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The Private, Exclusive Guide for Serious Divers April 2015 Vol. 30, No. 4 Magic Island and Atlantis-Dumaguete, Philippines creature comforts, incredible sea life, affordable prices Dear Fellow Diver: IN THIS ISSUE: After a lifetime of hemming and hawing about wheth- Magic Island and Atlantis er the trek would be worth the effort, I selected the Dumagute, Philippines . .1 . Philippines because I wanted to see the unusual critters What’s With All the Photo of the Indo-Pacific and, going that far, I wanted to stay Bullies? . 3. a week each in two different venues without breaking the bank. I wanted good accommodations, good food, good peo- Belize, BVI, Hawaii . 6. ple. I got it all, and I think you can, too. To Avoid Hypothermia, Divers Frankly, however, getting there is not half the fun, Should Stay “in the Hood” .7 . expecially if you change planes. Sipping my welcome drink (it should have been a good-night toddy) at 2:30 a.m. Jacques Cousteau’s Calypso . 8. at Magic Island seemed a bit out of sorts -- my part- ner and I transferred in Seoul and flew directly to Cebu No Two Dive Computers Are City, where we were met at midnight by a van for the two- Alike . 9. hour trip to the 10-cabin resort near Moalboal. I quickly discovered that the gain far outweighed the pain. After Two Good Books for Reducing the very first dive the next day, I tried not to get Your Dive Risks . 11. too excited while reviewing my photos. On my house reef Don’t Count on Getting that Trip checkout dive, hundreds of hydra-tentacled Lampert’s sea Deposit Back . .12 cucumbers swarmed on blue sponges. Clusters of soft Xxenia coral pulsed madly. An olive Ridley sea turtle swam by, Handling a Bully on the Boat .13 pausing to munch on a sponge. Messmate pipefish were for- aging vigorously. And 15 minutes into my second dive, my Regulator-Ripping Diver guide showed me one Sentenced in Hawaii Court 14 of the crown jewels: a pygmy seahorse. A Tragedy of Dive Errors . 16. Drifting slowly Mea Culpa . 19. along the offshore wall, I would see Flotsam & Jetsam . 20. astonishing sights. www.undercurrent.org A pink and white soft coral crab Editorial Office: looked like a pep- Ben Davison, Publisher and Editor 3020 Bridgeway permint with spikes. Sausalito, CA 94965 The reef seems to be EditorBenD@undercurrent .org lit by gas flames. Beautiful pale blue Magic Island’s Outrigger Banakas social tunicates, then an ornate ghost pipefish PHILIPPINES -- the cover girl of Reef Fish Identification for Tropical Pacific, by Gerald Allen et al. -- Pacific Ocean along with brilliant nudibranchs, camouflaged whip coral shrimp, and false clown, tomato and Manila other anemonefish. At Magic Island’s twilight mandarin-fish-mating dive, I surfaced with 190 South China Sea photos of this little bundle of romance. One swam right up to my camera, lips puckered for a kiss. Visibility ran less than 50 feet, but no Magic Island Cebu City problem for shooting the marvelous critters. Dumaguete Most of Magic Island’s 10 cottages, with woven walls and wood floors, offer small front Sulu Sea porches overlooking the Strait of Tanon; the others overlook a nice swimming pool. The lou- vered windows and shrubbery made for plenty of privacy. Simple furnishings included a king bed with nightstands, and a desk large enough to work for my camera workstation. A small bathroom and shower had plenty of hot water. The compact dive center had a well-ventilated gear area and a separate room with rinse tubs, boat assignments and illustrated dive briefings. Outside, divers could rinse off and hang gear on a roomy open patio. Staggered departure times meant only one group of four to six divers needed to suit up at once. Magic Island had three beautiful, white, outboard-powered outrigger bankas, each nar- row and about 40 feet long. The crew loaded gear on board and changed everything over between dives. Entry was by backroll, exit by climbing the ladder after handing up weights, BCs and fins to a divemaster. Usually, we departed for the first two dives at 8:30 a.m. after an illus- trated briefing, returned to the resort for lunch, and then headed out again at 2:30 p.m., though some folks made afternoon or evening dives off the beach. (The shallow resort reef was usually filled with the lights of divers.) One banka was filled with serious photographers, mostly male and some sporting $5,000 worth of equipment, and the other banka that was mostly female divers seemed to have the most fun. Our experienced divemasters were Dennis and Manuel, locals in their 30s and 40s who had a keen eye for small stuff. (All our divemasters and crew smoked