Dynamite Fishing in Cebu

[DiveGolfSki]

Last July, I was diving at the Hilutungan sanctuary of Mactan with my two nephews (one local and the other from the states). It was a relatively calm dive but sometime during the middle of the dive, we heard an explosion and felt the concussion wave. :11:

After checking for: (a) a blown O-Ring; (b) a blown tank :11:; (c) all my limbs were intact; we continued the dive. When we got back on the surface, my Cebuano nephew told me it was dynamite fishing.

Note that this was mid-day. I was surprised that this practice was still used (whether or not it is legal). Although the incident did enliven our dive, I would always choose a non-eventful dive over something as destructive as this.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

 

[Narcd_dvr]

Last July, I was diving at the Hilutungan sanctuary of Mactan with my two nephews (one local and the other from the states). It was a relatively calm dive but sometime during the middle of the dive, we heard an explosion and felt the concussion wave. :11:

After checking for: (a) a blown O-Ring; (b) a blown tank :11:; (c) all my limbs were intact; we continued the dive. When we got back on the surface, my Cebuano nephew told me it was dynamite fishing.

Note that this was mid-day. I was surprised that this practice was still used (whether or not it is legal). Although the incident did enliven our dive, I would always choose a non-eventful dive over something as destructive as this.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

Dude, longtime no chat I had a similar experience when I dove Hilutungan, back in 04. The DM warned me before the dive, that there's some dynamite fishing going on outside of the fish sanctuary and sure enough, I heard a couple of blasts; it sounded like the blasts were a few feet from us.
Sadly, dynamite fishing is widely practiced in the Philippines and enforcement hardly exists at all.

 

[nicke]

Same here, last march in Mactan (lapu-lapu)..
The "corals" didn't look to healthy to say the least.

 

[RikRaeder]

I heard a couple blasts at Hilutungan in Nov '06. Such a pity.

 

[marku]

Spent a year doing research in the marine sancturies in Danajon Bank (a large reef system in between Northwest Bohol and Cebu) and there was hardly a dive where I didn't hear any dynamite blasts. In that area, Illegal fishing (blast fishing is only one example) is the norm rather than the exception.

But despite that, there is still some great diving there. The Hilutungan sanctuary is one of the area's success stories. And if the Batasan sanctuary (an offshore reef off of Tubigon in bohol) is still being enforced, then the diving there should be great now. When I last dived there 4 years ago we saw schooling barracudas, bumphead parrots, and a whitetip reef shark.