Diving in Apo Island

Fed up with small stuffs on the sand? Miss colorful corals and plenty of tropical fish? It's not a problem. Aside from muck dive, many divers also go for boat dive in Apo Island depart from Dauin Coast.

I joined Apo Island diving day trip on my third day in Dumaguete. We departed from Liquid Dumaguete at 8AM. On the way going to Apo Island, we saw some dolphins cruising ahead of our boat. It's kind of additional surprise for us. It takes around 40 minutes to reach the island by pumpboat.

We had three dives in Apo Island. It's shame that I forgot to record the specific names of the dive site. Anyway, they are all near the "Rock" which is in front of the small village on the eastern side of the island. Apart from divers, many tourists go there for snorkeling.

The sea bed is covered by healthy corals, and the divers are surrounded by fish. The colorful scenery here is totally different from Dauin Coast. Like I mentioned before, go diving in Apo Island if you miss corals and fish.

  

We had a simple lunch on the boat after the second dive. This meal fee is included in their day trip package.

Aside from beautiful corals and fish, divers can see Jackfish ball on the east side of the island. We didn't dive there because it's drift dive and there were some beginner divers on the boat. If you are an experienced diver and want to see the school of Jackfish, why not try it!

Dive with Liquid Dumaguete

When I planned the trip to Dumaguete, I found some diving shop on the internet. One of them, Liquid Dumaguete, replied my email very fast and gave me most understandable information. Honestly, it's really my weakness in terms of choosing a resort or diving shop, so I booked the room with them without a second thought.

Location:

Like most of the diving shops there, Liquid Dumaguete is located in a town named Dauin. It takes 30 minutes by car traveling from the airport in Dumaguete City. For more traveling information, please click here.

Their dive center and accommodation are in the same area. There is no modern decoration but full of ocean and tropical feeling. (Of course it's in tropical. I mean some resorts are decorated too much and made into western styles.)

Accommodation:

They only provide fan rooms that may makes some people think it's too hot to sleep in a room in the Philippines without an air-conditioner. However, for example, I traveled to there in August which it's one of the hottest months in the Philippines. I even felt a little cold when I used the fan during night time because I stayed in a beach front cottage. They offered a promo price in August which was P1,450 per night. What a good deal!! Besides, there is a balcony in each cottage.

Diving:

Maybe because they only have few rooms, I didn't see too many short-term  customers, instead, I met some dive master trainees and instructor candidates there. The price is P1,400 per dive or P1,200 per dive if you do more than 6 dives. It excludes equipment rental, day trip boat ride, sanctuary fee, camera fee, night dive, etc. For more information of the prices, please check their website. In my case, I spent P15,900 for ten dives including 3 dives in Apo Island, 2 night dives in Dauin Coast and bringing my camera every time.

Dining:

It's not really convenient to go out from the shop and have meals, so I had all the meals in the restaurant of the shop during that four days. Aside from some fix menu, they provide "family dinner" which is offering different dishes every day. The customers have to sign up for it in the afternoon and have the meal together at 7pm. It includes 3 courses which are appetizer, main dish, and dessert. It's a good experience to have dinner with the people who have the same interest and share each others' diving journeys and experiences.

( I forgot to take some pictures of the food )

Conclusion:

If you are looking for a shop in Dumaguete only for diving, Liquid Dumaguete will be a nice choice.

Eat、Sleep、Dive!!

How to travel from Cebu to Dumaguete

How to travel from Cebu to Dumaguete?

Departure

When I was planning my trip to Dumaguete, I found out there are three common ways traveling from Cebu City to Dumaguete:

1. Go to Cebu South Bus Terminal and take the bus heading for Bato which departs every 30 minutes. Take off at Li-loan Port and take hourly ferry to Sibulan Port in  Dumaguete.

2. Go to Cebu City Pier and take ferry to Tagbilaran Port in Bohol. From there transfer another ferry going to Dumaguete.

Both options cost less than P500 for one way but take more than 5 hours to reach the destination. Because my holiday was short, I decided to go for the third and easiest way. I took Cebu Pacific flight from Cebu to Dumaguete which cost me P1,815 because I was able to get the promo ticket at that time.

The plane is a small propeller aircraft. The departure time is 10:20am, and the flight time is 40 minutes. It starts to descend just few minutes after reaching the flight attitude. In other words, the passengers don't have the chance to loosen the seat belts.

Like many domestic airports here in the Philippines, this one is small and simple. I hadn't been to Dumaguete, so I booked a van transportation from the diving shop(P700 one way). The driver were already in front of the arrival gate while I was waiting for my luggage. Actually, most of the popular diving sites are not near Dumaguete City, instead, a town named Dauin where most of the diving shops located in. It's 30 minutes away from the airport by car.

Return:

Go to Sibulan Port --> Buy Ferry Ticket --> Take Ferry --> Take Bus --> Cebu South Bus Terminal  

Because I had planned to dive one more time in the morning of travelling back to Cebu, I had no chance to fly back. I returned to Cebu by the boat and the bus like I mentioned above.

I asked the shop to book a van for me going to Sibulan Port( P800 one way); it takes around 40 minutes. There is one ticketing counter for the "pumpbaot" and another is for the "fastcraft". I took the fastcraft which departs hourly and costs P62. The sea was calm although the weather turned to cloudy on that day.

The ferry arrived at Li-loan Port in Cebu around 30 minutes after the departure. The buses of CERES LINER were waiting there for the passengers. The ticketing personnel guided me to one of the buses, so I realized the number in the back of my ferry ticket was the order of the buses. I was a little surprised that this connective transportation is such well-organized so the passengers don't need to rush to the buses for getting the seats. The bus I took was fully-occupied at the port, so the driver didn't stop too many times to pick up the passengers beside the road. Moreover, there was only a little traffic jam when we were close to the city, so we only traveled for around three and half hours to South Bus Terminal.

