Sorry for not posting earlier, having problems with our internet connection.
Saturday Dive 1 - max 111 ft., 53 mins. Pinnacle II is the smaller and deeper of two steep formations off the wall on the west side of Ligpo island. It is covered with lots of soft coral and large fans. Various scools of fish pass the site. Instead of following the wall and swimming out to Pinnacle II as is usual, on this dive we took a different but interesting route. We went down to Pao's favorite xmas tree coral at about 95 ft near where the wall starts, then swam through blue water, maintaining a depth of about 100 ft. until we hit Pinnacle II. No easy navigational feat as the vis was not very good, the pinnacle was not visible until you were only about 25 ft away, and Pao was using the tiny compass on his watch strap. We went around the 2 pinnacles, then the rest of the dive was a slow, progressively shallower sightseeing along the wall, appreciating the soft corals as well as the great wide angle views. As we swam around in the shallows, we came upon a cuttlefish mimicking the coral under it. I waved my finger in front of it to see if it would change appearance. It turned smooth and changed color, then swam quickly away. Pao was mad at me.
2nd dive - 105 ft., 47 mins - The underwater life at Bigfoot is almost the same as in Pinnacle. 1st time I dove the deep side of the formation. The corals and fans look very healthy, probably because this is a rarely dived area. Again we ascended slowly along the slope, then i followed Pao in a non stop, seemingly endless swim at 20-30 ft toward the Portulano reef which probably took half of the dive time. I felt like a military diver in training. Next time I do the site, i'll just make my nice slow ascent, a safety stop, then straight up to the boat. i bet Caloy and jon would go along with me.
Sunday, 1st dive - 105 ft., 31 mins. The dive at the Rockport wreck was the highlight of the weekend. On this dive Arnel of Potulano joined us. I never felt any safer, what with 2 instructors with me. We again did it differently by descending directly over the wreck which was on the sloping bottom from about 90-110 ft., with the boat facing towards the deep. However we failed to drop directly on it and took us about three sweeps to locate it. Ive done the site many times but what amazed me this time was the school of jacks which seemed to have multiplied a hundredfold! There were probably tens of thousands of jacks circling the 40 ft wreck, plus big maya maya and a huge grouper inside.
Jon: there must be enough fish there to make you several truckloads of kinilaw
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Spoon: you have to dive this - its deep and its all sand, murky water, the wreck and lots of silver fish. no colorful reefs
This is a dive I recommend to everyone, before the fishermen beat us to the fish. In fact, it seems some of the bigger jacks are already missing.
Arnel preferred to ascend directly up and we did our safety stop in the blue. However it is also possible to make a slower ascent along the sandy slope to some hard corals at 30ft. up, which is what I would suggest.
Dive 2 - 40 ft. 32 mins. Just a short, relaxed dive (only 2,000 psi on the last available tank) around the Divers Sanctuary reef. I accompanied the resort owner's sister who was newly certified and couldnt join us on the deeper dives. We confirmed a new infestation of COTs on the west side of the resort. We have scheduled COT collection dives this week, although a lot of the hard corals are already bleached from the attack.
Pao likewise did a dive with Arnel at the Portulano house reef.
It was quite an odd situation - two divers staying in two different resorts but diving together, such that one has to fetch the other by boat before going to the dive site, but it was all worth it as I had one of my best diving weekends ever.eyebrow
