Ishie
Guest
What a wonderful trip!!!
Major Kudos to Atlantis and particularly to our divemaster Marco. What's better than a marine biologist as a DM???
INCREDIBLE introduction to warm water!! The reefs are gorgeous, and particularly around Apo! The last day of diving, we were off Apo island staying fairly shallow, but it was a clear day with like 90' of vis, sun shining through, and there was not a sandy area; all soft and hard corals, clouds of fish, morays, frogfish... stunning!!!
Did my first real "wrecks". The Dauin cars and a small fishing boat. Not the Andrea Doria, but prior to that it was just smashed driftwood and the shell of an old military amtrack.
Lionfish galore! Tons of eels, gorgeous brightly colored fish, and beautiful nudibranchs. Several giant clams, turtles everywhere, and they let me swim with them!!!
Great seasnake!! I put him in my gallery. I was chasing him for quite a distance, but then he turned around and headed (curiously) straight for my camera. I have one picture (not loaded) of a kind of "reared cobra" look, but it blurred
hyeah20: , so I got the one where he turned around with his head at a 45 degree angle to the camera.
All in all, an awesome trip and an awesome country. I've never met nicer people or felt generally safer in an atmosphere. It was funny because once I was back at SFO, I had a kind of mental change where I was being far more attentive with my bags, while in Dumaguete I had my camera comfortably in the camera room and my wallet casually tossed on the nightstand. I went out in town and had a great time there too.
Thanks for all the advice from everyone. I'm gradually loading images into my gallery, though I have about 2000 to sort through, topside and bottomside. That is quite a drop from the banca boat, but a fun one! We were having fun trying to get pictures of each other doing the big backflop off the boat, with double points for the twin fin slap if you can hit the top AND the side of the boat on the roll in.
Thanks everyone! Can't wait to go back!!
Major Kudos to Atlantis and particularly to our divemaster Marco. What's better than a marine biologist as a DM???
INCREDIBLE introduction to warm water!! The reefs are gorgeous, and particularly around Apo! The last day of diving, we were off Apo island staying fairly shallow, but it was a clear day with like 90' of vis, sun shining through, and there was not a sandy area; all soft and hard corals, clouds of fish, morays, frogfish... stunning!!!
Did my first real "wrecks". The Dauin cars and a small fishing boat. Not the Andrea Doria, but prior to that it was just smashed driftwood and the shell of an old military amtrack.
Lionfish galore! Tons of eels, gorgeous brightly colored fish, and beautiful nudibranchs. Several giant clams, turtles everywhere, and they let me swim with them!!!
Great seasnake!! I put him in my gallery. I was chasing him for quite a distance, but then he turned around and headed (curiously) straight for my camera. I have one picture (not loaded) of a kind of "reared cobra" look, but it blurred
hyeah20: , so I got the one where he turned around with his head at a 45 degree angle to the camera. All in all, an awesome trip and an awesome country. I've never met nicer people or felt generally safer in an atmosphere. It was funny because once I was back at SFO, I had a kind of mental change where I was being far more attentive with my bags, while in Dumaguete I had my camera comfortably in the camera room and my wallet casually tossed on the nightstand. I went out in town and had a great time there too.
Thanks for all the advice from everyone. I'm gradually loading images into my gallery, though I have about 2000 to sort through, topside and bottomside. That is quite a drop from the banca boat, but a fun one! We were having fun trying to get pictures of each other doing the big backflop off the boat, with double points for the twin fin slap if you can hit the top AND the side of the boat on the roll in.
Thanks everyone! Can't wait to go back!!
