The Philippines - Malapascua (Kalanggaman Island, Lighthouse dive sites)

Today has been a long day.

After spending a night in a cheap hotel in Maya (the only place so far that had wifi and it was good as well!) we woke at 6am to catch the boat at 7 from Maya pier.

I had a little moment when I realised that all these people stayed overnight for us. The taxi driver, who didn’t do the 3 hours journey back to Cebu but slept in his car and the boat crew, who were told to wait for us but due to our flight being delay it got too dark and the sea too rough for them to go home they had to sleep on the boat. We were the only passengers on that boat towards Malapascua so it made me feel bad for them.

But what a boat! Much more stable and wider than the bangkas we travelled on before. The floor and even the ladders were covered with non-slipping stuff. There was space for everything and everybody. Here’s a pic.

Malapascua Island is famous for only one thing: diving. It is (or so I was told) the only place in the world where you can see thresher sharks. These long tailed creatures usually live very deep but because of nutritious water they come up to a diveable depth so we can go and have a look at them. We are very excited as apparently it is almost guaranteed that you can encounter them on every single dive in that area.

The only problem is that they only come up at dawn. We were supposed to do today’s dawn dive but were not able to make it. We only have one chance to see them, tomorrow morning. They better be there!!

We were keen to get on with our dives so as soon as we got there we registered, dumped our stuff in the resort (that is really nice but did not have a chance to take photos) and signed up for our 2 dives. These will be in a dive site quite far away (1.5h) but are very nice. They have another attraction for us, they are wall dives and we’ve never done that before.

These were my kind of dives. During the first dive we saw lots of fish I am already familiar with and lots that I never seen before. And believe me, after every single dive I look through ALL the fish photos in my Reef Guide to see which fish I encountered that day. The best thing is, Paul took photos of many fish so as soon as I have a chance I will hunt them down in a book or on the internet and get their names.

Paul is getting better and better at taking photos so it is getting really hard to choose only a few. First I start with pic and a video of the wall:

This remora was circling around us throughout the first half of the dive. If you go back to see our amazing manta video (the second one) and look carefully you can see that there are a few remora hanging off that manta as well, close to its tail.

Other nice pics. These are ghost shrimps. They are almost completely transparent, you can only notice them from their antennas.

This fish was posing for Paul and stayed still for a long time for the shot.

We had our surface interval (a break between dives that allows your body to get rid of all the accumulated nitrogen) on this beautiful paradise island. It was just perfect except one thing, in the distance was a big storm. We felt so cheated. This place is the ultimate tropical island with golden sand and palm trees but it we could only imagine how nicer it would have been if the sun was shining.

Our second dive was really good as well. We saw something special, a pigmy seahorse. They are tiny, like the end of your pinky so it is very hard to find them. Paul tried to take photos but we couldn’t spot them on the photos, not even when zooming in. Well, they were a bit of an anti-climax. They were really tiny. I’d rather see a proper seahorse, to be honest.

A few pics from the second dive. 
Spot the fish!

We also signed up for a night dive. And not just any night dive, it was to see the mandarin fish. These fish are quite small but shockingly beautiful with all their vibrant colours that can be only seen by light. The tricky thing is that they only come out at dusk so you can only see them during a night dive and you have to use a torch to light up the colours. Again they are hard to find but our dive master was awesome and found them quickly at the beginning of the dive. Here’s a pic.

My wish came true, we saw some real, normal size seahorses. Our guide pointed the first two out but I spotted the third one. I was really proud of myself.

Tomorrow we have to wake up at 4.40am to see the thresher sharks so again it’s 9pm and we’re in bed. Today was a great day with lots of very nice dives, I hope tomorrow will be similar or even better.

The Philippines - Travelling to Malapascua

Today was a day of travelling. It is very tricky to get to Malapascua Island. We were picked up from our hotel at 7 to be taken to Legaspi Airport. We got there an hour early for our 11.30 flight and were told that the flight was delayed until…14.50. We checked in and went in the waiting room but luckily they let us out to get water and food. The plane arrived at 15.35. It was chucking down again but they gave us each an umbrella for that few meters from the waiting room to the plane. We also saw that the car that carried our luggage was covered and they put up a kind of tent while they took all luggage in the plane. When we finally arrived, we had a 3 hour car journey ahead of us. As we were 4 hours late the boat did not want to leave in the evening as it was too dark and the sea too rough. We had to stay on the main island until the next morning and miss out on a thresher shark dive.