during breaks, downwind of us.) Jo, the Dutch dive operations manager, spoke good English, but most of the dive staff’s English skills centered on div- ing vocabulary. The resort is owned by a Dutch couple living abroad and managed by two local women. Every dive brought the unusual. At Eyoy Point, the brown, hairy, long, ape- like “arms” quickly identified an orangutan crab. After one lunch on a beach, we did a drift dive through an enormous bait ball of sardines. On a night dive at Pescador Island, I spotted many species of unusual lionfish and scorpionfish. After I referred to my ID book, I learned a green moray was in fact a fimbri- ated moray -- its dark splotches made the differences between similar species. I felt like Charles Darwin contemplating the theory of evolution. Regardless of the unique critters, be forewarned. A fish longer than a snorkel is rare. Small outriggers filled with subsistence fishermen lined the wall. At low tide, people walked on the exposed reef, gathering any edible creatures they could find. The contrast between the lean bodies of locals and the ample figures of many of the resort’s guests spoke volumes. As did the food they consumed, myself included. Breakfasts started with rich coffee and perhaps a banana smoothie or fresh orange juice. I was a sucker for the buttery, slow-cooked ham, cheese and mushroom omelet. My group opted to have lunches and dinners served fam- ily style (go without a group and order off the menu), so dinners were kicked off by plates of appetizers like shrimp kebabs, followed by plates of deli- cious grilled tuna steak or dorado simmered in wine sauce, chicken (from curry 2 to Florentine style), beef or pork. Vegetables included simple garden salads and beans. Tropical fruits such as sliced mango were often served. During the meals, I enjoyed the malty San Miguel Cerveza Negra, and, if I could handle it, a dessert such as “mocha magnifico,” a nut-encrusted layered concoction dusted with cocoa powder. The meals offered by Magic Island occurred in a variety of locations that join the local culture. For example, during the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Magic Island’s fourth banka, we were treated to a lunch of grilled whole fish, rice, and salad at a nearby beach, where local women offered beach wraps, necklaces and carved items for sale. I came away with $5 worth of small wooden sea turtles as gifts. Not everything goes well for everyone on a dive trip, unfortunately. A serious and skilled photographer in my group lost several diving days when his wife inadvertently poked him in his (one good) eye. It became infected, and after seeing a local doctor, he stayed in his darkened cottage for the next three days. It was fortunate that his marriage is a good one. On the last day of my stay at Magic Island, I enjoyed an excursion to Kawasan Falls, passing a landscape steeped in the culture of another world, including flooded rice fields and ponds dedicated to aquaculture. People crouched on their haunches, tending small fires next to their small bamboo homes. Kawasan Falls was a beautiful series of cascades and pools along the course of a small, cool stream that winds through a mountainside forest. That night, we enjoyed a special feast of a whole pig roast, and music by a small local group. The next day, I was off to Atlantis Dumaguete. En route, near Oslob on the southeastern coast of Cebu, a “whale shark excursion” was scheduled, as if the animals would appear on demand. They did. Within minutes of getting into 25 feet of water at Aaron Beach Resort, five surrounded me, mouths wide open as they followed the track of the canoes circling in front of the resort. They often swam an arm’s length, but once, when I thought another diver was nudg- ing me, I turned around and quickly realized I had just been tail-pushed by a cruising whale shark. It turns out local anglers have learned that feeding and caring for the whale sharks brings in lots of happy-tourist money. According to the attraction’s website, the odds of seeing the whale sharks -- year-round -- are virtually certain. Getting off the ferry on the island of Negros, we were greeted by smiling Dumaguete personnel wearing short-sleeved logo shirts. Taking our luggage, they led us to a shiny red bus and a trip through the city of Dumaguete, a bustling university town with an urban, high-rise, traffic-filled feel to it. The resort’s 40 rooms are arranged in attractive white two-story buildings that overlook a clean pool and lushly manicured grounds. Their thatched roofs, exposed beams and Fortunately, my group in the Philippines was good What’s With All the about sharing .