Trip Report Trip Report-Philippines-Puerto Galera-El Galleon/Asia Divers-April 1-14, 2019

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I enjoyed the Alma Jane. One dive I did the Alma Jane and my deep dive afterwards.
 
After looking out for the thresher shark, you should turn round to the wall in Kelimar Step. Heap of various nudis + pygmy seahorse(queue of divers).
You keep beating me to the punch. Just did Kilima a couple hours ago- The thresher shark is gone, but we did see a pilot whale in the same area today (from the surface).
 
You should try again early in the morning over next couple of days. Nitrox 32 and a big 13L tank would be useful.
Improved viz = no plankton = no food for the small fish = no food for the thresher shark.

A lot of people would have mistaken pilot whale with dolphin!

Ask about Chicken Feather Island for the underwater hot spring. You should be able to spot the island from the restaurant if you look out at 11 o'clock. There is a light house on the Island.

The underwater hot spring at Chicken Feather Island is where you can experience small streams of hot water flowing out of volcanic cracks.
 
Hey, @Trailboss123! Glad to know you are having a great time. We were floored by the food as well and took full advantage of the full board option.

Bummer to hear the concierge diving doesn’t sound like it’s living up to your expectations. When we were there, all we were responsible for was our mask and computer. Everything else was taken care of for us. Just walk on and off boat. They catch you coming off boat from last dive to analyze nitrox before your SI and meal/snack. We did rinse our own gear with the help of the staff on our last day.

I won’t have WiFi for the next week and a half but look forward to reading the rest of your report soon!
 
@outofofficebrb

Sorong and cap coon krap fo da fish :rofl3:

See you in Singapore in less than 2 weeks

Apologies for the hijack Trailboss, enjoying your write-up :)
 
Day 4 dawned to another very calm day. Flat seas and sunny skies. We headed out on the first dive to Sanindigan Wall which we had done on day 1 and I was excited to get back there. Definitely my favorite site so far. The structure and height of the wall combined with a plethora of nudibranchs of all shapes, sizes and varieties makes for a stunning dive. The site has been very relaxing to dive with no currents to speak of. Along with all of the usual critters from the dive 4 days ago, on this dive, I saw my first ribbon eel and cuttlefish ever. Both were real highlights, but I didn’t capture any pictures worthy of posting. Upon surfacing, we spotted what everyone believes was a pilot whale. There has been numerous sightings of a Thresher Shark in the same area over the last few months, but most of the DM’s believe it has moved on recently. Dive 2 took us back over to the same general vicinity but to a new dive site called Kilima and Kilima Steps. It was a nice relaxing dive. Whereas visibility was improved over day one in this same area, there is still a lot of algae bloom in the water that is impacting visibility.

I really enjoy the close proximity of the dive sites and coming back to the resort between dives. So much more relaxing and enjoyable than sitting on a boat for a 1 hour surface interval. You can go to your room, lay down if you want, recharge battery lights, etc. After lunch we went back out for dive 3 to La Laguna Point which was a brilliant dive site. We started out cruising around the sand and checking out coral heads in 60 feet and then made our way up to a very lush reef where the current picked up going around the point. We were cruising along at a good but enjoyable clip and then wrapped around the point and immediately out of the current and back to calm conditions. Highlights were a huge black frogfish (pretty impossible for me to get a coherent picture of, but was awesome), a quite large cuttlefish and an electric eel. I also got some nice photos of clown fish wiggling about in an anemone.

Dive 4 was the first muck dive of the trip. We went around into the channel area to a dive site that is not named and mucked about in 15-30 feet of water looking at all of the tiniest of creatures for which my camera set up is not quite capable of capturing images well of critters that small. All in all a wonderful day. Dives 3 and 4 on the west side definitely have better visibility and less algae bloom than the east side dive sites currently.
 
Hey, @Trailboss123! Glad to know you are having a great time. We were floored by the food as well and took full advantage of the full board option.

Bummer to hear the concierge diving doesn’t sound like it’s living up to your expectations. When we were there, all we were responsible for was our mask and computer. Everything else was taken care of for us. Just walk on and off boat. They catch you coming off boat from last dive to analyze nitrox before your SI and meal/snack. We did rinse our own gear with the help of the staff on our last day.

I won’t have WiFi for the next week and a half but look forward to reading the rest of your report soon!
I probably should have waited another day before posting anything definitive on the issue of valet/concierge diving. Probably one of the pitfalls to doing a daily report versus "post" report. Can be easy to rush to judgment before letting things play out a bit.

They are absolutely doing a wonderful job and everything is on the boat waiting for us each morning and our wetsuits are placed out conveniently for us to get in them. At the end of the day, we basically are just walking off of the boat now with our computers, camera, fins and mask. Everything else is taken care of. Only pet peeve and something I will speak to someone about is a need for a proper orientation upon arrival as to how things work. Same thing happened yesterday to a new young couple that arrived for day one of diving on a 9 day package. They got no orientation and I could see them struggling with how things functioned- so, I took the time to get them oriented to daily processes, for which they were thankful. Not a huge issue if you are outgoing and willing to ask a lot of questions and know which questions to ask, but shouldn't be necessary for such a large dive op that in every other respect is a well oiled machine.
 
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