DonnaC
Contributor
I had “liked” the Bluewater Photo Facebook page a while ago and every so often I would see some great photos of an exotic location and think “I would love to go there”. One day, I saw the price to Anilao and thought “Maybe I could afford $1495 for a week of diving (this includes lodging, meals, dives, dive guide, and photo instruction)…. I wonder how much it costs to fly there…” I checked Seattle and was seeing 2 stops, many hours, and about $1200, hmmm… Then checked Vancouver, BC – seeing direct flights or 1 stop with good arrival times – for about $1000! Maybe this could work! I proceeded to sign up for the trip and sent off my $400 deposit to BWP and booked the flight. Leaving December 5th at 12:20am, arriving in Taipei, Dec. 6th at 6am, leaving Taipei at 7:35am, arriving in Manila at 9:40am.
My first flight went smoothly (thanks to a sleeping pill). Unfortunately, my layover at Taipei wasn’t long enough because I had to go through security – and fortunately they knew that and waited for the thousand or so people stuck in that line. After leaving a little late from Taipei, I arrived in Manila, changed dollars to pesos and found the yellow “fixed price” taxi stand. A 20 minute taxi ride later, I was at the Best Western Oxford Suites in Makati. I had connected with another diver and we had plans to see a little bit of Manila on the 6th, prior to being picked up at a Manila (Makati) hotel the following morning to be shuttled to Anilao. Unfortunately, her Philippine Air flights got REALLY messed up and she wasn’t going to make it there in the morning. And also….there just happened to be a Typhoon heading our way. The tour that we had booked was cancelled by the operator – due to the Typhoon. Great.
Crystal Blue Dive Resort shuttles picked us up at 8am on December 7th and we had a quick 2 ½ hour drive to Anilao – worrying about the Typhoon ….would we need our trip insurance? The resort staff quickly carried our luggage and dive gear up the many steps to the hotel rooms and we proceeded to unpack, set up cameras (there was a beautiful camera room with lighting, electricity, storage and set up space), dive gear, and eat lunch before two afternoon dives. The room was small, but clean - with a beautiful view. We had lunch and a quick orientation – then prepared for our first dives in Anilao.
This was my first trip to the Philippines and my first trip where I planned to “Muck” dive. I signed up for this trip based on my love of Macro photography. I watched Youtube videos and was concerned about seeing clusters of divers waiting for their turn at the photo subject but figured that I would go with the flow and figure it out. I wish that I had educated myself on muck diving – and I wish that my group of 4 (with our guide) had been educated on muck diving. There are some techniques that go beyond controlling your buoyancy.
Here is a great video on ‘Muck Diving Tips”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oJODUOoWgc
Our first 2 dives were at Secret Bay – we saw Seahorses, Frogfish, Anemone shrimp, Nudibranchs, Soft corals, Crinoid Shrimp and much more. We also saw trash…. On my first dive, I was collecting it and putting in my BC pocket – I soon realized that there was trash everywhere. On muck dives and beautiful reefs there is trash. Through the week, I kept thinking, “what if every diver gave up one dive per trip and just collected trash – would it get cleaned up? I’d like to think so.
My last couple of dive trips were Bonaire and Cozumel so there was some culture shock when it comes to taking care of the reefs. There are some locations with mooring bouys and many more where an anchor is thrown on the reef with visible damage from the anchors. Some of the “boatmen” told me that there is government money set aside for more moorings. I hope so!
Going from a location where you may not wear gloves and may not touch even dead coral or rocks to a location where the dive guide finds incredible creatures for you to photograph by digging up, poking, picking up and placing critters, squishing (soft corals) – is strange. My room-mate chose to request that her dive guide not do these things which I applaud her for. As for me – I am going with the flow and trusting my Filipino dive guide to know how and what to do to protect these critters – and that it is better that he do it than for me to be poking around.
I had several different guides at Crystal Blue and am very thankful for their help and know that I would have seen many fewer critters without their assistance!! Special thanks to Jomel, Pong, and Glenn.
After a wonderful dinner and photo instruction, we discussed the Typhoon. Various discussions circulated – it’s breaking up (wishful thinking), it will be here tomorrow, the resort will write whatever they need to if we lose many dive days – for the trip insurance. The gist – no diving on Day 2. On December 8th, 2014 – Typhoon Ruby moved over our location. There was lots of wind and rain but we were snug in our resort restaurant/gathering place – the food was great, photo instruction off and on all day, and a nice group of people to hang around with – and at least we had two dives worth of photos to edit…And two photo pros (Mike Bartick and Kelli Dickinson) to give us tips on Lightroom and Photoshop.
