When we woke up, it was like we were in the middle of a hurricane. It was raining and windy and there were crazy gusts. The rain stopped before we went for breakfast and the wind slowly decreased as we were getting ready to go. We headed across the channel to Kirby’s Rock, which I remembered from our previous trip once the briefing started. I remembered thinking it would be a good place for wide angle but Rob had packed macro. Oh well. Anyway, it was windy but not too crazy by the time we left, and the ride over was okay.
At first the dive site was rubble reef and I couldn’t remember what I thought was so great about the site. But I guess this was just on the way to the main spot. We poked around and found a few critters on the way to the big side pinnacle down the slope. Once we got over to there I noticed both of the guides down in a crack and saw a big coral-colored sea fan, and realized they were looking for a Pygmy seahorse. So I hung nearby in case it worked out. And it did! There was a teeny teeny tiny little Pygmy seahorse in there, which Joemar miraculously managed to find! Once he found it, it seemed like Rob spent like most of the dive trying to get that shot. I guess macro was the right lens for the dive.
Aside from the Pygmy, Joemar found a very pretty little orange and pink and white slug that I’ve seen once before and for some reason I really like, though it’s probably not objectively the most amazing slug. I just like the color combination. Aside from slugs, I saw a couple different scorpionfish on the dive, and a zillion little moral eels, including several free swimming. Oh and when we made it to the main rock, there were a ton of little tropical fish zooming around, and the overhang on the wall was very cool. Plus there was a cute bugger frogfish hanging on the side of the wall. I still think it would be a good site for wide angle though macro was the right lens for today!
After that we went to the next site and anchored and hung out there for a while for our surface interval. The water had turned totally flat during the first dive, which was nice. The site was Olympic point (named for the nearby hotel), and it was a muck dive with a sandy bottom with scattered little coral bits. It was an insanely productive macro dive. There was a cool pair of nudis and their eggs in a coral egg bubble (which kind of blew my mind), a leaf scorpionfish, a black ribbon eel, and that was all within like one 10 foot stretch. We saw tons of cool little crabs and shrimp in anemones, corals, and on the backs of urchins. By the end of the dive, there were some patches of blue sky, finally, though I still wouldn’t call it sunny.
We came back for lunch and rested a bit before heading back out. I had the club sandwich for lunch which was excellent. Rob was less excited by his burger. For the afternoon dive, we did a muck dive about 5 minutes to the right of the resort, at a site called Vivire. It was once again quite productive. Joemar told us that we would likely see the cousin of Shaun the sheep that was green and blue, and oh buy did we see those. Rob spent so much time photographing them. Some of them were big enough to really look at with my eyes, which was nice. The one really good find on this dive was an octopus with a single blue ring (can’t remember what it’s called). We also saw an armina looking slug that was biggish and lots of small nudis that I couldn’t identify with my eyes.
We got back a little before 5 and decided to hang out by the pool until the night dive. Then we headed out just to the point where we tried to dive yesterday (Mainit). We got in just before dark. The reef sloped down to around 60 feet and had patches of reef. It looked like it would be a nice site to dive during the day too. We saw lots of good critters on the dive… plenty of nudis, a huge harlequin shrimp, a squid, a frogfish, lots of cool crabs and shrimps, and the reef was seemingly covered with these huge and very creepy basket stars.
We got back and headed down to dinner a little before 8. Actually we hit the bar first, where I got a mango daiquiri (yum).
When we woke up, it was like we were in the middle of a hurricane. It was raining and windy and there were crazy gusts. The rain stopped before we went for breakfast and the wind slowly decreased as we were getting ready to go. We headed across the channel to Kirby’s Rock, which I remembered from our previous trip once the briefing started. I remembered thinking it would be a good place for wide angle but Rob had packed macro. Oh well. Anyway, it was windy but not too crazy by the time we left, and the ride over was okay.
At first the dive site was rubble reef and I couldn’t remember what I thought was so great about the site. But I guess this was just on the way to the main spot. We poked around and found a few critters on the way to the big side pinnacle down the slope. Once we got over to there I noticed both of the guides down in a crack and saw a big coral-colored sea fan, and realized they were looking for a Pygmy seahorse. So I hung nearby in case it worked out. And it did! There was a teeny teeny tiny little Pygmy seahorse in there, which Joemar miraculously managed to find! Once he found it, it seemed like Rob spent like most of the dive trying to get that shot. I guess macro was the right lens for the dive.
Aside from the Pygmy, Joemar found a very pretty little orange and pink and white slug that I’ve seen once before and for some reason I really like, though it’s probably not objectively the most amazing slug. I just like the color combination. Aside from slugs, I saw a couple different scorpionfish on the dive, and a zillion little moral eels, including several free swimming. Oh and when we made it to the main rock, there were a ton of little tropical fish zooming around, and the overhang on the wall was very cool. Plus there was a cute bugger frogfish hanging on the side of the wall. I still think it would be a good site for wide angle though macro was the right lens for today!
After that we went to the next site and anchored and hung out there for a while for our surface interval. The water had turned totally flat during the first dive, which was nice. The site was Olympic point (named for the nearby hotel), and it was a muck dive with a sandy bottom with scattered little coral bits. It was an insanely productive macro dive. There was a cool pair of nudis and their eggs in a coral egg bubble (which kind of blew my mind), a leaf scorpionfish, a black ribbon eel, and that was all within like one 10 foot stretch. We saw tons of cool little crabs and shrimp in anemones, corals, and on the backs of urchins. By the end of the dive, there were some patches of blue sky, finally, though I still wouldn’t call it sunny.
We came back for lunch and rested a bit before heading back out. I had the club sandwich for lunch which was excellent. Rob was less excited by his burger. For the afternoon dive, we did a muck dive about 5 minutes to the right of the resort, at a site called Vivire. It was once again quite productive. Joemar told us that we would likely see the cousin of Shaun the sheep that was green and blue, and oh buy did we see those. Rob spent so much time photographing them. Some of them were big enough to really look at with my eyes, which was nice. The one really good find on this dive was an octopus with a single blue ring (can’t remember what it’s called). We also saw an armina looking slug that was biggish and lots of small nudis that I couldn’t identify with my eyes.
We got back a little before 5 and decided to hang out by the pool until the night dive. Then we headed out just to the point where we tried to dive yesterday (Mainit). We got in just before dark. The reef sloped down to around 60 feet and had patches of reef. It looked like it would be a nice site to dive during the day too. We saw lots of good critters on the dive… plenty of nudis, a huge harlequin shrimp, a squid, a frogfish, lots of cool crabs and shrimps, and the reef was seemingly covered with these huge and very creepy basket stars.
We got back and headed down to dinner a little before 8. Actually we hit the bar first, where I got a mango daiquiri (yum).
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