Trip report, Dumaguete, Philippines

I've uploaded to my website, a trip report and some images from our trip to Atlantis Resort Dumaguete in the Philippines, in April/May. The resort was beautiful, the food great, the diving ok to excellent. More details on my website:

http://www.divermaiden.com/Philippines/files/philippines.htm

A sample is attached.

Best,

Kathy Mendes

Hi,

Thanks for the posting. I dove in DUCOMI last week & is still GOOD !!!

Sam

great report kathy, glad you enjoyed the philippines

Nice Report, I loved Apo Island...especially Anemone Rock!

stu

Good to hear they reopened Ducomi. They had restricted access last year due to terrorism scares.

Nice report Kathy. Just wondering though, did Atlantis still make divers swim back to the boat at Apo? We had "problems" with that arrangement.

As a side, I spent a week at Apo trying to shoot breaching threshers when the fishermen made them breach permanently for the fins. I guess one guy hiring a fishing boat for 6 days in a row didn't tell them that it would be good to keep them alive.

I also think that the restaurant at El Nido is much better than Atlantis.

Again nice report on a nice area for macro.

Kathy,

Saw your report and website, you seem to be as facinated with the weird stuff as I am. The green pipefish variant was interesting, I saw a pair of darker ones right out in the bay in Sabang.

Saw probably half a dozen different shrimp species, including Amboinensis. I really liked your Imperator shrimp...I was gently turning over lots of urchins in P.G. looking for them, everyon thought I was whacked.... only saw a mated pair of dark blueish black ones a 1/4" long that wouldn't sit still enough for macro video.

I am returning to P.G. next week now that I have a little better handle on running a HiDef underwater video/light setup.....was my first image capturing experience when I was there 2 months ago....so many times I got so excited seeing really cool bizarre macro critters I forgot to white balance.....1/2 of my footage was unusable with color correction, this time 3/4ths ought to be usable.

There were lot's more pipefish. All different colors of Harlequin Ghost Pipefish. And lot's more small stuff also, some tiny transparent shrimp that I just couldn't get a decent shot of. Plus one little frogfish that was barely bigger than a grain of sand. Dave, have a great time in PG.

Dru, they only made you swim to the boat if you came up inside a roped off marine protection area. If you came up outside it and a distance to the boat they would come get you. One time we were having a really nice dive through the seagrass and ended up all the way on the other side of the next protected area. The boat captain was really surprised.

I had heard before I left that El Nido had a good restaurant. We had meant to check some of the other places out but never seemed to find enough time between diving, eating and sleeping.

Kathy

Hmmm interesting. They didn't go get my 2 friends who were in their 70s, waving distress signals and really thinking they had to swim onto Apo. I was pretty livid at the DM and boat captain for that.

El Nido's restaurant was heaps better. We dived 4 dives a day for a week and the walk to El Nido was pleasant.

That's not good. I would have been pissed off also. Maybe there have been complaints and operational (or personel) changes. Most of the time we came up very close to the boat and really didn't have much surface swimming to do. They did tend to herd you around, which we didn't care for much. And they tried to keep to a really strict 50-55 minutes bottom time. Chris doesn't seem to breath when she's underwater and always came up with enough air to do another dive. :-)

It was so hot while we were there that the only pleasant walk was at 5:00 a.m. We would have liked to go into town to eat also, local food. Next time.

Kathy

It was really hot in PG also, although it was the humidity.....a week ago in Los Angeles Calif if was 121 degrees in the shade, but the humidity was 50%, not 90%.

Kathy, all your ghost pipefish sightings have me bummed, in 30 dives in PG I never once saw one.....

I got some good videos of those clear small shrimp though....they liked to hang out in anemones.....I videotaped 2 different species...one I had no idea it was even there, but I was videoing some Amboinensis shrimp, 3 to be exact in a variagated anemone and slowly out of the top of my viewfinder frame some little clear twitching shrimp starts doing his claw dance thing and I was on him with the cam like a ton of bricks!

The clear cleaner shrimp do this barrel roll swim thing that is really comical......

Now I need to find some ghost pipefish and some flamboyant cuttelfish......

The boat captains at Atlantis in PG were always on the ball.....we never had to swim anywhere......

Dave,

In my spring trip to PG, there were yellow and black ornate ghost pipefish between the 2 deeper wrecks at Sabang, not the wooden junk. They were just off the shallower wreck, close to the bow. I've had the most luck finding flamboyants by heading back towards Sabang. I'd start the dive at the junk and simply head south. You'll find the robust pipefish in the seagrass beds under the floating bar.

However, I tend to avoid staying in Sabang. Try the food at Scubaplas in Small La Laguna and tell them Stu sent ya. =)

s.

Dave, you'll find that ghost pipefish can be seasonal. I sometimes see very few in March but truckloads in Sept. Also the better muck diving is not in PG but Anilao and Verde.

Flambos tend to hang in sandy bottoms. We've seen quite a few in Anilao and these flambos are a littlemore colorful than the ones at Lembeh.

Kathy, all your ghost pipefish sightings have me bummed, in 30 dives in PG I never once saw one.....

 

I got some good videos of those clear small shrimp though....they liked to hang out in anemones.....I videotaped 2 different species...one I had no idea it was even there, but I was videoing some Amboinensis shrimp, 3 to be exact in a variagated anemone and slowly out of the top of my viewfinder frame some little clear twitching shrimp starts doing his claw dance thing and I was on him with the cam like a ton of bricks!

 

The clear cleaner shrimp do this barrel roll swim thing that is really comical......

 

Now I need to find some ghost pipefish and some flamboyant cuttelfish......

 

The boat captains at Atlantis in PG were always on the ball.....we never had to swim anywhere......

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

i will be diving basura, anilao daily in 3 weeks....

that little box fish is really cute!! I havent seen a green variation of those ghost pipefishes yet, those are awesome.

Soooo. . . . those are razor fishes, I saw a bunch of em just on the housereef of Aquaventure in Anilao, but don't know what they are called.

i will be diving basura, anilao daily in 3 weeks....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hmmm stay away during the weekends it's hella crowded.

Also watch out for the Korean ops who bring their divers on top of you while you're shooting. They are just down the road..

don't worry drew.... i'm at Aquaventure

And i am teachin! no shooting for me..

So i can beat off the interlopers with my big fins..

Hmmm stay away during the weekends it's hella crowded.

Also watch out for the Korean ops who bring their divers on top of you while you're shooting. They are just down the road..

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Mike, exactly... watch out for those pesky Koreans... This Korean is liable to drop kick you with his fins at Aquav later this month while trying to figure out how to work this new DSLR kit...

edit: and Kathy, beautiful shot of those green robust ghost pipefish!!! And thanks for the candid report on dumaguete. After harassing Mike V in Anilao/ PG, I'm looking to head down to Cebu, Bohol and maybe Apo Isl.

It wasn't a knock on all koreans, just that Korean ops in Anilao who consistently put their divers on our group when we were shooting at Basura, kicking up dust storms and even finned away a hairy frogfish. We had them daily for 5 days straight at Basura.

It wasn't a knock on all koreans, just that Korean ops in Anilao who consistently put their divers on our group when we were shooting at Basura, kicking up dust storms and even finned away a hairy frogfish. We had them daily for 5 days straight at Basura.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

no problem scubadru... I know what you mean... They're everywhere! it's just a little inside joke between Mike V and me from another board...

So long as it doesn't affect my supply of Bulgogi, joke away.