shugar
Contributor
Did a day trip with Gordon (twomixdiver) and Ben (Ben_ca) to Balai on a monday. It had been a stormy week before and the sun had only come out during the weekend in Batangas. Anilao was calm and flat when we came over the hill... nary a dive boat to be seen... we had the whole place to ourselves.
Edgar, Balai's resident DM was our guide for the day and at a fairly relaxed pace we started to set up our gear. For a country that hasn't seen very much of the bp/w it was strange to see a dive group composed of bp divers - 2 strokes and a DIR to be exact. Along the way Ben was kind enough to show us his DIR rig, his pre-dive checklist, and regaled us with stories of kelp diving with seals and sea lions swimming up to you like puppies to be stroked (no pun intended).
You might be wondering about the virgins... well I brought the virgins to Anilao that day. July 17 was the day I was going to get my brand spanking new BP/W (an EXD 30lb w/ SS bp) rig wet... I had just pulled it off Gordy's shelf 4 days before and I was raring to go at it.
I also had a new SMB and reel that needed wetting, as well as the new Salvo light I got off Jagfish when he was at PG. Another virgin was my Timex Helix bottom timer... I've been wearing it as a wrist watch for a couple of months now, but it needs to get below 15' to really be "devirginized".
Technically not a virgin, though, was the Canon A620 housing I got bought used from Giovanni (midwestdvr)... admittedly it's no whor of Babylon but it was definitely my first dive with her - and the first time below 4' for the A620. I squeezed into my 3mm full suit and snorkeled the housing out to Balai Rock to drop it down to about 18' to check for leaks - nada... it was ready for action...
For what it's worth Gordon had a virgin of his own... his fancy schmancy new watch... so it seems the shop will not get a new refrigerator hehehehehe
DISCLAIMER: the photos you are about to see suck especially compared to most others... I promise to do much much better in the future... I kept the camera on underwater preset settings on purpose as well as autofocus to keep the tasking overload levels down... it's my 1st time with a (real) camera u/w so I didn't want to get overwhelmed setting it up
DIVE 1: Mainit Point
Entry Time: 10:30ish
Bottom Time: 43mins.
My Max Depth: 102 feet
The sea was calm and the current barely there. I've done Mainit twice before and it was usually a north-to-south drift but today Edgar dropped us off at the Southern tip and we went roughly eastward then circled back (I wasn't wearing a compass... I'm guess here).
Viz wasn't spectacular - about 30' - but since it was a monday the fish were out in force from not being bothered by early morning divers.
We drifted down to the 70-90' area and I while Ben and Gordy flitted around (Ben had his HID on) I hung back and tried to practice this archaic thing called u/w photography.
Sometime during the dive, the DM (actually a DMC who tagged along) called my attention and pointed out an octopus! My first octopus!!! It was squeezing into a whole and I saw that thing literally turn to stone right before my eyes - amazing camou!!! I hung around and took a series of photos hoping it would come out - it did half-way but never made a full showing. But I have at least 3 color/texture changes on file hehehehe... and a video
Later on another bang of the tank and a point out into the distance... I vaguely understood "octopus" on the handsignal and figured "hey, this one might actually be swimming!" so I fin over and in the haze a pawikan! I figure a hawk's bill turtle... it was lazing around so I was able to fin behind it and take videos while it swam about 10' in front of me! My closest encounter with a turtle!!!
The dive gave us quite a good number of schooling fish, some barracudas, some groupers (i think) and the usual gaggle of Philippine undersea creatures. We surfaced about 42 minutes after the dive started. My SPG was leaking bubbles so instead of jumping to our 2nd dive out, we opted to return to the resort to have a look at the SPG... it was a short boat ride back to the resort where we figured we wanted to eat lunch since it was 1130 anyway. I had to get another reg set as the SPG had hose problems and couldn't be troubleshot at the dive center.
I was flattered by Gordy and Ben that they thought my trim was pretty good and I had good control underwater... I did get a bit ribbed to get rid of my splits and get "real" fins hahahahaha (they were both on springed jets) - well, i'll seriously consider it if anyone wants to buy my apollo bio pro splits.
Lunch, as is always at Balai, was great. A creamy corn soup, potato balls, grilled chicken barbecue, beef caldereta w/ black olives and a lychee tapioca in coconut cream for desert... mmmmmmmmmmmmm...
