pughio83
Contributor
Arrived in manila on April 9th 2011 with Qatar airways. Had pre booked cheap flights with philippine airlines to tacloban ( approx £80 pounds return trip). Excellent service and no problems, had very large carry on bag and no problems, hence avoiding excess baggage! I was going to be staying at Sogod Bay Scuba Resort with a friend, and hence had pre arranged a pickup from the airport. This cost 3500 peso for the car to get to the resort which was a 3hr drive from Tacloban.
Sogod Bay is very quiet, traditional philippino housing etc lots of jungle and some farm land. Not many beaches per say there but if you want beaches go to bohol or boracay, i was there for the diving.
Sogod Bay Scuba Resort was a small resort. We stayed in a beachfront cottage (not really a beach) but did the job. Aircon, but no tv or ref. But clean and well maintained, and cost only 1300 peso per night for the room.The resort had a small restaurant which produced good enough food, the menu being suitable for a weeks stay max, otherwise it will have got a bit limiting. But there are some local restaurants nearby as well. Internet connection with wi fi, library and photo corner all free. And it had a nice chaired area overlooking the bay which was lovely to hang out at.
I had my own gear for diving which was well looked after by the dive guys. And it was always ready and setup on the boat ready for diving. You could do up to 4 dives a day if you wanted. In 6 days i did 16 dives.
Ok so Sogod Bay is famous for whalesharks. I saw None. This years weather pattern had been odd, and warm currents had meant whaleshark season lasted for like 4 weeks. I knew however before i got there that they were no longer in the bay. But usually every year they have a lot of them between dec - may, april being peak time to see them as visibility better and good weather.
The diving itself was excellent and very varied. You had beautiful wall dives at Napantau and Limasawa where the viz was great. The corals at Napantau were out of this world. You also had nice house reefs, and also muck diving sites, namely ghost town and little lembeh. then you had Padre Burgos pier night dives, which were world class.
The night dives provided a lot of weird critters. Various types of seahorses, lionfish, nudibranchs all present. We also saw blue ringed octopus, stargazers (of which delighted from eating the cardinal fish that were attracted to our torches) and leopard flounders, pegasus sea moths and weird types of crabs (spider, decorator etc).
Little lembeh was a true muck dive, and i dived it twice. no corals just silty bottom. But we saw sea moths, Inimicus, loads of ornate ghost pipefish, weird nudis, orange mantis shrimp, hairy octopus, other pipefish types, questionable flambouyant cuttlefish. They also have wonderpus there but we couldnt find.
Ghost town was another fave, with plenty of ornate ghostpipefish, robust ghostpipefish, elusive mimic octopus which would pop its head out but refuse photos, land snakes that had ventured into the sea, frogfish etc..
Off the house reefs they have yellow and pink pygmy seahorses, of which i only saw the yellow. Plenty of frogfishes, loads of nudis, great general marine life. And the thing i liked was that everywhere you looked there was a critter. Look in crinoid and you would find a squat lobster, commensal shrimp, clingfish or pipefish etc..The bay was just teaming with life. And had such a varied array of dive sites. If only the whalesharks had turned up and it would have been unbeatable!!
So all in all the diving was great, and i would definately return. The staff at SBSR were very friendly, pedro the dive instructor and guide was top of his game, spotting things that shouldnt be spotted by the human eye.
The weeks total cost me around £600 - thats all food, drink, accomm, 2 transfers, flights from manila, 16 dives, laundry and tips! I would definately recommend the resort and diving there if macro is your thing.
And thanks to anyone who recommended the canon S95 to me, it is awesome!!
Sogod Bay is very quiet, traditional philippino housing etc lots of jungle and some farm land. Not many beaches per say there but if you want beaches go to bohol or boracay, i was there for the diving.
Sogod Bay Scuba Resort was a small resort. We stayed in a beachfront cottage (not really a beach) but did the job. Aircon, but no tv or ref. But clean and well maintained, and cost only 1300 peso per night for the room.The resort had a small restaurant which produced good enough food, the menu being suitable for a weeks stay max, otherwise it will have got a bit limiting. But there are some local restaurants nearby as well. Internet connection with wi fi, library and photo corner all free. And it had a nice chaired area overlooking the bay which was lovely to hang out at.
I had my own gear for diving which was well looked after by the dive guys. And it was always ready and setup on the boat ready for diving. You could do up to 4 dives a day if you wanted. In 6 days i did 16 dives.
Ok so Sogod Bay is famous for whalesharks. I saw None. This years weather pattern had been odd, and warm currents had meant whaleshark season lasted for like 4 weeks. I knew however before i got there that they were no longer in the bay. But usually every year they have a lot of them between dec - may, april being peak time to see them as visibility better and good weather.
The diving itself was excellent and very varied. You had beautiful wall dives at Napantau and Limasawa where the viz was great. The corals at Napantau were out of this world. You also had nice house reefs, and also muck diving sites, namely ghost town and little lembeh. then you had Padre Burgos pier night dives, which were world class.
The night dives provided a lot of weird critters. Various types of seahorses, lionfish, nudibranchs all present. We also saw blue ringed octopus, stargazers (of which delighted from eating the cardinal fish that were attracted to our torches) and leopard flounders, pegasus sea moths and weird types of crabs (spider, decorator etc).
Little lembeh was a true muck dive, and i dived it twice. no corals just silty bottom. But we saw sea moths, Inimicus, loads of ornate ghost pipefish, weird nudis, orange mantis shrimp, hairy octopus, other pipefish types, questionable flambouyant cuttlefish. They also have wonderpus there but we couldnt find.
Ghost town was another fave, with plenty of ornate ghostpipefish, robust ghostpipefish, elusive mimic octopus which would pop its head out but refuse photos, land snakes that had ventured into the sea, frogfish etc..
Off the house reefs they have yellow and pink pygmy seahorses, of which i only saw the yellow. Plenty of frogfishes, loads of nudis, great general marine life. And the thing i liked was that everywhere you looked there was a critter. Look in crinoid and you would find a squat lobster, commensal shrimp, clingfish or pipefish etc..The bay was just teaming with life. And had such a varied array of dive sites. If only the whalesharks had turned up and it would have been unbeatable!!
So all in all the diving was great, and i would definately return. The staff at SBSR were very friendly, pedro the dive instructor and guide was top of his game, spotting things that shouldnt be spotted by the human eye.
The weeks total cost me around £600 - thats all food, drink, accomm, 2 transfers, flights from manila, 16 dives, laundry and tips! I would definately recommend the resort and diving there if macro is your thing.
And thanks to anyone who recommended the canon S95 to me, it is awesome!!