As there was not much happening today I’ll write a little about the Philippines.

I understand that as a foreigner and especially as a diver we only see a certain side of the Philippines. They pick us up from everywhere and take us to resorts that we do not have to leave. They keep us in a bubble so that we don’t see what is really happening around us.

The Philippines is a very poor country. To make matters worse it lies in the way of many typhoons during the wet season. People build their homes that get swept away regularly by a typhoon. In the last big one on Cebu Island we were told by our cab driver that a 170 hectare banana plantation was destroyed and this is just one of many occurrences. Also, on the island we’ve just left behind, there is an active volcano that erupted only five years ago. On our way to the airport we saw that the biggest, nicest and cleanest buildings are churches. They must paint them over and over again to keep them so nice as due to the humidity the houses here get mouldy quickly and the paint starts flaking off. Probably this is the reason most houses are not even painted.

It is very eye-opening to see that on one side of the road are the nice big hotels and on the other side are the local’s houses, only a fraction of them made out of bricks. The rest are made up of (as much as I could see) whatever they could find, mostly wood and palm tree leaves. In our resort there was a security guard posted 24/7 at the reception and behind the pretty bungalows there was broken glass lined up on the top of high walls all around the resort. This stops us seeing all the run down houses and huts just next door.

Talking to our dive master, Justin (who spells his name Justine but pronounces it Justin) painted another picture of living here. He told us he bought diving equipment through the dive company he works for and he is slowly paying them back the money. I know it’s a big leap but I can just imagine the whole diving industry being like that, all these young kids working for these companies for peanuts tied to them by debt. It sounds horrible.

There is also a plus side. The taxi driver I was chatting to told me that the economy is rising in the Philippines. Due to tourism people get paid a bit better and there are more jobs around. Let’s hope that our honeymoon contributed to this a tiny bit.

The Philippines - Donsol, Whaleshark Interaction and the Firefly Tour

When we woke up we were not very happy. The sky above our private paradise was grey and it was chucking down with rain.

We had a lovely time on Ticao Island and met a lot of friendly people so it was hard to say goodbye to them. The rain fell during those two hours while we were transported back to Donsol but started to clear up a bit by the time we got there. On the way to the bay we saw lots of boats in one place so Paul thought they saw a whaleshark. We got very excited. When we arrived we were taken to our hotel to drop our bags then got on a boat. It started raining again.

For three hours we were huddled under towels and my sarong with Paul in the rain. Our crew did not spot any whalesharks again. Our only resolve was that apparently there was no sighting for four days now because of the bad weather. We were just there at the wrong time. I was so hopeful that I even slept clutching onto my fins and mask.

Our resort seemed nice but we could not enjoy the pool or the comfy looking seaside hammocks because of the weather.

We went to have lunch at the resort’s restaurant. It was a very nice place, here’s a pic of the food platter we got for dessert.

This just isn’t fair. Our only hope for the day was the Firefly tour in the evening although if I was a bug I’m sure I wouldn’t come out in the rain.

At 6 it was still chucking down. I really wasn’t looking forward to sitting for another hour in the rain huddled under a towel. When I saw the river and the rafts and the canoes I almost threw a big tantrum. Luckily we didn’t sit on any of those but on a similar one we used for diving. We even had some umbrellas to cover from the rain.

Our guide informed us that the fireflies hide under the leaves during the rain so there is not many of them out. I was not happy! However after a few minutes the rain has stopped and more fireflies came out. Apparently it was the perfect timing to see them. More and more twinkling appeared on the tree and around it. Finally the whole tree was full of tiny flashing light, like little fairies dancing. They even synchronised their flashing so it looked like a Christmas tree. It was such a pretty sight! We were standing on the boat with Paul mesmerised. We learnt that a certain level of noise make them flash more so for the count of three we all started clapping, the boat crew, our two guides and us. I found this quite funny. Unfortunately we couldn’t take a photo or a video. One of our guides even caught a few and put them on my hand. These little guys are so tiny but give out so much light! Later a single firefly flew on my umbrella and stayed there for a while walking up and down. The guide said it means good luck. I hope it means changing in the weather.

We spent about 20 minutes watching the flashing lights, hypnotised by it. When we got back to our room I was in a much better mood. Me and the weather will start afresh tomorrow.

