Everyone woke up early, thanked the resort for giving us four complimentary breakfast (more savings!). Lei, Choy, Mel and LA went to the Tourism Center to register and see butandings. Lyra and I went to the dive shop and got briefed on our dive.
The dive masters at Fundive Asia, I observed, were huge. Marco, a former varsity football player in Ateneo, and I had the same dive instructor. He gave a lengthy presentation of Ticao Pass, a 35-km boat ride from Donsol. The Manta Bowl was accidentally discovered by the diveshop owner, when a fin fell off their boat one day and he decided to go after it. Then instead of fins, he saw mantas!
However, it is difficult to get, much less dive, there. It is situated in open water, with huge waves. If you manage to get off the boat without getting hit by the bamboo katig or the steel ladder, you have to do a negative dive (to sink immediately) and hook yourself to a rock underneath to prevent you from being carried by the strong current (eight knots!) while waiting for the mantas to appear. We'll be like kites securely fastened to rock. My adrenaline shoots up.
Our dive master was another huge round man named Jess (Dandi to foreigners) who reminded me of the Michelin tire mascot. He's a friendly Batangueňo who told stories about how he came to work at Donsol and how it took 20 dives for him to master Ticao Pass.
The other passengers on the boat were a couple from London; a lone Swiss diver who has dived Palawan, Moal Boal, Malapascua and Puerto Galera during his seven-week trip in the country; a 40ish lady whose favorite dive was in the Red Sea, Egypt and a cute Australian who looked like an older version of Lyra's first boyfriend, or so she told me (not to worry, Heyman, he had a girlfriend with him, who just didn't dive).
Our first dive was an easy dive, to assess our water skills and buoyancy in preparation to the much tougher Manta Bowl. It was in San Miguel, behind limestone walls, a protective barricade against the open sea. The water was pleasantly flat. We suited up, and back-rolled to the unknown.
It was my first time to dive with an underwater camera. A dear friend sold a Canon G10 with the matching casing for just a bit over the price of a brand-new casing. Sweet deal! So I didn't pay much attention to my buoyancy but on my camera settings. Luckily, it was Lyra who looked after me when i was getting deeper or was being left behind (trying to get a decent shot), who pointed out the sea snake, and the clown fish in the anemone. We saw some brain coral, bright sponges, pastel sea fan, small but bright-colored fishes, tube worm, puffer fish, nudibranch, spider crab and the blue-and-black-striped sea snake.
We tried to go to the Manta Bowl but it was too rough. The boatman was shaking his head no. Jess also thought it was too dangerous to go. We might've gone on another coral dive at San Miguel but the Swiss guy got the others to abort the remaining dives. We went there for the mantas after all. They'll try again tomorrow. Lyra and I just kept quiet. Let them work it out, although it would've been nice to go on another dive. On the other hand, if it meant that we can go on this trip debt-free and get a refund, that's fine too.
The ride back was choppy, chilly and wet , the salt water spraying our eyes every time we wipe it off. The Brit dude just laid down the floor to hide from the wind. Good thing some of us still had our wetsuits on. We might as well have kept our masks on, we were so drenched.
When i was chatting with the two DMs back at the shop, one confessed that they actually haven't seen a manta for over a month! And he even said that diving should be closed for the time being because of the freaky weather. Nakakahiya daw sa mga bisita. That info would've been useful the night before. Oh well, i still liked the coral. It reminded me of Anilao, with a lot of macro life.
Our friends were pleasantly surprised to see us finish early. At first they said the butanding watching was boring daw, which I didn't believe. And then they said LA got bit by a whale shark when he got too close. He had a thin but pretty long scratch on his arm (which he eventually confessed he got from the boat, not the butanding). In truth they had a fantabulous time with the whale sharks.
We ate kalderetang kambing at the seaside karenderia. But it was only 3pm, with nothing to do. We decided to just swim near our new lodging, at the Jolee, a cheaper but nice room for half the price. The water was a bit murky, the sand slimy, but we made do. Mel played with the local girls on the shore while the rest of us swam a bit, made farting sounds on my snorkel, took jump shots and sexy shots (at least Choy posed sexy). Drank more GP and ate nori, cashews, Pringles and Stick-O.
After dinner we went on the Firefly Tour. It was a bit scary at first, the boat brought us to a pitch dark place by the river, and the only sound you hear was the motor running. It was like a beginning of a bad B-movie. Tourists being tricked to go on a trip, brought to an isolated place... then we saw fireflies, not many at first, just a few here and there on both sides of the river. We were awestruck when we saw thousands of bright little things over the coconut trees. It was magical. We moved to another place where the boatman caught a couple of fireflies and handed them to us. Lei made them like neon lights and danced a rave.
Oh, and I left the key in the room, and Lei had to open it with a card (again)!
Lesson number 342656252: NEVER leave the key with Cherry!
ReplyDeleteWe seem to end up in a lot of B-movie settings! (First, Lusod, then Donsol River.)
And your underwater pictures have color!
Nice blog. Even forgot what I was really looking for. The reef dives are better than manta bowl anyway. But we did dive with whale sharks.
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