Hi Everyone,
Just back from a wild week of incredible diving off of Bohol. This is my second trip to the Philippines (the first being Boracay over Xmas) and the diving here FAR exceeded my expectations.
Stayed at Bohol Divers Resort on Alona Beach and did most of our daily dive excursions with Philippine Islands Divers located on site. PID had the best rates on the beach and King King was one of their best guides. One note - none of the dive operators provide lunch on their day trips but it is very easy to order a sandwich in the morning before you head out for the day.
The Bohol Divers Resort caters to divers which is why we picked it. Overall, it was okay for the price but I have to say that they had a serious lack of lounge chairs for their beach....only three. Hey, even divers like to take a snooze on the beach after a day of diving! . Next time I might try Isis cottages next door even though I understand that they are a little more difficult to get to with luggage because they don't have their own parking lot.
The weather was fantastic the first part of the week and crappy the last two days. The first part of the week we had mild currents making for excellent drift diving at the Black Forrest and Marine Sanctuarty sites. The vis was tremendous (20-25 meters) and we saw baracuda (school of hundreds), ...other excellent dives at Rico's wall and Rudy's Rock where turtles decorated with Remora were starring.
Taking a break from Balicasag just to see if we were missing anything, we dove off Panglao at Crystal Coast and Arco Point and I was pleasantly suprised by the amount of small fish, corals, and lots-o-nudi's. Crystal Coast was the favorite of the two.
We also took a day trip out to Cabilao Island with a different dive company - Scuba World...a small but really great dive operation - little more expensive but we thought they were definitely worth it and would probably dive with them on our next visit.
Going out to Cabilao, the weather started turning. We didn't bring adequate spray jackets so the two hour ride out there was miserable but once in the water the dive sites did not disappoint. Here it pays to have a good dive guide who knows how to read the underwater landscape - our guide (Lee) - took us out into what we thought was the blue where a huge school of barracuda seemed to just appear in front of us as if waiting for our arrival. A white tip reef shark (the only shark we saw on this trip) lurked below us about 25+ meters. Also saw a large gang of decent sized squid and a group of about 10-12 cuttle fish together. We did a total of three dives here (Lighthouse, Canubakis Point, and South Point). Experienced the sound of dynamite fishing under water - scared us all to death. Sound travels a fair distance under water so who knows where the culprit was but that was a new experience I hope isn't repeated any time soon.
Our last two days of diving were mostly at Balicasag (one dive at Doljo). We were back diving with PID but these last days were completely different than the beginning of the week. The vis dropped to maybe 10 meters, the currents got crazy and the fish seemed to be hiding. If I had started the trip on those last days I would have had a completely different impression of the diving at Balicasag. It was like night and day. I also learned a very big lesson on the second to last day of diving - ALWAYS double check your tank and make sure it is completely open even if the dive crew does it for you.
I went in the water with it half open. My guage told me something was wrong about 2 min into the dive and I showed the guide that when I took a deep breath the needle moved but he didn't seem concerned so I continued. Dumb. :no We were in wicked currents and at about 22m - so I was taking in alot of air...more than the tank could refill on each breath because it wasn't open all of the way...the needle would move to "0" when I drew a breath then return back to 150 but suddenly it couldn't keep up with my air intake and I thought I was about to run out of air. Luckily my buddy and I had just grabbed the wall to wait for the rest of the group when this happened and so I immediately swam to him and grabbed his secondary reg. But because of the currents jostling us around and the mild panic starting to set in, I swallowed about 4 gulps of water before air hit my lungs again. We did our safety stop and all turned out okay but that could have turned into a very unpleasant end to a great dive vacation.
So, please please please either open your own tank or double check it before you go into the water if the crew is taking care of this for you AND DO YOUR BUDDY CHECKS...we got very sloppy with this on this trip.
Despite the drama, we had a fabulous trip to this area of the Philippines. I would definitely recommend this area for tremendous diving!
