Trip Report Live trip updates: USA to Anilao Photo Academy

[NootFish]

I would not go to that extreme unless you are talking Anilao only.

Case numbers are lower in the Philippines, and more people wear masks. The country also has a reasonably mandatory contact tracing app that everyone uses.

 

[NootFish]

Still on my way home, it's been a while. They were weather delays and I missed my flight home, managed to rebook to a city 2 hours away and just worked out the logistics of getting home from there when we don't own a car and no rental car places are open. I'm so tired. I miss falling off of boats.

 

[NootFish]

I'm surprised that nobody in the US checked my test result on the way in. It was checked to fly to Korea, but when I was flying out, each country I was in checked all of my documents at least once. Not sure if it was overkill to get the PCR test since I was flying through South Korea and they require PCR testing. Still wouldn't want to risk it with just an antigen in case they wouldn't accept it.

 

[Centrals]

Case numbers are lower in the Philippines, and more people wear masks. The country also has a reasonably mandatory contact tracing app that everyone uses.

I thought you meant the general safety of the country rather than the Covid.

I'm surprised that nobody in the US checked my test result on the way in. It was checked to fly to Korea, but when I was flying out, each country I was in checked all of my documents at least once. Not sure if it was overkill to get the PCR test since I was flying through South Korea and they require PCR testing. Still wouldn't want to risk it with just an antigen in case they wouldn't accept it.

They probably thought you would had been checked multi-times on the way home!
PCR is usually the preferred testing method. Smart move.

 

[jjmochi]

View attachment 710797

wow! what is it - baby octopus?

 

[NootFish]

wow! what is it - baby octopus?

It's a nautilus! It's a cephalopod with a shell that lives in deeper water. You don't see them on reef dives.

 

[Centrals]

It's a nautilus! It's a cephalopod with a shell that lives in deeper water. You don't see them on reef dives.

You must be quite a distance from shore and out in the open at night.
I wonder if any divers based in PG had seen it?

 

[Manuel Sam]

I believe that it is called a Paper Nautilus, otherwise known as an Argonaut, which is different and unrelated to the Nautilus, other than both are cephalopods. To me it is just as exotic. I think most divers haven't seen either one - I certainly haven't. And as Nootfish observed, it is not something that you see when you dive on a reef - or even a wall. As I recall, there used to be places - and maybe the practice continues - where they used to set traps to catch Nautilus from the depths so as to bring them up to recreational depths to allow that divers to see and take pictures of them.

 

[NootFish]

I believe that it is called a Paper Nautilus, otherwise known as an Argonaut, which is different and unrelated to the Nautilus, other than both are cephalopods. To me it is just as exotic. I think most divers haven't seen either one - I certainly haven't. And as Nootfish observed, it is not something that you see when you dive on a reef - or even a wall. As I recall, there used to be places - and maybe the practice continues - where they used to set traps to catch Nautilus from the depths so as to bring them up to recreational depths to allow that divers to see and take pictures of them.

This one came up from the depths all on its own! We saw three of them that dive. I'd never done black water diving before, and black water photography is really challenging but the photographs generated are incredible!