I’m still having a vacation hangover so let’s talk about the Philippines dive trip that I just came back from few days ago. This was a long awaited trip that I desperately needed as a little breather from work. 9 days getaway for the sun and the sea sounded just perfect for me.
Dumaguete is a city totally unheard of before we started planning for the trip. I was really excited when being told that there could possibly a session of whale shark interaction if we were lucky. Little did I know it would turn out to be a trip unforgettable.
Thanks to Chris Yoon and Scuba Venture Voon who organized this trip so well that the rest of us could just sit back, relax and let the adventure unfolds. We took Cebu Pacific where we took a transit at Manila International airport for Dumaguete. If you buy a direct flight and not ala-carte, then you’ll also get to enjoy a seamless luggage check-in process. (totally recommended!)
Our group consisted of 7 people – all of them experienced divers except yours truly so this made me the most pampered girl among the group. I cannot thank my DMs enough for taking so well care of me throughout the trip, Reno and Jant. They are part of the Scuba Ventures dive operator in Dumaguete.
9 days stay was splitted into two parts – 4 days at Eldorado Resort in Dauin and 4 days in Dumaguete city itself (Nicanor Hotel). Eldorado Resort is a nice and relaxing resort style hotel about 20 minutes from the city centre. The staffs are friendly but you don’t get much choices when it comes to food. Nicanor Hotel on the other hand is located right smack in the middle of the city centre where everything is within walking distance. Restaurants, money changer, wet market, shopping malls and beer joints you name it. My favourite restaurant in Dumaguete is this Spanish influenced establishment - Sans Rival Restaurant.
It’s a friendly university town, not too commercialized and it’s also the safest city in The Philipinnes! Living expenses is dirt cheap, a taxi ride on their colorful tricycle costs 9 pesos (RM0.65) for any destination within the city.
San Miguel 35 pesos/ bottle. You could literally drink like there’s no tomorrow.
One feat about The Pinoys though… they have no clues about our nasi goreng. One day Mae and I ordered a “nasi goreng with complimentary fresh fruits” from the hotel menu and it was disastrous. Imagine rice, prawns, ripen mangoes and bananas all stirred fried together. So eww!
The dive sites at Dauin, Teluan and Seqijor are paradise for macro lovers, unfortunately I’m a shallow person who doen’t know how to appreciate smaller &finer things in life under the water, I found muck diving quite a bore.
The monsoon rainy weather didn’t help either though we saw a rich variety of frog fishes, stone fishes and even crocodile fishes camouflaging in the sand and reefs. Where are the pelagic?! (but when I came so upclose and personal with those whale sharks at a later part, I was so overwhelmed that I literally peed in my wetsuit)
So things started to take a turn when we dived at Apo Island on the third day, the sun decided to entertain us a little longer. Loved the vertical wall dive and drift dive experience, it was really cool. We also saw a gigantic turtle oblivious to the group of divers surrounding him. Oh I almost forgot about the huge school of jacks too! They came in a pair of black and white which I thought was pretty interesting.
The reefs were so colorful and somehow marine lives also seemed to have magnified too, especially the clown fishes and nudi branches! Crazy huge.
But nothing quite prepared us (or at least for me) for the experience awaiting us at Oslob. It’s a Whale Shark Point where the struggling fishermen accidentally discovered it just last year. So here’s the controversial story, these fishermen started feeding the animals which makes them keep coming back for food and within months it has turned into an attraction spot for divers interacting with the 12 whale sharks. I’ve personally seen 8 or more and disclaimer, I learnt about the history of Oslob and the Butandings during the visit and admittedly, this may not be the right thing to advocate but I’m not here to support or condemn the moral behind this, so please don’t shoot me or do stop reading from here on if you are against sharks feeding.
We paid 2 trips to Oslob on separate days. That feeling was so surreal, my heart started to pound when I first saw those erected fins moving along the water surface, it reminds me of Steven Spielberg’s movie “JAWS” no less.
As our boat drew closer to the site, the sight of those huge black spotted sharks opening their mouths waiting to be fed was unbelievable. I went speechless. OMG Steph these are whale sharks, really, whale sharks! I was telling myself. Everybody started jumping into the water and few seconds later Chris Yoon yelled from the water surface, “This is actually quite scary! They are so huge! Becareful when you jump don’t hit them!”
True enough, I felt slightly disoriented as I was descending… those gentle giants were so overwhelming in size I was hanging on to my DM like a leech. I tried to distract myself and focused on the octopus (a first for me too) that the DM found hiding somewhere in the reefs while the whole time my heart didn’t stop racing. It was so cool… have you seen whale sharks? Checked. A school of them.
On our last day, we decided to pay these sharkies a visit one last time. It was a beautiful Thursday 12th October 2012 and thank you Voon again for capturing this million dollar video clip. I shall let this video speak for itself.
It still feels so surreal how friendly these sharks were towards us. Even the DMs said it was also their first encounter seeing how they interacted with human in such a playful way.
All in all, it was a good dive trip, everyone had a great time and yours truly came back feeling rejuvenated 
Scuba Venture, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia– Voon 0164439733 (info@scubaventure.com.my)
Deep Outdoors Dive Shop, Manila, Philippines (https://www.facebook.com/deepoutdoors.diveshop)
Scuba Ventures, Dumaguete, Philippines (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Scuba-Ventures-Dumaguete/152212664844117?fref=ts)
awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeletejealous too!
lucky you! =))