Just back from a wild week of incredible diving off of Bohol. This is my second trip to the Philippines (the first being Boracay over Xmas) and the diving here FAR exceeded my expectations.
Stayed at Bohol Divers Resort on Alona Beach and did most of our daily dive excursions with Philippine Islands Divers located on site. PID had the best rates on the beach and King King was one of their best guides. One note - none of the dive operators provide lunch on their day trips but it is very easy to order a sandwich in the morning before you head out for the day.
The Bohol Divers Resort caters to divers which is why we picked it. Overall, it was okay for the price but I have to say that they had a serious lack of lounge chairs for their beach....only three. Hey, even divers like to take a snooze on the beach after a day of diving! . Next time I might try Isis cottages next door even though I understand that they are a little more difficult to get to with luggage because they don't have their own parking lot.
The weather was fantastic the first part of the week and crappy the last two days. The first part of the week we had mild currents making for excellent drift diving at the Black Forrest and Marine Sanctuarty sites. The vis was tremendous (20-25 meters) and we saw baracuda (school of hundreds), ...other excellent dives at Rico's wall and Rudy's Rock where turtles decorated with Remora were starring.
Taking a break from Balicasag just to see if we were missing anything, we dove off Panglao at Crystal Coast and Arco Point and I was pleasantly suprised by the amount of small fish, corals, and lots-o-nudi's. Crystal Coast was the favorite of the two.
We also took a day trip out to Cabilao Island with a different dive company - Scuba World...a small but really great dive operation - little more expensive but we thought they were definitely worth it and would probably dive with them on our next visit.
Going out to Cabilao, the weather started turning. We didn't bring adequate spray jackets so the two hour ride out there was miserable but once in the water the dive sites did not disappoint. Here it pays to have a good dive guide who knows how to read the underwater landscape - our guide (Lee) - took us out into what we thought was the blue where a huge school of barracuda seemed to just appear in front of us as if waiting for our arrival. A white tip reef shark (the only shark we saw on this trip) lurked below us about 25+ meters. Also saw a large gang of decent sized squid and a group of about 10-12 cuttle fish together. We did a total of three dives here (Lighthouse, Canubakis Point, and South Point). Experienced the sound of dynamite fishing under water - scared us all to death. Sound travels a fair distance under water so who knows where the culprit was but that was a new experience I hope isn't repeated any time soon.
Our last two days of diving were mostly at Balicasag (one dive at Doljo). We were back diving with PID but these last days were completely different than the beginning of the week. The vis dropped to maybe 10 meters, the currents got crazy and the fish seemed to be hiding. If I had started the trip on those last days I would have had a completely different impression of the diving at Balicasag. It was like night and day. I also learned a very big lesson on the second to last day of diving - ALWAYS double check your tank and make sure it is completely open even if the dive crew does it for you.
I went in the water with it half open. My guage told me something was wrong about 2 min into the dive and I showed the guide that when I took a deep breath the needle moved but he didn't seem concerned so I continued. Dumb. :no We were in wicked currents and at about 22m - so I was taking in alot of air...more than the tank could refill on each breath because it wasn't open all of the way...the needle would move to "0" when I drew a breath then return back to 150 but suddenly it couldn't keep up with my air intake and I thought I was about to run out of air. Luckily my buddy and I had just grabbed the wall to wait for the rest of the group when this happened and so I immediately swam to him and grabbed his secondary reg. But because of the currents jostling us around and the mild panic starting to set in, I swallowed about 4 gulps of water before air hit my lungs again. We did our safety stop and all turned out okay but that could have turned into a very unpleasant end to a great dive vacation.
So, please please please either open your own tank or double check it before you go into the water if the crew is taking care of this for you AND DO YOUR BUDDY CHECKS...we got very sloppy with this on this trip.
Despite the drama, we had a fabulous trip to this area of the Philippines. I would definitely recommend this area for tremendous diving!
