And now, a Puerto Galera trip report March 9-19 2020

[FT]

Many readers here are familiar with Asia Divers at Small La Laguna beach, Puerto Galera. Our stay was to have been March 9-16, with a second week in South Leyte, but the way domestic and international transportation went pear-shaped altered our plans. Hours spent to rebook flights and negotiate with authorities to let us travel out cut into the diving opportunities, but our group of four managed 13-16 dives each.

Rental equipment was good. Nitrox consistently 32%. Boat crew were extremely attentive, above and beyond valet standard. Non air hogs might dislike the policy that a whole group should go to safety stop when the first person was at 50 bar. We got better at grouping with like talents, and after the DMs sized us up, and at an easy dive site, there was trust that some of us could stay down to finish our tanks. Pro tip: don’t accept to get on a boat with Russian novices. It was often possible to be just four to a boat. If they used their larger bangka, there would be two groups/two DMs.

Verde Island swarmed with fish and healthy coral. The sites to the east of Sabang Bay offered a lazy diver’s paradise with lots to see and usually low to moderate current. Even the modest muck sites that I thought might be boring were enlivened by Ruben’s and Pete’s good spotting. Honorable mention also to Ambo, Maria and Ruel. Alli came along on some dives but preferred not to lead.

Really am glad we ended up staying longer than a week, and we wouldn’t have run out of sites with a full two weeks. Some year I will get to Canyons or Washing Machine, but again, not this time. On the other hand, anyone trying to make me go back to the Alma Jane wreck will have to do it at gunpoint.

Above water: one of us stayed happily at El Galleon, three in a small handy apartment at Arkipelago. Nice top deck at Arkipelago for sundown. Both resorts had generators to cover nightly short “load-shedding” blackouts. Meals were tasty at El Galleon and Tokos in Atlantis resort. The beer was cheap at Tamarind. Mangoes were plentiful and amazing. The gentlemen went running/hiking with the Hash House Harriers and loved the waterfall scenery, even though getting lost made for some tension. They weren’t that far from the road and were duly scooped up by the Hash’s jeepney.

Should mention for Woodman’s benefit that the few pearls on offer by itinerant sellers were not great quality. I was so insulted by Ben’s first asking price of 8000 pesos for a necklace that I would not bargain further, even after it became clear I was not going to get in to Manila to find better choice at Greenhills.

I don’t take pictures, but Mr T experimented with a handheld GoPro with red filter. Seeing how many of you will be home with time on your hands, he’s left this video at a longish 13 minutes.

 

[Centrals]

How did you manage to escape back to Canada or even leave PG?

 

[FT]

There was a lot of advocacy by Allan and Rhuby Nash (see my other post in this forum). If you’d like the report on our trip out that I penned for friends, I can PM it.

In a nutshell, I have a renewed appreciation of how precious a Canadian passport is when you have to get outta Dodge on a spontaneous new routing. I am still not sure how our Dutch friends fared after finding out only at the airport that their Etihad flight was cancelled. Almost sorry for the dozen Russians apparently now in quarantine in Hanoi.

 

[Centrals]

I believe all of us would love to read your "Great Escape" here.

 

[FT]

You poor people, another long read.

As mentioned on other thread, getting out took days of negotiations by the Asia Divers team, who also manage the Mindoro Sprinter.

First, domestic flights were cancelled. Then all public boats were stopped by order of Oriental Mindoro governor. Freight by ferry still allowed. Then either the governor or a mayor said private boats could take passengers out, but the captain would then have to go into 14 day quarantine on return.

In the meantime a Metro Manila lockdown was announced with cancellation of public transport and roadblocks with huge lineups of traffic that thought it was legitimate (freight, commuters, returning residents).

A protocol for getting boats out of PG was negotiated to let captains go and return if they did not get off the boat and brought it straight back to Muelle for sanitizing. Then the Batangas governor said PG boats would not be allowed to dock there...

The national government contributed its further share by announcing that foreigners wishing to depart NAIA had 72 hours to do so, i.e. up to midnight March 19. But would only be allowed past the roadblock with a ticket showing departure within 12 hours.

