jeff99
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Hi
Just got back from 2 weeks in S. Leyte and 1 week in Alona Beach. This is the first time we have been to the Philippines - it won't be the last!
We found that the corals and fish life in S. Leyte were absolutely stunning! True, there weren't many big fish, but if you did for example the dives at Napantao across the bay it was like swimming in fish soup! We did four dives there and it was brilliant on every dive. ( Napantao is a fish sanctuary) Padre Burgas pier was also interesting - we saw loads during our single dive there including a 2m sea krait that swam about a foot under GF! Best dive overall @ S. Leyte was Buenavista - the best hard coral I have ever seen and loads and loads of fish. We stayed with Sogod Bay Scuba Resort and would like to say a big " Thankyou" to Ron, Phil, Pedro and all of the staff who made our time there so very special.
We dived with some really nice people here at Sogod - you all know who you are! We even met a PPD'er! Fab resort, fab staff and guests and fab diving! We also did our Nitrox course here under the eyes of the ever-vigilant Phil - thanks for keeping us on the straight and narrow Phil! What we will miss most about not being at Sogod though is our early morning walks along the beach with Dopey, Shirley and Barbara. If you are reading this Ron, give them all a pat from us and tell them we will see them next year!
Sogod Bay Scuba Resort is quite small, but very nice with lovely clean a\c rooms. There is a small wreck in front of the resort with a couple of HUGE resident batfish. It's at about 12-15m if I remember correctly. The housereef is very interesting with quite a lot of fish and wonderful corals. We really miss not being there anymore
After two glorious weeks we moved on to Alona Beach. We stayed at the Flowergarden Resort which is quite a way back from the main area - less noise etc. so it suited us! A lovely place to chill.........We dived with Sea Explorers and our guide was Eriko, a Japanese lady. I had a bit of an epic at Black Forest on Balicasag - I'll probably send it into the Incidents forum! Black Forest mmmmmmmm where to start. Now I know no one will believe me, Eriko didn't, Susi ( GF) didn't see it either, but on the descent down the slope I looked up and to my right and I swear I saw a mola! It was swimming away in the way that molas do, was about 2-2 1\2 ft. long and just went off into the distance till I couldn't see it anymore. I wrote on my slate and showed GF, who nodded vaguely, then we carried on down to the drop-off. I don't care that no one believes me - I know what I saw!
As we got to the drop off, we saw a turtle the size of a small car swimming off to our left, accompanied by its' remoras. ( We have never seen remoras with turtles before, but every one we saw, without exception, in the Philippines, had them.) In front of us was a huge shoal of big mouth mackerel - there were thousands of them - all feeding in the strong current. Bit further along the reef and the jacks appeared - bigeye jacks, there must have been many hundreds of them - all swirling and following us along the reef. They swim almost up to your mask, and they are all eyeballing you!
Bit further along and we lost the jacks, only to see 7 or 8 Bluefin Jacks playing follow my leader along the reef edge, again they all came over for a close look at us as we drifted by. We spotted a turtle and came round to spend some time with it as it was resting on the reef. Unfortunately my camera battery had expired at this point, just as I was face to face with a turtle.....( Have to say here that only one finger was used by all three of us, fins and bodies were WELL off the reef and the finger used to hold station was on limestone)
Lifted off the reef and carried on with our drift - more fish than you could shake a stick at and as if that weren't enough, Eriko kept finding nudis for us to glimpse as we whizzed by. More Bluefin Jacks - this time about ten of them - all big fish, maybe three feet or so, then the Bigeyes caught up with us again - they followed us until we got out of the current and on to the reef top due to air considerations ( Mine! ) Saw loads and loads of fish on the reef top, incl. small morays, and all the other usual suspects. Brilliant dive and one which I would really like to do under different circumstances. ( Underweight, mask clip came undone etc.)
We also saw a big shoal of Bigeye Jacks at Tawala Sanctuary a little way along the beach from Alona and also a large shoal of Barracudas - not the big ones, can't remember the name of these. I'll look it up if anyone wants to know.
All too soon it was time to leave the Philippines. We would also like to say a big " Thankyou" to Eriko, our guide from Sea Explorers. She and her boyfriend Felix from Switzerland made our week at Alona really special. If you are going to Alona try to dive with Sea Explorers and have Eriko as your guide - you won't regret it!
I'll try to do a proper report at some stage, but it will have to wait as work and an imminent house move are taking up a lot of my time at the mo. Have got some reasonable pics and will try to post some here or link to them.
