WhiteRhino
Registered
Sabang, Philippines Trip Report
I just spent three weeks in Sabang, Mindoro. I certainly enjoyed my trip and wanted to record some of my impressions. There are now 50 dive shops in a small area, according to one of the dive shop owners. This is far too many for such a small area during a recession. In addition, the area has suffered because of the attack on the bus in Manila, one of three bus attacks this past fall. In particular, Chinese tourists have been affected because they were the ones killed in the attack and that is where most of the publicity about the bus attack has been. In one way, this makes Sabang more attractive because there are less tourists. On the other hand, it's not as exciting. There are a lot of fish and coral to see and there is at least one dive with a lot of current the canyons. The visibility worsened my last week here. I don't know why. It really made diving less enjoyable. Fortunately, it was only towards the end of my holiday. Then it cleared up my last day of diving!
After spending one night in Manila, I took the SiKat bus and ferry combination from City State Tower Hotel. I believe it was 700 pesos one way. There are other ways to go but this is the most convenient as long as you don't mind getting up early because the bus leaves Manila at eight o'clock. We got there in time for an afternoon dive. The dive shop that I used the first afternoon was I believe at Sabang Inn. It was okay but nothing special. I had trouble understanding the dive masters English. The charged me 1200 pesos, discounted from 1300, but that turned out to be a little expensive anyway.
The next day I dove with Natural Born Divers. And they have a brand-new dive shop to the left of Big Apple, or to the right depending on which side you're looking at. The dive master was Chris and the instructor was Danny. Ola was the dive master in training. All of them were really really, really nice. Some of the time, there were three or four of us, but towards the end, I was the only diver and they took me wherever I wanted at whatever time I wanted. They have nice warm showers, brand-new lockers, fresh towels, and unlimited coffee and tea. They give a discount on the basis of at least 10 dives.
Danny is from Belgium. He is authentically friendly and intellectually inquisitive and I immediately felt comfortable with him. I'm thinking of coming back over the summer to do a dive masters course and he provided me with a lot of useful information. In fact, every time I went into the shop he was very useful in discussing all sorts of things related to diving, finding a hotel or apartment, and so forth. Danny, Chris, and Ola all helped me to figure out how to best use my camera. The shop has a G 10 which they used to take some photos of me underwater, which they gave me without any cost. They even made a video of me diving set up like a movie trailer.
I also did two dives with South Sea divers because I wanted to work on my underwater photography with Paul. He is a Canadian who lives in the Philippines permanently. He's not like a fancy equipment kind of underwater photographer but rather a practical teacher who can show how to get better pictures using a basic camera and housing. Basically, he recommended trying two settings. With a flash, he recommended shutter priority. This sets the shutter speed manually. If the object is moving, then he recommended setting the shutter speed quicker, perhaps as much as 1/160. If the object is not moving, then he might recommend setting it at one over 60th.
He suggested setting the ISO to automatic I thought 200 might be okay but since automatic will set it for the best ISO anyway, I guess automatic is okay. The aperture is set automatically as well, and is usually on the lower number f-stop meaning that it has a wider opening of the lens to allow more light in. The light setting that he recommended was underwater, indicated by a fish sign. One of the underwater photography books that I consulted recommends cloudy but Paul disagreed with this.
Without a flash, he suggested setting it to P for program and then adjusting the white balance manually using a white board. This setting sets everything else automatically but my camera shows me what it is set at so I can learn.
Basically, it usually sets a low f-stop number of 2.8 or 3.5 or maybe 4.0 and the shutter speed of somewhere between 1/60 and 1/160. Obviously it is important to remember to reset the light when moving from one to the other. The best photos were in shallow water with excellent visibility. In that case, you could use a camera without a flash, which gave a more natural look.
Between the advice of Paul and all of the staff at Natural Born Divers, my underwater photos are considerably better. I need a tripod, which Paul pointed out. Otherwise, the slower shutter speed which is potentially very useful for getting more light without flash or will mostly produce blurred images. I've been taking most of my photos with one hand while swimming and this is obviously not the way to do it.
I was here two years ago. At that time, I dove with Octopus Divers. There they had to dive masters Lucas who I really liked him and the second dive master who I found rather arrogant and annoying Ramon. But I switched from them halfway because the four German owners incessantly smoked despite my protesting in their shop and the very last day I dove with them, one of the German owners came out on the boat with his cigarettes. I could not believe his lack of consideration for a paying customer and I switched to Big Apple divers and South Sea divers. Big Apple was okay but the dive masters repeatedly ignored my request to go to the canyons, going everywhere else without justification until I was fed up. But I like their restaurant, which is a good place to chat with people and generally see what's going on.
Sabang has good diving combined with a social environment and an active nightlife. It is probably best for single males and worse for those looking for all-inclusive's. There is at least one all-inclusive which is much more expensive than all of the other dive shops Atlantis. They have faster boats and very high quality everything, but they charge a lot more. Pretty much everyone who goes there signed up in a foreign country with a package. I think a lot of these packages are one week here and one week in Dumaguete. For your money, you get as many dives you want, a hotel, food, pretty much everything. Their restaurant looked nice but was quite expensive. I looked at one of the rooms and I didn't find it overwhelming by any means. It was okay but not worth nearly the price and not really really nice either just okay.
I enjoyed Portofino's restaurant. I liked their Indonesian food which is a special every Thursday night. But at night the water comes up so high that it's hard to get to them, because they're located at the next beach which is either Little Laguna or Big Laguna. I had a very bad experience at Bondi fish restaurant where the waitress kept trying to coerce me into ordering the very very expensive items. When I pointed out to her what she was doing, which she was doing extremely obviously, she denied it. She must think that I am totally moronic. It was a very unpleasant experience. Apparently the restaurant does have a bad reputation for doing this sort of thing. As I already mentioned, I liked the Big Apple restaurant. Sometimes the service was good and sometimes not. You have to make sure you get the attention of the waitress right at the beginning and then everything is fine. The food was good and the prices were halfway reasonable.
I stayed at Oriental Sabang Hill Resort at the very end of the street. The owner is Swedish and all the guests except for me were Swedish or at least Scandinavian. I didn't really like this atmosphere which caters to the Swedes. But other than that, the hotel is almost new, their restaurant was pretty good, the staff were fair and friendly, and they had nice views of the harbor. The price was moderate. They do not take credit cards. The whole place has a problem with credit cards. I knew that but I still didn't bring nearly enough cash so ended up using Western Union which takes 7%.
One of the divers went on a five day for night live aboard to see Apo Reef, which is several hours west and south of here. He came back very disappointed. There were 12 divers on the boat but it was a small boat and the water was turbulent. They only did seven dives during the whole time and he said that the diving here was better than the reef. This may have to do with the time of year and even the particular week. Since I get seasick very easily, I was extremely glad that I did not go. I had e-mailed the company twice that they did not respond but I wouldn't go on anyway because the sea sickness issue.
All in all, I had a great time.