Day three: still pretty gray and rainy but not that windy. After hanging out for a little while, Mike made some phone calls to see if he could get any of the boats out to take us diving. They all declined but Crystal Blue #3 – we were going diving! I think we had about 6 divers and one dive guide. We started on the house reef and then did some muck diving later. Three dives in all that day. The water was stirred up but at least we were in it!
After that day, we returned to the planned dive schedule. Breakfast at 7am, Dive #1 at 8am (usually about 60 minute dives) an hour surface interval on a beach and then dive #2. Then back to the resort for lunch, battery changes, and photo downloads. Dive #3 at 3pm, Night dive at 5:30 and then back to the resort again for shower, dinner, photo downloads, and maybe some photo instruction.
My room-mate and I did every dive for the next six days. With three dives on my last day, I had a total of 32 dives in Anilao. Would I do this trip again? A huge, resounding YES!
Things that I would do different: a longer layover in Taipei, no Typhoon, set up International internet for my own use (the Resort WIFI was sketchy), request that all divers in my group watch the muck diving video ☺, and not try to get to the Manila Airport at rush hour.
Now that I’ve finished editing over 2000 images taken in Anilao, I have some more thoughts on this experience. On the first day, we were placed into groups of (4) and assigned a guide and a boat. There is a hierarchy of dive guides – most likely seniority with Edgar being the most well- known and requested guide. There also seemed to be some competition between them for finding the most, best and the smallest critters. Jomel would show me critters that were too small for my 60mm lens. After several days and some “no thanks” he finally understood that I couldn’t take photos of microcritters like hairy shrimps. About midway through the week, I added my 1.4 teleconvertor which helped – next time I hope to have a SuperMacro lens to play with.
The initially assigned groups changed as some divers elected to join other dive guides. I stayed with Jomel and couldn’t be more grateful. After six days of diving, many of the divers left for home. My roommate and I then had a boat to ourselves and both her dive guide Pong and my guide Jomel. It was amazing having a personal dive guide! The following day we arrived at the dive deck to find that we would have my roommate’s dive guide, Pong (he was more senior than Jomel). Those dives were different for me because Pong honored my roommate’s request not to molest the critters.
On the last day, we went back to a couple of dive spots in one boat as a group of the divers and guides who were left. I am so grateful to dive guide Glen for showing me the mushroom coral pipefish and the pipedragon on the Daru Laut dive! On my last dive, due to flight times I had a boat and dive guide Pong to myself – I wanted one more try at the Pink Pygmy Seahorses…..it was a perfect way to end the trip. Pygmy Seahorse, Anemone crab (that I found myself!), Bubble coral Shrimp, more new Nudibranchs, and the fish with the crab in his mouth.
Here's a link to see my photos: donnainblaine.smugmug.com
My first flight went smoothly (thanks to a sleeping pill). Unfortunately, my layover at Taipei wasn’t long enough because I had to go through security – and fortunately they knew that and waited for the thousand or so people stuck in that line. After leaving a little late from Taipei, I arrived in Manila, changed dollars to pesos and found the yellow “fixed price” taxi stand. A 20 minute taxi ride later, I was at the Best Western Oxford Suites in Makati. I had connected with another diver and we had plans to see a little bit of Manila on the 6th, prior to being picked up at a Manila (Makati) hotel the following morning to be shuttled to Anilao. Unfortunately, her Philippine Air flights got REALLY messed up and she wasn’t going to make it there in the morning. And also….there just happened to be a Typhoon heading our way. The tour that we had booked was cancelled by the operator – due to the Typhoon. Great.
Crystal Blue Dive Resort shuttles picked us up at 8am on December 7th and we had a quick 2 ½ hour drive to Anilao – worrying about the Typhoon ….would we need our trip insurance? The resort staff quickly carried our luggage and dive gear up the many steps to the hotel rooms and we proceeded to unpack, set up cameras (there was a beautiful camera room with lighting, electricity, storage and set up space), dive gear, and eat lunch before two afternoon dives. The room was small, but clean - with a beautiful view. We had lunch and a quick orientation – then prepared for our first dives in Anilao.
This was my first trip to the Philippines and my first trip where I planned to “Muck” dive. I signed up for this trip based on my love of Macro photography. I watched Youtube videos and was concerned about seeing clusters of divers waiting for their turn at the photo subject but figured that I would go with the flow and figure it out. I wish that I had educated myself on muck diving – and I wish that my group of 4 (with our guide) had been educated on muck diving. There are some techniques that go beyond controlling your buoyancy.
