Goodbye Beach, Hello Reef

A weeks worth of lying on the beach was a great way to recharge our travel batteries but you don’t just get up, fly half way around the world, leaving everything behind to catch some sun. It was time we moved on to do something a little more active and so we headed due south from Boracay.

Two long travel days filled with buses, boats and a night in Iloilo City and we finally made it to the University town of Dumaguete. Often described in guidebooks as similar to Boston or Berkley, Dumaguete is a pleasant place to spend a few nights due to the close proximity to some amazing natural attractions but fails to meet the characteristics of these world famous University cities. We enjoyed our stay and made Harold’s Mansion, a cheap and lovely hostel just North of the city center, our base for the following days.

Our main reason for the long journey here was an opportunity to dive one of the best dive sites the Philippines has to offer, Apo Island. Staying on the island itself is no cheap affair but for those on a budget dive trips leave almost daily from Dumaguete with the handful of operators. We set out for the dive boat at 8am and had organized 3 dives for the day with Adventure Divers. Needless to say we were going to have a full day ahead of us.

Lianna had just obtained her open water certification in June and was feeling a little anxious before the dive. The owner of the resort approached us to say that the second dive of the day was going to be a challenging drift dive and only if she showed that she was totally competent on the first dive would she be allowed to join us on the second. This of course only made her more nervous but was nice to know they took safety precautions seriously.

We met the other divers, a couple of American sex tourists living in Angeles City, and after a 45 minute boat ride everyone began quickly suiting up. Once we descended we spent the next 45 minutes gliding amongst the fish and the most spectacular coral gardens I have seen in my limited diving experience. Highlights included a large moray eel, lots of clown fish, lion fish and of course the vast beds of healthy coral. Unfortunately no turtles as Lianna had hoped but we did still have 2 more dives. Lianna did great and despite some buoyancy issues at the beginning due to not enough weight, looked like a pro.

Our Dive master thought Lianna would be fine on the drift dive but Lianna was still anxious and decided against it. I spent the majority of the surface interval trying to get her to go through with it but when she became adamant about not feeling 100% comfortable, we left it at that. It wasn’t until 5 minutes before the dive that our dive master was able to change Lianna’s mind as long as someone was hanging on to her. Immediately upon entering the water the current began to push and it was quite a lot of work hanging onto the line waiting for Lianna to enter. As soon as she did we were off with the currents pushing us along at surprisingly fast speeds making it feel as if we were flying over the coral gardens. The dive went from good to great when we hooked into the sand just as a school of over 100 jacks was swimming slightly above us silhouetted by the sunlight shining down. As the drift continued the current slowed and we were able to spread out a little further to search for more marine critters. I just about lost the regulator out of my mouth when I floated over a rocky hole and discovered a giant hawksbill turtle sitting among the coral. Trying to flag Lianna over was to no avail as she was distracted and only when I began to pull at her fin and yell underwater did she finally come to see what I had found. She was ecstatic and another 3 turtles later including one which was basically face to face with her made any doubt she had about diving just about vanish. Our third and final dive was another amazing display of vibrant corals and some interesting marine life including a poisonous stone fish Lianna found. But it was the drift dive that was the highlight and was proof that pushing yourself comes with high rewards.

Exhausted we retired to La Dolce Vita for some well deserved carbohydrate replenishment. We had our doubts as every time we saw this restaurant it was empty despite all surrounding eateries to be busy. When we learned the chef was of true Italian origin we knew we would not be disappointed and two huge plates of pasta along with zabaglione for desert and we were ready for sleep.

We were up the following morning early again for a quick trip to the Immigration Bureau to extend our visas. Passports stamped, we headed to the nearby town to Valencia by Jeepney (think bus and jeep combined) and caught a ride on a motorbike to Casaroro Falls. A 10 minute walk uphill before a 300 step staircase down led us to the spectacular 30 meters falls. We had the falls to ourself for the majority of the time until a few other tourists began to trickle in and we knew it was time to tackle the staircase back up.

We leave tomorrow morning and will ignore the Filipino’s warnings and head to Siquijor- an island known for its witches and black magic.