I feel like it's the same distance travelling to Dumaguete with Malapascua from Cebu City. I had known this place too late, otherwise I could go to Malapascua when I miss Thresher Shark and travel to Dumaguete if I miss small stuffs. (Sounds like I have holidays very often.)

Muck Dive in Dauin, Dumaguete

I went on a diving trip to Dumaguete, Philippines in August, 2014. I arrived at the diving shop around 12nn. The name of the shop is Liquid Dumaguete. I will share more about the shop and travelling information in the further articles.

Day 1
After simple lunch, I joined the shore dive at 2pm. Because the boat of the shop was in Apo Island for their diving day trip, we took a jeep to the breach of the dive site and geared up there. Unlike the white beaches I usually see here in the Philippine, the beach is brown color. The name of this dive site is Sahara. Like Sahara Desert, it's all sand in the sight. I spotted around 20 Garden Eels in a group right after getting into the water and was surprised why the dive master didn't point them out for us. After 10 minutes I realized Garden Eel is not special here because there are a lot of them.

Everyone knows muck diving is famous in Dauin Coast. Actually, it's was my first experience of it. I thought the visibility must be very poor, however, the visibility was very good which was at least 20 meters during my first dive there. As long the divers control the buoyancy well and not to kick up the send, we can have a good vision. In that dive, we saw frogfishes in different sizes, sea horses, nudibranches, ghost pipefishes and more which are good for macro photography.

At 5:30pm, we departed from the shop again by the jeep for the night dive. The dive site was San Miguel. It's also a muck dive. Night dive always makes me excited because we can see some creatures not easily to be spotted during day time. The maximum depth we dove was 18 meters. Aside from some crabs and shrimps which are more active during night time, we also saw some frogfishes and one Stargazer. When everyone was looking for something special with the torches, I lighted up a small and colorful creature floating above the sea bed. That's Flamboyant Cuttlefish which I had wanted to see for a long time. I was really happy about my first encounter of this beautiful cuttlefish.

Day 2
On my second day, we took the boat of the shop to dive around Dauin Coast. The first dive was Pablocion, also all sandy sea bed at the first. The maximum depth was 26 meters, and the visibility still reached around 15 meters. I didn't see a lot of special stuffs at that dive. After 30 minutes, we started to ascend and headed to south. There is a coral reef around 20 meters depth. Suddenly, the colorful corals and tropical fishes showed up in front of us. It looks like an oasis in a desert.

The second dive was Ginama An. As I mentioned above, Pablocion is like a oasis surrounded by the sand. And this dive site is like an artificial marine community in the water. It's still the sandy sea bed at the first, and we saw a blue-spotted Stingray. We swam to 16 meters and reached to an artificial reef made of tires. Many soft and hard corals attach on the tires and attract plenty of marine life to stay around there. It's a very interesting small spot that keeps everyone to stay and find something special. Aside from some common creatures in coral reef, we saw two big black frogfishes and 2 huge scorpion fishes there. The biggest gain for me during this dive was I finally took a clear shoot of Crinoid Shrimp.

The third dive was in the afternoon at Bonnet Corner. Aside from Dive Master Rocky, Dive Master Trainee Tony also joined the dive. They said most of the good stuffs in this site stay in the shallow. We moved between 6 to 13 meters to search something interesting. What we saw were Dragonet, Sea Horse, Ghost Pipefish, Flounder, some crabs, some tine nudibranches and more. When the dive time was 55 minutes, we were in the depth of 11 meters. It's about time to surface and finish the dive. Suddenly, Tony banged his tank several times. All of us swam quickly toward to him. There was a small octopus attached to a small rock, and at the first I thought it's just a common octopus. When one of our dive buddies placed his camera near to the octopus, it stretched the body and showed slight blue rings for few seconds. What!! It a Blue-ringed Octopus, my first Blue Ringed encounter. It wasn't willing to show it's beautiful blue rings, so I only had two pictures with slight rings. Anyway, it's still a good experience.

The fourth dive of the day was a night dive. We went to a dive site named North Car. Once again we saw a Flamboyant Cuttlefish, so I took few more pictures and videos of it. Moreover, something interesting we saw were Stargazer, Reptilian Snake Eel, Napoleon Snake Eel, and Coconut Octopus. Most impressive for me was I lighted up a cuttlefish 5 meters away accidentally. It swam fast to me and bumped into my shoulder. It discharged the ink right after the incident. It didn't escape right away, but hid in the cloudy ink. It's my first time to see this phenomenon, of course, I took some pictures of that. Some of the underwater photographer don't approve this kind of pictures because they think the divers might do something to threat the creatures in order to get this special effect. But, swear to the Mother Ocean, I was the one to be hit in this case.

I dove in Apo Island on my third day. It's a totally differently feeling, so I will share that later.

Day 4

Before going back to Cebu City on my forth day, I decided to do one more dive in San Miguel. This time I saw two flamboyant cuttlefishes moving together. If you want to see Flamboyant like me, maybe it's a good option to dive in Dauin Coast. After taking more pictures of these amazing cuttlefishes, DM Rocky signed me Frogfish and grabbed his hair. Is it a Hairy Frogfish? I swam fast to him and saw a tiny yellow frogfish in the rocks. I couldn't distinguish if it's really a hairy one at that time and tried to place my camera closer. I got excited because it might be my first sight of Hairy Frogfish. I could feel my camera hit the rock, and then it showed an error message. I kept turning on and off my camera to try to make it work again, however, it didn't. That's it. That's my last shoot of the trip. It's kind of special way to remember my 100 logged dive.

Anyway, I will be back, Dauin, Philippines.