Yes, it was a pleasure meeting you all, putting faces to the names. Thanks for the hospitality Pao! Looking forward to the next DOR, hopefully next time those who couldn't join can make it next time (axua, partridge, Haltron, divejulz, lai rallos, Van, phildiver88, gaudencio, micamaldita, anyone else living here that I missed...) but we also have gotta get some SB members abroad to join us (You all know who you are)!
So this is the dive report of the Dive o Rama according to Chip:
In general the waves were choppy. Really made fun for diving in the shallows - I felt like going to sleep! But it was a pain in the butt for trying to untwist the plastic bags off the corals (I have the cuts on my fingers to show!). I enjoyed the ridges and finning through them. Made me feel like a commando! haha. It was my first time doing shore dives, so I must say that it was pretty fun jumping in first then having your equipment thrown at you.
1st Dive: Really fun checking out the diving in front of portulano. Nice wall, viz was decent since the waves hadn't picked up as much yet. Saw the moray that pao pointed out. Noticed a lot of COTs. Posing for the pic was fun. Can anyone post a full one of us?
2nd Dive: Viz was so so. Checked out the artificial reefs laid down. Not alot of coral settlement, but the fish recruitment was good. Saw a pregnant pufferfish. Saw a whole school of fish grazing on the algae. Out of the 3 batches, we caught the least COTs (3 na lang pero we had a whole lot garbage to be proud of!).
3rd dive: Viz wasn't good. Got my masked knocked off accidentally by Monique - pretty darn funny. Got separated twice from the group. First time with Rej, Vince and Iris. But were able to find our way back. Second time was cause I was so intent on untangling a shirt smothering a coral - it took Iris and I about 2 mins. When we looked up, no one was around. It was only 20ft depth and we had 1500psi left so we eventually made our way to the pier (although Iris was much more calm than I was).
The SIs were also fun. I enjoyed the buffet but didn't have a chance to sample the kebabs since they were all gone. Nothing like a hot bowl of sinigang to warm you up!
Spoon, I'm definitely down for a future DOR location at AquaV. Till then, if you, vince & co. are gonna go during the week, give me a PM. I'm curious to see what's "downer".
It's a small world bro.
