DIVE DAY SIX: MEETING ALMA JANE

DIVE DAY FIVE: WRECKED IN PARADISE

Sabang Wrecks

Because we arrived from Dumaguete in the early afternoon, all those who wanted to dive, had the chance for two dives -- an afternoon checkout one, which we did at Monkey Beach, and another, a night one at Sabang Wrecks. That site is where a group of intentionally sunken vessels for the purpose of creating an artificial reef, lie.

Night dives are always fun, for the chance to see life which doesn't usually come out during the day and to have the eerie sensation of blackness and not knowing what's around the next corner. For an amateur underwater shooter like me it presents the added challenge of properly lighting and exposing subjects, maintaining buoyancy and focusing while trying to capture an image.

And for this dive there were some very nice targets, all pointed out to us by dive guide Henry Cubilao, who would be our small group's dive guide the rest of the way. For those of you who haven't yet dived at night, it's an additional challenge keeping up with your dive leader, especially when other dive groups are converging on the same site, as was the case here. For Henry, it was his bright orange headband I used to identify him.

On this dive, I was able to capture images of a lionfish, a sweetlips, a whitemouth eel and yet another colorful nudibranch.

Dive Buddies: Jim, Mike, Brittney, Rick
Dive Guide: Henry Cubilao
Max depth: 66 feet
Total Bottom Time: 46 minutes
Water temperature: 75 degrees Farenheit
Exposure Protection: 3mm shorty wetsuit
Air source: Enriched Air Nitrox 32% oxygen
Photos Copyright Gil Griffin 2009.

DIVE DAY FIVE: WHEN MONKEYS FLY -- OR GET CAUGHT IN RIPPING CURRENTS

Monkey Beach

You'd never be able to tell it from looking at these images of nudibranchs (above) -- some of the tiniest, most colorful and beautiful creatures in the sea, but this dive, at Monkey Beach gave us all we could bargain for. How? With an unexpected and ripping current that challenged us.

This isn't supposed to happen during a checkout dive -- usually your first dive when you arrive at a resort, just to get comfortable, check your buoyancy and weights, etc. But this short ride outside of Sabang Beach -- once we descended -- threw us for a big-time loop.

Drift dives are fun, as you let the current just carry you along. So why'd I feel like on this dive, we were being rushed across the Pacific? Still, Vic, or dive leader was able to herd all of us back to him where he inflated the orange safety sausage for our boat captain to spot us and haul us back into the speedboat. Nice dive -- and a helluva wake-up call.

Dive Buddies: Jim, Mike, Brittney, Rick,
Dive Guide: Vic
Max depth: 60 feet
Total Bottom Time: 60 minutes
Water temperature: 78 degrees Farenheit
Exposure Protection: 3mm shorty wetsuit
Air source: Enriched Air Nitrox 32% oxygen
Photos Copyright Gil Griffin 2009.

DIVE DAY FIVE: NORTH TO PUERTO GALERA

Give Scuba Travel Ventures props for something amazing: Getting a coveted police escort to cut through legendarily tough Manila traffic. Well, also let's give a shout-out to the Philippines Department of Tourism. Between the two groups, getting out of Manila's International Airport, onto the Manila Skyway and motoring south to the Southern Luzon town of Batangas proved to be miraculously fast.

The fleet of vans which met our dive group was shepherded along by a group of Manila's finest, riding motorcycles and displaying flashers and sounding sirens -- for the first 30 minutes of the ride. For those of you who haven't yet visited Manila, imagine a sprawling metropolis characterized by rivers with mangroves (Manila's name actually comes from the Tagalog words "may" and "nilad," which in English translates into "many mangroves") and flowing, intricate maze-like streets connecting hundreds of barangays ("neighborhoods"). Throw in a population of more than 10 million and add every kind of vehicle imaginable, from jeepneys and tricycles to buses and cars to the highways and streets and you've got a challenging snarl of traffic not too unlike what you may have experienced in Southern California. You get the feeling of being overwhelmed and fascinated all at once -- that even if you spent your whole life in Manila, it would take several lifetimes to explore the endless paths the city lays before you.