Special thanks to the Cable family and to Wade Baylis for giving us another chance to see these gentle giants. Also again to the Cable family for giving us the magical Firefly tour.

The Philippines - Ticao Island, Manta Bowl 2

Today we said good bye to the Canadian couple in the morning. Ticao Island Resort had become our private paradise, literally, as we were the only guests. We went back to dive to the Manta Bowl. It was strange sitting on a boat with 6 people taking care of you. We had an instructor and a dive master all to ourselves! There was a big storm last night so we were worried about the visibility underwater but we were told that the current is so strong that it will clear the water for us.

The weather was cloudy all day with a tiny bit of sunshine. Our first dive was at the exact same spot as yesterday’s last dive. We saw three white tip reef sharks under some rocks, I think they were baby ones. Paul took a video of us drifting. Look how fast the ground moves while we ourselves hardly make any movements.

The second dive was at a different place. The current was so strong, that when I turned my head, it almost pushed the regulator out of my mouth. Here we are all hooked up.

At the end of the dive there was a lot of excitement. We quickly all hooked up and Paul just had time to get the camera ready when this beautiful huge manta appeared. You saw on the previous video how fast the current was. This manta just slowly ‘flew’ in front of us, like it was showing off. I hope that this video can help you to understand why we want to see mantas so much. This manta is a pure beauty. We are so lucky to have encountered it!

We saw another one on our last dive but only briefly and from far away. I was really cold by that point so was ready to go home. With this our Ticao diving stint has ended. Tomorrow we will try to see the whale sharks again in Donsol.

Special thanks to Peter and Sue for giving us the chance to see a manta again and to take this amazing video.

The Philippines - Ticao Island, Manta Bowl

Today we woke up excited as last night our guides really put our hopes up about the manta rays. We even arrived a bit early to the dive centre and eagerly waited for the others. It was a sunny morning so we were keen to start, considering the weather trend of the last days. We waited.. and waited…and were told that our boat was broken and they will bring another one.

I went back to the room. On my way I met a group of children shouting hi!, then bye!, when they left, waving continuously. I got my book and sat on the sunbed. The next moment I was mobbed by these children. They were all standing around me looking at me saying ‘hi, what’s your name’, they made me say all of their names, but apart from this I couldn’t get anything else out of them. They were really cute though and obviously wanted something more.

Then I thought let’s draw in the sand. I drew something and they said its name usually first in Filipino, then in English. That’s when Paul joined us. We drew different things, letters, numbers and they told us the English name. I was a bit stuck as I’m very good at drawing sheep, ladybirds and snails but wasn’t sure they would recognise these. Paul helped me out, though. Much later after lots of encouragement they finally joined in and we drew giant fish, houses and finally, Paul’s name. They did not want to write their names, though. Then the word came that the boat is ready so we had to leave amongst lots of loud ‘bye!’s and waving.

When we finally left I was anxiously looking at the sky but it stayed sunny. We were all geared up for some hardcore manta ray watching. We jumped in to the water and were straight away swept by a strong current. We drifted to a point, got our hooks out, stuck them in a rock, floated in the water and waited. Here’s a photo of Kelly to show you what I mean.

After a few minutes we moved to another site and did the same. And finally to a third point and waited. Then came a big fat nothing. Oh, well, we had two more of the same so weren’t so beaten down.  

When we came up it was still sunny so dried ourselves and after an hour we went down again. We were more confident this time as we knew how to hook dive. The problem is that where the big stuff is there’s no small stuff. Meaning, usually on those parts that are preferred by big pelagic sea animals, there’s not much else, so if you don’t see anything, it’s a pretty boring dive. We came up again with nothing.

We resolved that we will not see anything. At least we can log in 3 more dives in our book. The fish move (or so we were told), and it is a big sea, even if it’s a cleaning station, seeing a manta or anything else is just not guaranteed. We were there for half an hour at a certain spot so our window of opportunity was very small. I know this and understand it but we still kind of felt cheated. We travelled more than 2000 miles to see these animals, the least they could do is to turn up! The name of the dive site is Manta Bowl but Paul renamed it Just a Bowl. We also thought that there was SO much plankton around that if we were mantas we would definitely hang around there. Having said that, due to the amount of plankton the visibility was only 3-5 meters so they might have been circling around us all the time, we did not know.

