DIVE DAY TWO: DAUIN SOUTH HOSPITALITY AND A PAIR AT THE PIER

DuCoMi Pier

Not in a million years would you think it, while cruising past the hulking, rusty tubs, the debris on the docks discarded by sailors from all four corners of the globe and the sweet, smoky aroma produced by the industrial buildings within a stone's throw of the boat landing.

But believe it -- even if, as one of the Atlantis dive guides, Ramcel told me, the locals don't -- DuCoMi Pier is one of the top dive sites in all of Southeast Asia, if not the world, for its assemblage of small and strange creatures swimming amok in the muck and the diverse and color spectrum-bending richness of encrustation growing unmolested for years on the pillars at two different piers.

It's a 15-minute ride south of the Atlantis Resort and it's so sought after among divers, shops have to book time slots with the local harbor master. Getting permission to dive the Pier at night, when the most elusive creatures are there, is a rare opportunity that shouldn't ever be passed up. Diving it involves a short surface swim near the topside boarding point and today the barge the Lancer was tied to the dock. If only the non-diving local residents and the sailors could see what's underneath, it would blow their minds.

Sinking to the sandy bottom and looking up at the towering pillars isn't too much unlike diving the kelp forests of Northern and Southern California, except here, there are no entangling kelp to struggle with. But as it is in the kelp forests, divers get the same "Jack-in-the Beanstalk" sensation of looking up and feeling infinitesimally small among the posts, as rays of sunlight cast an eerie glow in the blue.

The small pier features small creatures from shrimp and frogfish to stonefish, lizardfish, bright blue emperor angelfish, lionfish and spiny devilfish -- a sand dweller that will bite if provoked. It's a little more tricky to navigate underneath the larger pier, which divers swim to after the small one, as spiny sea urchins line the sandy bottom, taking away the ability to kneel in the sand and a forceful current sometimes pulls divers in the opposite direction of where they'd like to go. Schools of horseye jacks, goatfish and catfish are also on patrol here, trolling for food.

Dive Buddies: Rick, Jim, Mike

Dive Guide: Kim

Max depth: 56 feet

Total Bottom Time: 57 minutes

Water temperature: 81 degrees Farenheit

Exposure Protection: 3mm shorty wetsuit

Air source: Enriched Air Nitrox 32% oxygen

Photos Copyright Gil Griffin 2009. Clockwise, from top left: stonefish; batfish in shadows at DuCoMi pier; DuCoMi dive profile at dive briefing; looking upward at Pier; spiny devilfish; emperor angelfish (left in photo); lionfish; lizardfish pair.