After being whisked south to the city of Batangas -- about a two-hour trip -- we boarded another bangka to head to the island of Mindoro to Sabang Beach, where another Atlantis Resort awaited us. The coastline near Sabang is reminiscent of the waterfront near Catalina, in Southern California, or the Mediterranean skirting the coasts of France and Italy. It was a 180 degree turn from sleepy Dauin, where nothing but beach lies within reach. Sabang is clearly a resort and tourist town, with plenty of dive shops, bars, restaurants and discos -- oh and did I mention hawkers who meet your boat, with every kind of merchandise in tow, from sunglasses to imitation Rolexes and earrings and woodcarvings?

One man, just trying to make a living, tried flattering me into buying from him, saying I looked like President Obama. I made the mistake of saying I might buy something from him someday, though I had no intention of doing so. Hopefully, he had other customers today and the days that followed.

And if you're wondering why you're starting to see photos from me again...I must again give serious thanks to the staff at the Atlantis Resort in Puerto Galera who, after hearing my lost camera sob story, allowed me to rent an underwater digital camera for the duration of our stay, at no charge. Big thanks to Andy at Atlantis for helping arrange that. Utang na loob (see previous posts to learn the meaning of this all-important phrase).

Photos Copyright Gil Griffin 2009.

DIVE DAY FOUR: TOPSIDE TIMEOUT -- POUNDING THE PAVEMENT IN DUMAGUETE CITY

After the Malpasod Sur debacle and a lunch of humble pie, it was time to put things in perspective, shop, see some new sights and learn some things in the process. So our group headed out in the tricked out jeepney and a couple of SUVs to Dumaguete City, north of the Atlantis resort.

It's home to Silliman University, one of the Philippines' leading institutions of higher learning, where a reef conservation program is in place. The campus is right at the center of town, shrouded in towering shade trees. Silliman is also home to a very educational Anthropology Museum, where the entire group toured the four-story building where there were artifacts dating back centuries, from the Malays, Chinese, Negritos and Ifugao -- the last two are indigenous Filipinos, with the first having dark skin and African features and the second, mountain dwellers from the Luzon island highlands. Well-drawn maps catalogued the hundreds of different regional language and ethnic groups that define the Philippines.

The Philippines, after all, are a group of 7,107 different islands, each with personalities, topographies, histories and cultures of their own. But as a history exhibit taught us, the Spanish conquest, followed by American occupation, Japanese occupation, liberation and finally independence, is something all the islands shared. It was disturbing to confront the fact that the American "acquisition" of the Philippines from the Spanish after the 1898 Spanish-American War and resulting occupation, was equally brutal as what the Spaniards perpetrated on Filipinos. Though it's not well-known in American history textbooks in school, Filipino nationalists engaged their American occupiers in a war for freedom that immediately followed the Spanish-American War. It was only after the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in World War II that Americans saw Filipinos as their equals and jointly fought to liberate the islands. Yet even after independence was "granted" by the United States to the Philippines on July 4, 1946, Filipinos the world over recognize their true independence day as June 12, 1898, their liberation from the Spanish. And even today, those still-living Filipino World War II veterans who fought side by side with American troops to defeat the Japanese were not -- despite the efforts of U.S. Congressmen, who sponsored bills -- extended benefits or granted automatic U.S. citizenship, as America extended them to soldiers from dozens of other countries who fought alongside her. Dive leader Ramcel Eloy told me his own grandfather is one of those soldiers.

Outside the museum and the Silliman campus Dumaguete pulses with activity. There are no traffic lights, but traffic ebbs and flows with hundreds of tricycles operating as taxis, ferrying people to their destinations. The covered city market we visited has a maze full of stalls, with virtually everything imaginable being sold, from clothes and jewelry to medicines and food. The most overwhelming sights and smells came from the fish market, where thousands of fish were being cleaned and packaged for people shopping for their households.