Here is a great video on ‘Muck Diving Tips”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oJODUOoWgc
Our first 2 dives were at Secret Bay – we saw Seahorses, Frogfish, Anemone shrimp, Nudibranchs, Soft corals, Crinoid Shrimp and much more. We also saw trash…. On my first dive, I was collecting it and putting in my BC pocket – I soon realized that there was trash everywhere. On muck dives and beautiful reefs there is trash. Through the week, I kept thinking, “what if every diver gave up one dive per trip and just collected trash – would it get cleaned up? I’d like to think so.
My last couple of dive trips were Bonaire and Cozumel so there was some culture shock when it comes to taking care of the reefs. There are some locations with mooring bouys and many more where an anchor is thrown on the reef with visible damage from the anchors. Some of the “boatmen” told me that there is government money set aside for more moorings. I hope so!
Going from a location where you may not wear gloves and may not touch even dead coral or rocks to a location where the dive guide finds incredible creatures for you to photograph by digging up, poking, picking up and placing critters, squishing (soft corals) – is strange. My room-mate chose to request that her dive guide not do these things which I applaud her for. As for me – I am going with the flow and trusting my Filipino dive guide to know how and what to do to protect these critters – and that it is better that he do it than for me to be poking around.
I had several different guides at Crystal Blue and am very thankful for their help and know that I would have seen many fewer critters without their assistance!! Special thanks to Jomel, Pong, and Glenn.
After a wonderful dinner and photo instruction, we discussed the Typhoon. Various discussions circulated – it’s breaking up (wishful thinking), it will be here tomorrow, the resort will write whatever they need to if we lose many dive days – for the trip insurance. The gist – no diving on Day 2. On December 8th, 2014 – Typhoon Ruby moved over our location. There was lots of wind and rain but we were snug in our resort restaurant/gathering place – the food was great, photo instruction off and on all day, and a nice group of people to hang around with – and at least we had two dives worth of photos to edit…And two photo pros (Mike Bartick and Kelli Dickinson) to give us tips on Lightroom and Photoshop.
Day three: still pretty gray and rainy but not that windy. After hanging out for a little while, Mike made some phone calls to see if he could get any of the boats out to take us diving. They all declined but Crystal Blue #3 – we were going diving! I think we had about 6 divers and one dive guide. We started on the house reef and then did some muck diving later. Three dives in all that day. The water was stirred up but at least we were in it!
After that day, we returned to the planned dive schedule. Breakfast at 7am, Dive #1 at 8am (usually about 60 minute dives) an hour surface interval on a beach and then dive #2. Then back to the resort for lunch, battery changes, and photo downloads. Dive #3 at 3pm, Night dive at 5:30 and then back to the resort again for shower, dinner, photo downloads, and maybe some photo instruction.
My room-mate and I did every dive for the next six days. With three dives on my last day, I had a total of 32 dives in Anilao. Would I do this trip again? A huge, resounding YES!
Things that I would do different: a longer layover in Taipei, no Typhoon, set up International internet for my own use (the Resort WIFI was sketchy), request that all divers in my group watch the muck diving video ☺, and not try to get to the Manila Airport at rush hour.
Now that I’ve finished editing over 2000 images taken in Anilao, I have some more thoughts on this experience. On the first day, we were placed into groups of (4) and assigned a guide and a boat. There is a hierarchy of dive guides – most likely seniority with Edgar being the most well- known and requested guide. There also seemed to be some competition between them for finding the most, best and the smallest critters. Jomel would show me critters that were too small for my 60mm lens. After several days and some “no thanks” he finally understood that I couldn’t take photos of microcritters like hairy shrimps. About midway through the week, I added my 1.4 teleconvertor which helped – next time I hope to have a SuperMacro lens to play with.
The initially assigned groups changed as some divers elected to join other dive guides. I stayed with Jomel and couldn’t be more grateful. After six days of diving, many of the divers left for home. My roommate and I then had a boat to ourselves and both her dive guide Pong and my guide Jomel. It was amazing having a personal dive guide! The following day we arrived at the dive deck to find that we would have my roommate’s dive guide, Pong (he was more senior than Jomel). Those dives were different for me because Pong honored my roommate’s request not to molest the critters.
On the last day, we went back to a couple of dive spots in one boat as a group of the divers and guides who were left. I am so grateful to dive guide Glen for showing me the mushroom coral pipefish and the pipedragon on the Daru Laut dive! On my last dive, due to flight times I had a boat and dive guide Pong to myself – I wanted one more try at the Pink Pygmy Seahorses…..it was a perfect way to end the trip. Pygmy Seahorse, Anemone crab (that I found myself!), Bubble coral Shrimp, more new Nudibranchs, and the fish with the crab in his mouth.
Here's a link to see my photos: donnainblaine.smugmug.com
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