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We're back!!! (From the Philippines that is . .
.)
GOOD & INTERESTING TRIP -
First of all, we had a really nice two-week stay
in the Philippines, first at Atlantis Resort
Dumaguete and then on the Atlantis Infiniti
exploring the Visayas area. (We'll detail this
more in the trip report but we can't say enough
good things about the Atlantis staff both at the
resort and on the boat. Really top-notch.) The
relatively short version is that we loved the
muck diving in Dumaguete but were
less-than-impressed with the Visayas diving with
the exception of the Thresher Shark dive at
Kimud Shoal. What struck us most on the second
week was what we DIDN'T see which was fish
larger than maybe eight inches. Decent small
stuff and some decent reefs - but also some
patchy reef areas - but somwhat devoid of fish.
One thing I always enjoy seeing when we're in
Indonesia, Paula, Yap, the or the Maldives are
the tens of thousand of Red-Toothed Triggerfish
that seem to populate the reefs and hang out in
the adjacent blue. Not on this trip. I almost
want to say we didn't even see one. We certainly
didn't see them in the droves that we're used
to. We knew that the muck dives in the Dumageute
area (actually Dauin) were going to be like a
scavenger hunt and a successful one at that.
Lots of Blue-Ring octos, Wunderpuus, Frogfish,
Ghost Pipefish, and more. But we thought the
boat stuff would be more traditional reef diving
(which we did get at Apo Island but that was
part of the Dumaguete week) with healthy reefs
and vertical walls and those were few and far
bewteen. But it will all be detailed and
discussed in the trip report which I'll start
working on tomorrow and will hopefully have done
by the end of the week.
U.R.I. WAS AN UNDERLYING THEME -
I usually pick up some sort of a cold or
something by the time I get home from these
trips. But on this one, half the group got sick
with some sort of an Upper Respiratory Illness
that involved lots of sneezing and coughing and
sometimes a fever as well. Not fun. We even had
two people cut the trip short and went home
because they weren't feeling well enough to
dive. I wasn't Patient Zero but got it once we
were on the boat to the point that I kept myself
out of the water for three and a half days (14
dives) because I just didn't feel "right." (And
I think you all know my favorite saying: You
never get hurt on a dive you don't make. That
applies to me, too.) So from a heath standpoint,
we got gob-smacked pretty good with a number of
others skipping dives because they weren't
feeling well.
THRESHER SHARK DIVE -
The highlight dive of the boat portion of the
trip was going to be the dive with Thresher
Sharks at Kimud Shoal. I'd always heard this was
a deep (90') and early A.M.(submerge at sunrise)
dive but that was when the sharks were at
Malapascua Island. But in 2022, the sharks moved
to Kimud which is not only shallower (30-60')
but the sharks also seem to hang around all
morning. We were able to do two dives with them,
at 6:45AM and again at 9:45AM, and had great
encounters on both occasions. On our second
dive, when I had my GoPro with me, we had one
shark who weaved in and out of our small group
for about three minutes. I've put that together
as a short video with music which you can access
here: THE
THRESHER EXPERIENCE.
PLENTY OF GOOD STUFF TO SEE -
Eevn though we didn't get the reef experience we
thought we would on week two, we still had
plenty of stuff to see, as you can see below. |