But I found the most welcome sight outside the City Market -- Jollibee. It's a Filipino fast-food chain specializing in burgers, spaghetti and fried chicken and in Filipino favorites like palabok, halo-halo and lumpia. I first had food from Jollibee back in 1999 on my first visit to the Philippines in the town of Puerto Princesa, after an all-day trip to the St. Paul Subterranean River, which included a strenuous hike through the jungle to the sea. Since then, Jollibee has made its way across the Pacific and has stores in Filipino-American communities in California like the San Diego suburbs of National City and Mira Mesa and San Francisco Bay Area ones like Daly City, Vallejo and San Francisco. After all, who can resist the adorable bee mascot?

Not me. And thanks to a San Diegan, dive buddy Jason Bradshaw, for snapping this image of me, with the bee.

Photo Copyright Jason Bradshaw 2009.

DIVE DAY FOUR: SEARCHING FOR CARS -- AND CAMERA

Now comes an admission I hate to make.

It's a very embarrassing moment that happened during this dive, at a spot called Masaplod Sur. I was cruising along a sandy bottom, about to take a picture of a coral formation. With my left hand, I was moving my camera's leash to slip around my right wrist, then slide the leash up my right arm until it reached my shoulder...only when I reached around for my camera, it wasn't there. I mean it...wasn't...there. And I slipped into a fit. I couldn't find it near where I was on the sand bottom and I didn't see it floating away, above my head. I was sure, even then, I'd find it. I searched around frantically with no luck. I motioned to other divers. Nada.

So...for the first time in my 10 years of diving, I lost a camera. And I remained pretty angry with myself. Fortunately, dive buddy Paul Washington, who has been exceedingly generous with his computer expertise and his willing to share that knowledge with me and several others on the trip, last night helped me download more than 300 pictures onto a Google album. So all was not nearly lost -- just the images from today's two dives. But I also feel I let down a friend who was nice enough to arrange for a camera to be sent to me to use. I'll try not to beat up on myself too hard, but it's a tough lesson to learn, as another dive buddy, Steven Miller, would later tell me -- always keep the camera's leash on your wrist. At all times. Always. No exceptions.

While I'm in Mea Culpa mode, let me also give a serious maraming salamat to the folks aboard the dive bangka, the so-called "boat boys" who, out of their kindness, searched in the water on mini-bangkas to help find the camera, but to no avail.

DIVE DAY FOUR: SEARCHING FOR CARS -- AND CAMERA

This dive was an example of the best laid plans going awry...until your divemaster improvises and comes up with something better than the original plan.

Said plan was to dive the site Cars -- a collection of abandoned clunkers intentionally sunk and covered in years of coral growth. But dive leader Ramcel Eloy (pictured a few posts ago) noticed another dive boat approaching the site just as we were, loaded with new divers, likely to be inexperienced at mastering buoyancy and therefore might kick up a lot of sand. So Ramcel planned for us to hang out in the sand channels, searching first for macrolife, such as flamboyant cuttlefish, leaf scorpionfish and if we were lucky, seahorses.

As we continued on our path through the sand, we indeed saw several treasured small creatures, but we noticed we weren't going anywhere toward the cars, which were at 80 feet. It was only later that Ramcel told us he ditched the plan, because there were just too many other divers at the site. That suited our dive group just fine, as we were content to have a sand patch -- and a collection of intriguing macrolife all to ourselves. Again, dive buddy Jim Elliott, head of the nonprofit organization Diveheart, expertly captured all the action. As soon as I'm able, I'll update the info for this site.

Cars

Dive Leader: Ramcel Eloy

Dive Buddies: Jim, Mike, Rick

Maximum Depth: 75 feet

Total Bottom Time: 50 minutes

Temperature: 81 degrees Farenheit