For the price of a round trip air fare ticket to Boracay (~7,000 pesos) one can go to Puerto Galera overnight, dive three times and enjoy the company of 2 other people for less, food excluded.
This is what I did when I took along my non diver wife and diver daughter to try out the place last weekend. We left Pasig at 6 in the morning and arrived at Batangas pier at 8:30 after two pit stops and slow traffic along the national highway after the expressway going to the Star tollway. I parked our car at Park and Sail immediately across Terminal 3 where we took the one hour ferry which left at 9. Even tipped the porter to carry all our gear in a cart a hundred pesos. The ferry was 200 pesos per head.
Upon arrival at Sabang island, we were picked up by the speed boat of Sea Rider Dive Center and 5 minutes later disembarked in front of the dive shop.
Since my non diver wife preferred to spend the day in a comfortable room, it took some time to settle down until we chose the inn right beside the dive shop, very convenient to run to after we rinse in the shop and rush to the room for a hot shower. The room had aircon, cable TV, a kitchen with fridge and two burner stove, and hot shower all for the price of 1,600 per night with an extra bed already included. Of course, price doubles during peak season,
I already reserved a week's stay there over the holidays. Right next to the inn that we chose is a restaurant bar boasting the coldest beer in town called Full Moon but recently changed management and now called China Moon. The chef cooks 5 star hotel food with prices averaging 350 pesos, cold beer at 60. ( With our kitchen and fridge, I will be saving more when we go back) My wife bought fresh mangoes from a vendor who passed by and the chef boasted his culinary skills by making a flambe out of it for a corkage fee of 10 pesos
All our dives were just 5 to 15 minutes away from the dive shop and the owner, Mark Narvacan extended service to us par excellence for only 800 pesos per dive to Indios like me and my mixed blood daughter. There are some 40 dive spots and we only tried Sabang Wreck which was right in front of Sabang beach. Right after surfacing our dive boat was moored beside a floating bar and to the amazement of my shocked daughter I was greeted with a GRO who stuffed my mouth with boiled banana dipped in bago-ong, reputedly a delicacy from Leeteh
Our afternoon dive after a sumptious lunch of mixed seafood grill for only 350 pesos but good for 2 complete with salad and soup was at Monkey Beach, about 7 minutes away.
We had a relaxing evening after that, enjoying a quiet evening with no loud music as the inn is located in Small Laguna, a good 10 minute walk away from the barrio of Sabang where all the night life is. There are more than 20 dive shops along the stretch.
The following day we made another dive before departing at Hole in the Wall, 15 minutes away. My daughter had her first try at drift diving and our boat picked us up a good 2 kilometers away from where we started. Visibility averaged 25 meters all throughout the 2 days of diving and temperature at 25 degrees centigrade. I managed with a 1.5 mm jumpsuit but settled with a 3 mm hooded vest inside after our 1st dive to conserve energy. What I appreciated about Sea Rider's policy is to make sure we really had spent at least 60 minutes diving on all our dives. Look them up at
www.seariderdivecenter.com
I already look forward to going back next month.
Where do the Japanese fall on the scale? And how about "Doesn't look kano but walks, talks and acts like a kano".
