November 2019 Undercurrent Article on Aiyanar Resort

[tursiops]

The author (anonymous, of course) gives 2 stars for diving and for food, 4 or 5 stars for everything else.

He lauds the diving, mostly, but did not like his own SMB skills; it is unclear otherwise why just 2 stars, except he mentions several times there are no big creatures.... Kind of unfair, I think. You could just as well criticize (and give 2 stars) to Galapagos diving because there are no tiny nudibranchs or frogfish. It is like going to a basketball game and complaining that they were playing terrible football.

He doesn't like the food..."No American-style burgers or pizza." Seriously? You go to a resort in the Philippines and complain there are no burgers or pizza? If you don't like Filipino food and the way the chicken is cut up, don't go to the Philippines. Sheesh.

 

[dirtfarmer]

You'd think undercurrent would have some sort of editorial review?

 

[The Chairman]

You could just as well criticize (and give 2 starts) to Galapagos diving because there are no tiny nudibranchs or frogfish.

WHAT??? I'm cancelling my trip now!

 

[Doc]

Umm, there are nudibranch (like-thingies) in the G, so travel at ease.

The DMs tend to ignore them because, well, take a guess.

As for the efficacy of Blundercurrent, I’ve said enough about that source of “information” previously. There is an entire world of people who adore Hershey’s chocolate bars, I don’t want to rock their world.

 

[drrich2]

I subscribe to Undercurrent so I pulled up the review to see how it'd sway me, a chubby intermediate English-only diver who's never been farther off diving then Bonaire or California, and might be a little 'jumpy' about what I might be getting into. I agree the diving sounds like it's better than 2-star, though I wonder what it's being compared to (e.g.: Caribbean or Indonesian options?). A few things I notice:

1.) He praised the macro., but emphasized to get the most out of it you need to have your act together skills-wise. I think it's fair to warn people it wasn't a big animal sort of place. Also in fairness, some destinations offer good macro and big animal opportunities. But IIRC, Anilao is known for macro diving.

2.) I don't know to what extent his first dive site was representative of the others, but he notes it wouldn't be Caribbean-style (the frame of reference many will have), 25 foot viz. (ouch!) and all he saw was sand, gravel and discarded bottles, tires and other trash (apparently not counting marine life like the frog fish found within 5 minutes). Which leaves me wondering about his other dives and how much coral reef one expects to see, and what typical viz. is. Option to do 4 dives/day easy, plus a night dive if wanted, and dive times routinely around 70 minutes sounds good!

3.) Hassles getting on and off a bangka from the beach were discussed; good to know. 74 Steps from room near top to beach, irregular steps, easy to stumble - good to know. Wonder if gear was taken back & forth to room? And the issue of currents leading to divers spreading out at times, thus making use of SMBs to signal one's presence to the bangkas 'a thing,' is good to know.

4.) There was more to the food criticism, such as 'meat often so fatty he spent half his time cutting away gristle to get a decent bite.' I imagine people in the U.S., where we struggle with being over-nourished, may have different views on cuts of meat than people in the Philippines? But good to know!

Cost looked like a pretty sweet deal, though one would have to also consider airfare.

On the whole, I see a fairly even-handed mix of good and bad, useful 'meat' in the report that could be useful to someone. But there is something I don't understand at all:

Diving - 2 Star.
Diving for Photographers - 5 Star.
Diving for Beginners - 5 Star.

Who is the diving so atrocious for as to bring the average down to 2 stars?

P.S.: Also wonder just what 'passable' English is like.

 

[ronscuba]

Interesting. Wonder how much research he did when he booked the trip. Some of us like to do a lot of research, but I know many do not. Scubaboarders tend to be the former.

Muck diving, low viz, currents, smb usage. All things a US based Caribbean only diver is not familiar with.

 

[Shasta_man]

A good illustration of how ratings are really a result of your prior experience. The less you know about someone's past experiences the more you have to generalize their input.

 

[pauldw]

\There is an entire world of people who adore Hershey’s chocolate bars, I don’t want to rock their world.

Hershey's? Is that anything like Amano? Or Blue's Chocolates? Because I'd go to a dive resort that provided either of the latter two!

 

[lowwall]

3.) Hassles getting on and off a bangka from the beach were discussed; good to know. 74 Steps from room near top to beach, irregular steps, easy to stumble - good to know. Wonder if gear was taken back & forth to room?

He mentions that the gear and camera rooms are on the lowest level and the boatmen carry the cameras to and from assigned rinse tanks outside the camera room. He also said they carry the tanks and set up the gear, so at most you have to carry gear without tanks the last 25 stairs to the boat.

The food discussion seems reasonable. Plenty of it, but mostly rice and mediocre veggies and proteins for lunch and dinner. Maybe 3 stars because breakfast seems good?

The two star for "diving" is for diving unless you are there to photograph little critters. He gives five stars for that. Here's what he says about this:

"Small, unique critters are what Anilao diving is all about. Which is why you need to be a critter-loving photographer to enjoy Anilao fully. Don't go if you're looking for bigger creatures, because they are not there. Nearly all the divers -- mostly American, with a few from Europe, Australia, China, and South Korea -- were there with serious camera gear. It's all about your guide finding an interesting critter, then letting you spend all the time you want getting a good photo. My dives were typically no deeper than 50 feet, so dive times were routinely around 70 minutes, making four dives a day easy (plus a night dive when I wanted)."

The review is quite detailed and useful. My take away is that people should actually read reviews rather than assume a star rating means what they think it means.

 

[drrich2]

Given the need to quickly narrow one's options down when considering destinations, hotels and dive op.s, I imagine some people use star ratings to exclude those with a few low ratings, then do further researching on the one's that are consistently highly rated. It can be daunting to try to read in-depth about several options.

Yes, once one is seriously considering a given choice, I agree, a closer read is wise.

Richard.