OP
pakman
Contributor
Part II: Dumaguete/ Apo Island.
After Bohol/ Panglao/ Balicasag, I headed off to Dumaguete. Oceanjet ferry runs from Tagbilaran to Dumaguete. Actually their ferries run Cebu City-Tagbilaran-Dumaguete. If I knew this earlier, I would have reversed my trip order: fly to Cebu City, go to Malapascua, then back to Cebu City and down to Bohol, then to Dumaguete, and then fly back to Manila directly.
In Dumaguete, I went with Atlantis resort which was a nice refreshing change from Bohol Beach Club. After arriving at Dumaguete port, the Atlantis driver was there waiting for me. Dumaguete City looked interesting. Atlantis' rooms were very nice, the staff excellent, and I nearly had the entire resort to myself. There were maybe 2-4 other guests there during my stay. They were doing some slight renovations as it was the off season. Some thatch roofs were being replaced, the dive area was being expanded and cubbies installed for storing guests' dive gear. Klaus the manager and his staff made my stay very comfortable. The DM's did an excellent job. Again, I pretty much have the dives to myself. Dumaguete diving was a nice change from Bohol. The beaches are black volcanic sand vs the white coral beaches of Alona/ Balicasag. The dive areas are sanctuaries so there were abundant sea life. Not sure it's just the season, but some of the sites did have some surge which made it a bit difficult to get some good pics of small stuff. Over the next 3 days, I did the sites directly in front of Atlantis and some other sites further south. But my favorite was Sahara which I requested to do twice. We came across some wonderful little critters and again the DM did a great job spotting and would time things so that by the time I was finished shooting one subject, he would have another ready for me. Sahara also has about 4 interesting frogfish. One large greenish one looked like it was pregnant. But my favorite one was a bright yellow one with red markings. Atlantis also has some mandarin fish in front and we did a dusk dive. But this ended up being an exercise in total frustration for me as I had forgot to switch my lens to manual focus and these mandarins were extremely skittish with any light. On top of that, the swells had picked up from the storm earlier in the day and it just made it absolutely impossible to catch a shot of the mandarins mating.
Usually there is a minimum of 4 divers required for them to do a day trip to Apo Island but Klaus worked it out for me to take the bangka by myself for an additional charge. Excellent lunch was prepared for me, prawns, pork chops, squid, and shanghai fried rice. In fact it was too much and I ended up sharing it with the boat crew. Plenty of drinkable fresh water and instant coffee were available.
Unfortunately, the weather didn't coorperate with me and we had an overcast day as we headed out to Apo Island (approx 30min from the resort). I didn't mind the choppy seas, but the overcast skies meant I wouldn't be able to get some good wide angle shots with my favorite blue background... We did 3 dives on Apo. Nice coral including large barrel sponges, and even came across a nice school of jacks. We did Coconut Point, but hit it with little current (think slow drift dive). Ran into only one pair of divers during the whole day.
Some of my photos from Dumaguete/ Apo are in this thread in the u/w photography subforum starting from post #64.
http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?p=2208751#post2208751post2208751
After Bohol/ Panglao/ Balicasag, I headed off to Dumaguete. Oceanjet ferry runs from Tagbilaran to Dumaguete. Actually their ferries run Cebu City-Tagbilaran-Dumaguete. If I knew this earlier, I would have reversed my trip order: fly to Cebu City, go to Malapascua, then back to Cebu City and down to Bohol, then to Dumaguete, and then fly back to Manila directly.
In Dumaguete, I went with Atlantis resort which was a nice refreshing change from Bohol Beach Club. After arriving at Dumaguete port, the Atlantis driver was there waiting for me. Dumaguete City looked interesting. Atlantis' rooms were very nice, the staff excellent, and I nearly had the entire resort to myself. There were maybe 2-4 other guests there during my stay. They were doing some slight renovations as it was the off season. Some thatch roofs were being replaced, the dive area was being expanded and cubbies installed for storing guests' dive gear. Klaus the manager and his staff made my stay very comfortable. The DM's did an excellent job. Again, I pretty much have the dives to myself. Dumaguete diving was a nice change from Bohol. The beaches are black volcanic sand vs the white coral beaches of Alona/ Balicasag. The dive areas are sanctuaries so there were abundant sea life. Not sure it's just the season, but some of the sites did have some surge which made it a bit difficult to get some good pics of small stuff. Over the next 3 days, I did the sites directly in front of Atlantis and some other sites further south. But my favorite was Sahara which I requested to do twice. We came across some wonderful little critters and again the DM did a great job spotting and would time things so that by the time I was finished shooting one subject, he would have another ready for me. Sahara also has about 4 interesting frogfish. One large greenish one looked like it was pregnant. But my favorite one was a bright yellow one with red markings. Atlantis also has some mandarin fish in front and we did a dusk dive. But this ended up being an exercise in total frustration for me as I had forgot to switch my lens to manual focus and these mandarins were extremely skittish with any light. On top of that, the swells had picked up from the storm earlier in the day and it just made it absolutely impossible to catch a shot of the mandarins mating.
Usually there is a minimum of 4 divers required for them to do a day trip to Apo Island but Klaus worked it out for me to take the bangka by myself for an additional charge. Excellent lunch was prepared for me, prawns, pork chops, squid, and shanghai fried rice. In fact it was too much and I ended up sharing it with the boat crew. Plenty of drinkable fresh water and instant coffee were available.
Unfortunately, the weather didn't coorperate with me and we had an overcast day as we headed out to Apo Island (approx 30min from the resort). I didn't mind the choppy seas, but the overcast skies meant I wouldn't be able to get some good wide angle shots with my favorite blue background... We did 3 dives on Apo. Nice coral including large barrel sponges, and even came across a nice school of jacks. We did Coconut Point, but hit it with little current (think slow drift dive). Ran into only one pair of divers during the whole day.
Some of my photos from Dumaguete/ Apo are in this thread in the u/w photography subforum starting from post #64.
http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?p=2208751#post2208751post2208751
... Note: strobes aren't allowed as they spook the threshers. Anyways, even without some good threshers photos as souvenirs, the two dives were a hoot and it was a great experience to see these graceful creatures in person.
