Holiday Update

I've been on some killer dives the past couple of days and I'd
thought I'd share. The weather has been a little on the weird side,
some of it was remnants of Utor, then cloudy days. We had some days
with really thick plankton after the new moon. So, it was, well, like
I said, weird. Then on Christmas Day, things started looking up. I
took some new divers to Angol and the visibility was nice. We could
see critters again!

On the 26th we went to Baling Hai. Odd thing as the visibilty is
getting better, the water temp is dropping! Brrr. On the 26th we had
a totally killer dive on Yapak 2. The current was so good that we
drifted all the way to Yapak 3! Visibility at depth was 30m or more.
On the 27th we did a channel drift dive. Even at slack tide, we felt
like we were flying. Yesterday we dove on the Camia II. Again, the
water temp is colder than anyone remembers, but the viz was great!
20m or more. And no current or surge. It's great!

Balinghai Stingray encounter!

Hendrick and I headed to Balinhai last Thursday for a little deep dive action as part of his advanced class. While heading out to the wall we were greeted by a Mantis shrimp outside his den. Heading down the wall we spotted a 2 meter banded coral snake looking for unsuspecting fish in a small crevice on the reef. As we crossed the sand patch at 18-30 meters and got to the outer wall a Green sea turtle glided by us, at this point I had turned to Hendrick three times pointing and giving a the "shaka" which mean we are seeing cool stuff. Hendrick remember as part of his advanced class to notify me when 20 min was up, and his buoyancy and trim were spot on. As we started to cross the sand patch I noticed lots of disturbed silt and sand in the water which looked unnatural. That meant one thing, Huge stingray! Hendrick and I followed the sand cloud till it reached it thickest point and there it was, at least a two meter brown ray flapping its wings in the sand. It looked up and saw Hendrick and I and wanted nothing to do with us and gracefully glided away. At 70 Bar we called the dive and started our ascent to our first safety stop 9 meters and then to 6 m and 3m with a 1 min stop for each. Another great dive in Boracay! Good job Hendrick!

Photogenic shark.

Gina, and I went for a dive to Yapak. Yapak is a wall dive. The top of the wall is about 30meters and it drops to about 55m. When we descended onto the wall we were greeted by one of the resident sharks. It was a small White Tip Reef Shark, Just Chillin. It stayed with us for a while, keeping almost just out of sight. At one point, it looked like it stopped on the bottom just for us to take a picture. Our dive time was 26 minutes including the safety stop. Short but packed with lots to see.

Gettin dives in before the typhoon

I had a friend named Steve from Hawaii come out to dive with me. The weather was getting worse and the beach went from ripples to chop in the time it took to set up the gear. Our boat arrived and the boatmen loaded up our gear. It was kind of rough getting to the south end of the island but once we got into the channel the water calmed a bit. We were going with the waves and current until we were a bit leeward of the island. When we got to Crocodile Rock things were looking pretty good. We tied up to the mooring buoy and I jumped in the water to check the current. It was moving just a bit. We showed up just in time! I got out, geared up, did the safety check, then we both got in the water. Every time I go there I am reminded why Croc. Rock is my favorite site on Boracay! All we needed was just a bit of sun and the dive would have been perfect. There were brilliantly colored corals and fish all around. Bottom time was 55 min max depth was 20.1 meters.
After the dive we got on the boat and remembered that there is a storm coming. Back to the shop. The chop, out of the shelter of the island, was worse. We were forced to slow down to a crawl on the way to the Blue Mango beach front. It was rough but we made it.

Double Shark Dip

I got to dive doubles yesterday for the first time. And Geoff, our resident shark magnet brought out the white tips. Alas, no camera -- this time! We dropped in right on top of Yapak 1. As soon as we got to the ridge, Geoff starts yelling through his regulator: "SHARK" -- There was a nice white tip, about 1.5m in length just cruising the top of the wall. We hovered over the sand, it did a few lazy orbits before gliding into the murk. This was the same spot where I saw a ray on my first Yapak dive. I was hoping that it would show again, or maybe a manta ray -- spotted that very morning by another dive shop. It was so tempting to drop down to the sand at 50m, but that would be very wrong. Time to start training for deco dives.