When it was time for our third dive to be honest I was ready to go home. The waves were getting bigger and bigger, I had had enough of being cold and was just generally not keen for another boring dive. To our surprise we actually saw some nice fish, two big cuttle fish and even two white tip reef sharks. As we were heading up our instructor, Marvin started to bang on his tank signalling us to look. He pointed. He signed manta. I frantically looked around and there it was. A giant shape slowly flew over me.

There is a video David, the Canadian guy took. It’s not much, but this is our first manta. The person on the right is me, hanging off my instructor, Justin, who kept me in place in the current. First he started to shake me to look up, then you can see Paul swimming towards me in a Superman pose and started shaking me as well. As the camera moves, you can see Marvin being overjoyed.

Wow. I mean, WOW! It was amazing. What an experience! We’re coming back tomorrow for more!

When we got home to our bungalow, this is what waited for us in the sand. While we weren’t looking, our little Filipino friends wrote their and Paul’s name in the sand for us.

Special thanks to the Cable family for giving us the amazing experience of seeing a manta ray the first time in our lives.

The Philippines - Ticao Island (San Miguel and Bodoc divesites)

Going to bed early means an early start the next day. I was up at 4am, Paul had a few more minutes. At 5 we decided to have a shower and watch the sunrise from the front of our cabana. It was the best decision. We finally got to appreciate our seaside bungalow. Here it is:

I’ve never slept this close to the sea. Listening to it last night was our lullaby. Probably this was the reason that I kept dreaming about being on the seaside. Having a cup of coffee (3 in 1, sugar included, yay!) and sitting outside watching the sunrise with Paul was probably the most peaceful moment of the whole year. It made all the travelling worthwhile.

After a quick breakfast we were off to do two dives. Our weights were named for us so we didn’t get them mixed up and Paul got a new name again: Pow. The first dive was a refresher dive as we haven’t been diving for 10 months. It basically consisted of throwing us in the water and asking if we are ok in every minute. We used up all our air very quickly but we saw a big batfish. Paul took his first pictures under water and our dive master took some of us as well:

 The second dive was much better for us and for things to see underwater. Paul had a few nice shots and a nice video. This is an anemonefish:

When we got back we were famished and attacked our lunch like there’s no tomorrow, then we slept a few hours to help us finally get over the jetlag. The Canadian couple went for a night dive but we opted out. We were eager to see more stuff but decided to take it easy.

During dinner our guides joined us and we celebrated New Years with them with a glass of Champagne that we bought in Duty Free in the airport.

 Tomorrow we are going to the Manta Bowl divesite which is famous for very frequent manta ray sightings. They really put our hopes up so we were very excited. We could not wait until midnight as we were all tired and had an early start the next day. At half ten we were all asleep despite the ferocious karaoke competition in the village next to the resort. 

Happy New Year to all of you!

Special thanks to the Cone family for helping us to get back into the water and start diving again and to Mausti for that special bottle of Champaigne to celebrate the New Year.

The Philippines - Donsol and Ticao Island

After an early start (the benefits of jetlag) and being delivered to the wrong airport we finally flew to Legaspi. The first time in my life when I asked for tea I was not given sugar or milk. I was told it’s a black tea. Hm. Interestingly, we flew together with David Pomerand!! Don’t feel too ignorant if you don’t know him, we didn’t either but lots of Filipino wanted to take photos with him. Apparently he’s a famous American singer. We’ll google him later.

We are ‘big in the Philippines’. I feel very self-conscious as I am a head taller than most of them. This means 1.5 head for Paul! Look at this. Can you spot him?

We are also having serious trouble understanding the Filipino accent, even Paul. They even gave him a new name, they keep calling him Sir Paul Hugs. This makes me Mrs. Hugs. Kinda makes me happy that my passport has my maiden name on.

From Legaspi we were together with a Canadian couple, turned out we are on the same program for a few days. From the sunny Legaspi we were transported to Donsol for the whaleshark interaction. The journey was an hour by car and it was raining almost throughout. By the time we got there it was sunny. We had a quick lunch, then were put on our separate boats. We were told that the day before there were 5 sightings but in the morning there were none as the visibility was not good. It was raining, you see. Usually you can fit 6 people on them but we had a private boat sorted out for us.

We had an army of people, 5 of them were on the lookout for the whalesharks. Two on the front, one lower than the other, and two at the back. Later realised that the fifth was standing right above us, sometimes I saw his foot peeking out.

