Diving trip to
During one of my ‘off’ times from
work Gina and I decided that instead of me going back to
talking to a few of the guys I work
with who live in the
as the most likely place to get some
nice diving.
So, where is
That is the top of
Right about here….
As my port of departure from the
vessel I’m working on is usually Batangas the choice was
even easier. It’s a 14 mile trip
south from the ferry terminal at Batangas Pier that takes about
an hour and costs 280 pesos each
(about $7, try getting a ticket to Rottnest for $7!). I had
already taken our dive gear from
a matter of meeting Gina, collecting
the gear and going. When I told Gina we would be taking
the ferry, she was expecting
something about 100 metres long, not one of these!
It’s called a ‘
single tree and have a bamboo
outrigger on each side. This one can carry up to about 100
people. As we were doing this trip
in the off-season nothing was too crowded. Smaller versions
are used as the dive boat.
I had been over there a few weeks
before and found a nice place to stay and a good dive shop
that seem to offer all we needed.
These shots are of Sabang beach as you arrive.
The place we stayed was only $45
night for an A/C room and breakfast. We could sit on the
porch and be 10 metres from the
water! The room was basic, with a comfortable bed, TV,
fridge, air cond, shower and a table
to set up the computer for photo and dive computer
downloads.
Daily food costs were about 1200
pesos, $30. Gina found out pretty quickly where to buy fruit;
mangoes, pineapple, watermelon and
bananas, and would buy enough for us each day, at a
cost of about $5! The fruit over
there is something else…Most of the bigger dive resorts have a
restaurant, so we ate out for lunch
and dinner.
Our daily routine was something
like; wake up at 6.30am, have breakfast and get ready for the
9am dive. That was usually the
deeper of the day’s dives so was only about 40 minutes. By
the time we returned to the shop,
rinsed our gear and hung it up, got back to the room and
downloaded the 2 dive computers and
the camera, it was time to start getting ready for the
midday dive. As this dive was
shallower it usually lasted closer to an hour, so by the time we
finished the rinsing it was well and
truly time for lunch. The shop also ran a 3pm dive, but we
figured 3 dives a day would wear us
out too quickly, so we only did the 9am and midday. For a
few days when business was low the
shop ran 10.15am & 3pm dives, so we did both of those.
On to the diving…. As Gina hadn’t
dived for quite some time we treated this as a ‘learning’
trip.. Much like my last ski trip to
weeks she would become more comfortable
with diving, which she did, and then some. Gina
was so comfortable with the diving
that she did the advanced course; deep, wreck, navigation,
drift and night dives… She’s now an
‘advanced diver’… and has gone from a cautious
beginner to a confident and
competent advanced diver in just 2 weeks! I did a couple of Nitrox
dives, so I have my Nitrox
qualification now too. I managed to take 712 photos on 25 dives…
Don’t you just love digital cameras!
Don’t panic, I won’t be putting all of them here, Just the
500 best (just kidding). Some are
really quite nice, like this one.
Fairly early on I realized that the
camera was particularly good on the ‘macro’ setting and Gina
got tired of waiting for me as I
took photos, so she started to buddy with the Dive Master. On
the boat on the way out to the dive
site the Dive Master would assign buddy pairs… and it
became the joke for him finish with
‘Chris and his camera’! For those who don’t know, the
camera is just a little Sony
Cybershot P-150 in a marine housing, nothing fancy.
To sum up the trip, Gina did 22
dives and I did 25. We had a great time and the diving was
very, very good. Most of the dives
are drift dives, where the boat drops you in, you shoot down
to the bottom and just drift along
with the current. It’s like watching a moving picture show.
When you are down to 50 bar, it’s 5
minutes at 5 metres, up to the surface and the boat picks
you up, sometimes as far down
current as 2 kilometres…. How did the boat know where you
were? The Dive Master used one of
these. Would we go again? Stay tuned, it’s being planned
as you read!
For more photos, click here.
Cheers all,
Chris and Gina (deep-sea divers)