I signaled Geoff to start drifting and it was beeeyoutifulll. Fish everywhere, some tunas cruising through the little frye, and then the shark reappears! Woohoo! Of course it could have been a different shark... We got to sweetlips corner, hovered there for a minute or 2 until it was time to make our ascent.

Meanwhile, back on shore, Amy was enjoying her birthday present: the princess treatment at Mandala Spa, four hours of pampering, massage, scrubs, wraps and baths. She glowed! It was the first time she's ever had a "spa day," so it made the day very special. Later, we had indian food at a place near D*Mall called "True Food." It's an awesome spot, with low tables and pillows, tasty naan, and dishes that have truly distinctive spices. The chai was yummy and I had a spicy lhassie -- made with real chilis! It had that cool, sour yoghurt taste, with a spicy-hot chili counter-point. Different and refreshing.

What a day, we went straight to food coma after that!

Yapak 2 Ripping Current!

Geoff and I headed out to Yapak 2 with some Nitrox tanks Yesterday and back rolled into some ripping currents! We decended to the usual 5 meters to meet up then down to the wall through the warm plankton rich water. When we broke through the warm layer we were greeted by some nice brisk 26 degree water, cold! The only good part was that water was clear, with at least 25 meter visibility horizontally. We had to fight a bit to get to the wall, but since Goeff is a former Olympic swimmer, it was me that was chasing him. We got to the wall and hung on to the rocks , while the current came right at us! We were intitially greeted by a large school of fusilers which were spread out feeding on the plankton rich fast moveing water in front of us. The entire school suddenly contracted when a school of 10 large Jack Trevallys came flying out of the current and tried to make lunch out of the startled fusilers. After that National gepgraphic moment, a 2 meter black tip with Remora in tow came out of the blue and circled for a bit before dissappearing again. After about 20 min at 33 meters we decided to start our slow ascent, stopping at 9,6,3 meters for 1 min , and surfaced with the dive boat signaling OK from about 15 meters away. A perfect dive!

Friday's Rock Night Dive

Outstanding! Geoff and I dove Friday's Rock yesterday. We did a dusk dive -- to get oriented and see the last light of the day fade from reef. Friday's is a great site: There's a huge lionfish that lives on one the little outlying rocks. This guy is so big and so mellow that I could spend ours photographing him. I found a yellow mouth moray in the same rocks. My first eel in the Philippines!

After our surface interval, we went back down and wow! As we came around the corner we found two squid mesmerized by our Halcyon dive light cannons. The result is the following photo. Shuweet! After we played with the squid, I thought, okay, this dive can't get much better (although, I really wish I had a strobe or 2 for the camera! family: make a note of this!) I was just puttering around looking for more fish when Geoff started signaling: A flying grunnard came by, wings extend, swimming away from us, but not in a hurry. I haven't seen one of those in years.

Just think, all of this one just 2 dives!

Web site ch- ch- changes

Yes, the web site is evolving! I've added a slide show and our dive log / blog. The first of more fun stuff.

Yapak

Oh wow! Amy was right, Yapak is bitchin. Geoff, Dustin & I went out on the morning boat. It's close to the new moon, so we knew there'd be current, but it wasn't bad. The wind is down so surface conditions were nice. The drop in was perfect, right on top of the wall. 2 minutes later we were drifting above huge schools of fish. Dustin spotted a ray, I think a blue spotted ray, but it was too far for the camera to get anything but a gray splotch. When we got to sweetlips corner, Dustin signed, "Shark!" and apparently my eyes went wide. There she was, just as cute as a button -- okay, not cute, but a 5 foot white tip with a remora. Just ahead of us with another dive group, and lo and behold, Dustin recognized Julie, who hasn't been on island for months. It's amazing where you'll bump into friends around here.

We got back around 9:30, just in time for breakfast #2.