Batangas governor relented to allow passage under these conditions, and then the Coast Guard turned a boat back on the 17th. They had new objections of their own.

Finally the Tourist Office and resort owners negotiated with all these authorities a solution involving temperature taking, certificates of health, mayoral letters, five photocopies of air tickets, emailed passport pages, written proof that the van picking us up belonged to the resort and Lordy I forget what else. But we were not even to leave PG until 12 hours before flight... with the airlines insisting they needed us at NAIA four hours before. And of course boats do not sail in the middle of the night.

So it was a tense little group that motored over to PG harbour at dawn on the 18th. I was happy enough to be among these guinea pigs and agreed to text El Galleon staff at each stage so they could judge how the next four boatloads could work.

Got our health certificates and mayoral letters for a modest administrative fee after documents examined. A municipal official joined us on the boat. At Batangas Pier, were greeted by a half dozen Coast Guards in camo uniforms toting what looked like AK47s. They took many photos of us with their cellphones. Allowed into the van but must ostentatiously sit a metre apart from each other.

in the end there was only one roadblock at Calamba, and although it took us an hour and a quarter to creep up to the front, it was encouraging to realize that we were moving at the rate of one car length every 10-20 seconds. Sure enough, the soldier who leaned into our vehicle aimed a temperature gun at each forehead, shouted out an alleged reading, and waved us on. Documents unexamined.

Being a toll road, the Skyway is normally a pretty fast ride into NAIA, but we really flew after that. The last step in satisfying the Coast Guard —thus ensuring they would let future boats through —was to send photos of ourselves at the airport back to the resort staff for forwarding, so they could prove the airport really had been our destination and all those tickets weren’t some elaborate ruse.

Crowded Terminal 3. My friend who’d had to pay US $5000 for her ticket was first in line at the business class counter. Our much less gouge-y new flight on ANA was going to take 40 hours via Haneda and Chicago. I had spent hours on hold with PAL to get an earlier flight at quite some expense (they don’t do online rebooking for returns), but it was going to be the 20th, not within Du30’s new edict. Of course he reversed himself late on the 19th so that flight was not cancelled, nor could I get through to PAL again, so kiss that money goodbye.

Nobody really wanted to stop us after that, despite threats from our own PM about turning back even citizens if we had symptoms. We didn’t, but it was a terrifying thought regardless. Thursday night, we staggered off in Ottawa where our daughter was waiting 5 metres away from the exit, led us towards our car, left the key on the roof and fled to her own car. We remain in splendid isolation at home.

 

[Centrals]

.....Thursday night, we staggered off in Ottawa where our daughter was waiting 5 metres away from the exit, led us towards our car, left the key on the roof and fled to her own car. We remain in splendid isolation at home.

Wow!!!

Thank you very much for the detail description of your trip back home and take good care.

I do remember one true story happened many years ago: A HK tourist was "wrongly" imprisoned for smuggling "ice" into Philippines. When he was eventually released after a long legal battle etc etc. He was denied exit at NAIA because he had overstayed his visa!!!!! Fine was paid but at least the Ambassador of Philippines in HK has certain decency to reimburse the money! This is Philippines.

 

[WOODMAN]

Holy Christ! I was set to leave in mid April for Sabang, and my agent was going nuts trying to make it all work. Now it's all cancelled, of course, and we are waiting it out with everyone else before we try again. This is very sobering and instructional when we look at some of the containment measures we are chafing against here now. This could be so much worse here....

 

[FT]

Dearest American friends, I hope you all make it through to fresh diving opportunities.

First Covid case in Oriental Mindoro announced, a toddler in Calapan who had returned there from Metro Manila area in mid March.

 

[Centrals]

Case like that means the whole family is at great risk. Unless they are taking social distancing precaution from the time they left Manila, highly unlikely for Pinoys, bad news.
The virus is highly contiguous even in its early infected state and in many cases shown no symptoms or very mild one. By the time the patient felt unwell and tested he/she has already infected others.

 

[LanceRiley]

Almost every place hereis under some sort of lockdown . No diving and no bankas are allowed to leave