Jeff ( & Susi )
Just got back from 2 weeks in S. Leyte and 1 week in Alona Beach. This is the first time we have been to the Philippines - it won't be the last!
We found that the corals and fish life in S. Leyte were absolutely stunning! True, there weren't many big fish, but if you did for example the dives at Napantao across the bay it was like swimming in fish soup! We did four dives there and it was brilliant on every dive. ( Napantao is a fish sanctuary) Padre Burgas pier was also interesting - we saw loads during our single dive there including a 2m sea krait that swam about a foot under GF! Best dive overall @ S. Leyte was Buenavista - the best hard coral I have ever seen and loads and loads of fish. We stayed with Sogod Bay Scuba Resort and would like to say a big " Thankyou" to Ron, Phil, Pedro and all of the staff who made our time there so very special.
We dived with some really nice people here at Sogod - you all know who you are! We even met a PPD'er! Fab resort, fab staff and guests and fab diving! We also did our Nitrox course here under the eyes of the ever-vigilant Phil - thanks for keeping us on the straight and narrow Phil! What we will miss most about not being at Sogod though is our early morning walks along the beach with Dopey, Shirley and Barbara. If you are reading this Ron, give them all a pat from us and tell them we will see them next year!
Sogod Bay Scuba Resort is quite small, but very nice with lovely clean a\c rooms. There is a small wreck in front of the resort with a couple of HUGE resident batfish. It's at about 12-15m if I remember correctly. The housereef is very interesting with quite a lot of fish and wonderful corals. We really miss not being there anymore
After two glorious weeks we moved on to Alona Beach. We stayed at the Flowergarden Resort which is quite a way back from the main area - less noise etc. so it suited us! A lovely place to chill.........We dived with Sea Explorers and our guide was Eriko, a Japanese lady. I had a bit of an epic at Black Forest on Balicasag - I'll probably send it into the Incidents forum! Black Forest mmmmmmmm where to start. Now I know no one will believe me, Eriko didn't, Susi ( GF) didn't see it either, but on the descent down the slope I looked up and to my right and I swear I saw a mola! It was swimming away in the way that molas do, was about 2-2 1\2 ft. long and just went off into the distance till I couldn't see it anymore. I wrote on my slate and showed GF, who nodded vaguely, then we carried on down to the drop-off. I don't care that no one believes me - I know what I saw!
As we got to the drop off, we saw a turtle the size of a small car swimming off to our left, accompanied by its' remoras. ( We have never seen remoras with turtles before, but every one we saw, without exception, in the Philippines, had them.) In front of us was a huge shoal of big mouth mackerel - there were thousands of them - all feeding in the strong current. Bit further along the reef and the jacks appeared - bigeye jacks, there must have been many hundreds of them - all swirling and following us along the reef. They swim almost up to your mask, and they are all eyeballing you!
Bit further along and we lost the jacks, only to see 7 or 8 Bluefin Jacks playing follow my leader along the reef edge, again they all came over for a close look at us as we drifted by. We spotted a turtle and came round to spend some time with it as it was resting on the reef. Unfortunately my camera battery had expired at this point, just as I was face to face with a turtle.....( Have to say here that only one finger was used by all three of us, fins and bodies were WELL off the reef and the finger used to hold station was on limestone)
Lifted off the reef and carried on with our drift - more fish than you could shake a stick at and as if that weren't enough, Eriko kept finding nudis for us to glimpse as we whizzed by. More Bluefin Jacks - this time about ten of them - all big fish, maybe three feet or so, then the Bigeyes caught up with us again - they followed us until we got out of the current and on to the reef top due to air considerations ( Mine! ) Saw loads and loads of fish on the reef top, incl. small morays, and all the other usual suspects. Brilliant dive and one which I would really like to do under different circumstances. ( Underweight, mask clip came undone etc.)
We also saw a big shoal of Bigeye Jacks at Tawala Sanctuary a little way along the beach from Alona and also a large shoal of Barracudas - not the big ones, can't remember the name of these. I'll look it up if anyone wants to know.
All too soon it was time to leave the Philippines. We would also like to say a big " Thankyou" to Eriko, our guide from Sea Explorers. She and her boyfriend Felix from Switzerland made our week at Alona really special. If you are going to Alona try to dive with Sea Explorers and have Eriko as your guide - you won't regret it!
I'll try to do a proper report at some stage, but it will have to wait as work and an imminent house move are taking up a lot of my time at the mo. Have got some reasonable pics and will try to post some here or link to them.
Jeff ( & Susi )
