with most of the rest out on the dock. The compressor room is also on the shore next to the dive shop, and is impressive. It sits in a glass walled enclosure with lots of vents, and has multiple compressors, motors, filters and whatnot out in full display in what is almost a surgically clean operating area. I've never seen anything like it, and it's sure a far cry from the compressor rooms I have seen elsewhere.

Is this the same as Tech Asia? The description matches. I was very impressed with their setup.
 
Is this the same as Tech Asia? The description matches. I was very impressed with their setup.

Tech Asia is an offshoot from Asia Divers, and deals with the more complex needs of the tech diver. They are up for just about everything, and their equipment adjustment and repair room looks like a machine shop.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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