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Trip report continued on another thread... ran out of posting allowance hehehehehe... complete photos can be found HERE... blog and videos can be viewed HERE
Edgar, Balai's resident DM was our guide for the day and at a fairly relaxed pace we started to set up our gear. For a country that hasn't seen very much of the bp/w it was strange to see a dive group composed of bp divers - 2 strokes and a DIR to be exact. Along the way Ben was kind enough to show us his DIR rig, his pre-dive checklist, and regaled us with stories of kelp diving with seals and sea lions swimming up to you like puppies to be stroked (no pun intended).
You might be wondering about the virgins... well I brought the virgins to Anilao that day. July 17 was the day I was going to get my brand spanking new BP/W (an EXD 30lb w/ SS bp) rig wet... I had just pulled it off Gordy's shelf 4 days before and I was raring to go at it.
I also had a new SMB and reel that needed wetting, as well as the new Salvo light I got off Jagfish when he was at PG. Another virgin was my Timex Helix bottom timer... I've been wearing it as a wrist watch for a couple of months now, but it needs to get below 15' to really be "devirginized".
Technically not a virgin, though, was the Canon A620 housing I got bought used from Giovanni (midwestdvr)... admittedly it's no whor of Babylon but it was definitely my first dive with her - and the first time below 4' for the A620. I squeezed into my 3mm full suit and snorkeled the housing out to Balai Rock to drop it down to about 18' to check for leaks - nada... it was ready for action...
For what it's worth Gordon had a virgin of his own... his fancy schmancy new watch... so it seems the shop will not get a new refrigerator heheheheheDISCLAIMER: the photos you are about to see suck especially compared to most others... I promise to do much much better in the future... I kept the camera on underwater preset settings on purpose as well as autofocus to keep the tasking overload levels down... it's my 1st time with a (real) camera u/w so I didn't want to get overwhelmed setting it up
DIVE 1: Mainit Point
Entry Time: 10:30ish
Bottom Time: 43mins.
My Max Depth: 102 feet
The sea was calm and the current barely there. I've done Mainit twice before and it was usually a north-to-south drift but today Edgar dropped us off at the Southern tip and we went roughly eastward then circled back (I wasn't wearing a compass... I'm guess here).
Viz wasn't spectacular - about 30' - but since it was a monday the fish were out in force from not being bothered by early morning divers.
We drifted down to the 70-90' area and I while Ben and Gordy flitted around (Ben had his HID on) I hung back and tried to practice this archaic thing called u/w photography.
Sometime during the dive, the DM (actually a DMC who tagged along) called my attention and pointed out an octopus! My first octopus!!! It was squeezing into a whole and I saw that thing literally turn to stone right before my eyes - amazing camou!!! I hung around and took a series of photos hoping it would come out - it did half-way but never made a full showing. But I have at least 3 color/texture changes on file hehehehe... and a video
Later on another bang of the tank and a point out into the distance... I vaguely understood "octopus" on the handsignal and figured "hey, this one might actually be swimming!" so I fin over and in the haze a pawikan! I figure a hawk's bill turtle... it was lazing around so I was able to fin behind it and take videos while it swam about 10' in front of me! My closest encounter with a turtle!!!
The dive gave us quite a good number of schooling fish, some barracudas, some groupers (i think) and the usual gaggle of Philippine undersea creatures. We surfaced about 42 minutes after the dive started. My SPG was leaking bubbles so instead of jumping to our 2nd dive out, we opted to return to the resort to have a look at the SPG... it was a short boat ride back to the resort where we figured we wanted to eat lunch since it was 1130 anyway. I had to get another reg set as the SPG had hose problems and couldn't be troubleshot at the dive center.
I was flattered by Gordy and Ben that they thought my trim was pretty good and I had good control underwater... I did get a bit ribbed to get rid of my splits and get "real" fins hahahahaha (they were both on springed jets) - well, i'll seriously consider it if anyone wants to buy my apollo bio pro splits.
Lunch, as is always at Balai, was great. A creamy corn soup, potato balls, grilled chicken barbecue, beef caldereta w/ black olives and a lychee tapioca in coconut cream for desert... mmmmmmmmmmmmm...
------
Trip report continued on another thread... ran out of posting allowance hehehehehe... complete photos can be found HERE... blog and videos can be viewed HERE