The sky was sunny and the water emerald green. We were poised to the ready so when they say ‘get ready’ we could quickly put on our mask, snorkel and fins and jump in the water from the sides. They said they usually spot the whalesharks from their shadow in the water or from their dorsal fins. Then we looked up and realised that today is not our day. We saw it was raining in the distance and we were going right in that direction.

For the next 3 hours we were going up and down in the bay with our boat but there was no chance of seeing anything, the water was so dark. We could only hope for a dorsal fin but the whalesharks rarely come up to the surface. We had a little sleep on the boat. Do I have to mention that by the time we got back the sky was clear? I could see a trend setting in with the weather.

We were then transported back to our resort on Ticao Island. The first place we will spend more than a few hours. Turned out that with the 2 Canadians we were the only guests in the whole resort! Made me happy that the other couple was with us. I would’ve felt bad for all these people working through the New Years just because of us. We were also happy that they seem such nice people, it would’ve been awkward with for example a Chinese couple who did not speak English at all. Also, David is into underwater photography so Paul can get a few tips from him.

Half an hour later at 7pm we had our dinner which was plenty. We finished at 8 and had a quick word with the dive centre’s stuff. At this point I was falling off my chair. We went back to the room, and this is what was waiting for us:

had a quick shower and were in bed at 8.30. Yay for jetlag.

Finally, I want to show you one of the things we had to sign which I found quite funny:

‘DET does not guarantee the presence of whale sharks, manta rays and other wildlife during your visit. DET will not be liable for the missing presence of whale sharks, manta rays or other wildlife. It is understood that the whale sharks, manta rays and other wildlife are wild animals and are beyond the control of DET’.

Special thanks to James Harrington for giving us the chance for the whaleshark encounter and to the Cone family for our special beachfront paradise.

The Philippines - We've arrived to Manila

After an uneventful stopover we continued our journey from Kuala Lumpur to Manila. We took some shots on the way. This is still Malaysia, a very brown looking river is pouring its muddy water in the sea:

A boat cuts through the mud on the surface.

An island we spotted. We’re not sure which country it belongs to but I wouldn’t mind staying there!

The whole journey seemed so surreal. One minute we are still in London, grey sky and rain, and the other we see sunshine, palm trees and endless blue sea when looking out of the plane window. We both waited for the moment when it hits us, when it all becomes real, when we get off the airplane and the hot, humid, sunny air around us makes us believe that we are finally on our holiday.

It did not happen like this today. The closer we got to Manila the darker the clouds become. When we arrived it was 29C, insanely humid and… grey sky and rain.

Which I really don’t mind, it can even rain tomorrow morning but by the time we get to the whale sharks I want sparkling sunshine and good visibility!

We were taken to our hotel for the night, and we turned the box on, had a look at the map behind the news guy. We thought, Europe has a weird shape and…wait a minute…where is the UK?!?

Later we walked over to the shopping mall next to us thinking of finding something to eat then hit the bed and ended up in the middle of the Great Fiesta 2012! Looks like the Filipino people know how to party!

Then they projected a Christmas story for kids on the wall.

Then the MCs came up on the stage and gathered 30 kids to do the Gangnam Style dance. And THEY ALL KNEW THE DANCE MOVES!!! It blew my mind. I had to take a video of them

We ended up in a weird place having lychee ice tea and pineapple-raisin-prawn-other unidentifiable stuff fried rice. Here’s a Filipino mini lime, a calamnsi.

At that point we both felt utterly exhausted and went to bed. 

The Philippines - On our way

We had quite a few things to do on Thursday, so the day went pretty quick. We took the advice of Paul’s mum and reserved our seating. It therefore came as a surprise when at the check in we realised we were seated four rows apart! Luckily it got sorted out quickly.

We flew on a double decker plane (sure it has a proper name as well) from London to Kuala Lumpur, here it is:

Here are the (please insert proper term) ‘tunnels’ that lead into the plane, one for the upper deck and one for the lower one.

All in all, the airline provided an average service, in every aspect. We are all for Singapore Airlines, they are the best!

We realised that we had some leftover Malaysian Ringits at home from our last trip that would’ve been useful to have a coffee or something while we are waiting for the connecting flight. We left them at home. Duh!

This is how Kuala Lumpur looked like, when we landed: