Dive-Monster Rhoody

I found that video about diving in Apo Island on you tube and it is probably the best quality I have seen so far about diving Apo Island. The guy who taped it was with sea-explorers. His name is Mika Ahola and what I could see, he is multiple world champion in Motocross. Visit his site for more info  Mika Ahola’s site

Well, he is obviously also a passionate Scuba Diver and talented Video guy. As I have more daily visitors here then hie You Tube – side I want to put the Video here for you guys to enjoy it. I like it alot, even some of my favorite divesites on Apo Island are missing.

The Music and the quality of that dive Video are great. Seven Minutes to enjoy diving at Apo Island. Here you go :

Apo Islands Coral Gardens are just stunning, but I can’t hel[p myself in wondering where the fish are in some dive-spots. Even typical reef-fish are in some places around Apo Island just missing.

However, thanks Mika for the great Video, hope you’ll be back in the Philippines one day. You should consider a trip to Tubbataha Reffs , I guess as a biker you woul love the thrill there and the big stuff… but Apo Island was a good start…

cheers

Rhoody

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The waters around Dumaguete are famous for their marine life. Apo Island is mentioned as one of the world’s top-divesites, not only in South East Asia. The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago (a leader in the zoo and aquarium profession for more than three-quarters of a century) used the reefs of Apo Island as a model and rebuild some parts of it for their own “Clownfish-City” in Illinois. Professional Underwater Photographers coming to Dumaguete to take their shots of the famous Mandarin fishes and all the other Critters in the Bohol Sea (the official Name of the ocean here in the Central Visayas).

Especially in the area around the municipality of Dauin (15 km south of Dumaguete) are many well known beach and diving resorts who are hosting international guests from all over the world to show them the best Scuba-diving around Negros Oriental. Dauin has 8 marine sanctuaries and is also the departure point for dive-trips to the surrounding islands like Apo, Sumilon, Siquijor or Balicasag Island.

Most of the Instructors and Dive-Master in this region are Dumaguetenios with some thousand dives under the belt who know the reefs here like their own pocket. They are one of the main-reasons why most of the guests leave Dumaguete with the promise to return.

On March 27, 2008 many of them met at the Waterfront Café at the Boulevard in Dumaguete to found a new Association: The NEGROS DIVE PROFESSIONALS (NDP). The NPD members are all diving and tourism related and work in different resorts and positions. Diveshop owners, Tour-Operators, freelancing Dive-Masters and Instructors as well as employees of dive resorts founded this association to work together for the benefit of the local diving-tourism.

The goal of the NDP is to work hand in hand with the officials of the region to secure the success of “Diving in Negros”. The first public appearance of the NDP will be at a regional meeting in Dauin where their goal is to provide a better solution and give suggestions for a better system regarding all different, sometimes unpredictable fees and regulations for diving around Dumaguete.

Future goals include conservation projects in a joint venture with different Marine Biologists and Universities as well as the operation of a Recompression Chamber in Negros Oriental.

Diving in Dumaguete and Negros Oriental is one of the best of its kind in the Philippines and South East Asia. The NDP want to ensure that it will stay like that and even improve its status worldwide.

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Back from Angeles City into real life I received a txt from a friend who stays here for a couple of month to write his first novel. He was a student of mine back at Asia Divers in Puerto Galera and I met him on www.Dumagueteinfo.com accidently. He asked me to meet for a “coming-home” drink at Hayahay. Hey, no problem, quick shower, on the bike and off Rhoody goes. At Hayahay we met Mike Feeney who has a small Diveshop at the Boulevard. He told me that he may have an Apo Island Trip coming friday and we decided to join.

We met at 8:00 at Mikes Adventure-Diveshop to sign in the paperwork. and jumped into Mikes Easy-ride with 3 girls who wanna go to Apo for snorkling. Mike asked me If I have a problem to take 2 more divers as they called him with short notice. He ensured me that they are all good so no problem with me. We met in Dauin where his boat is. After the tanks and the were on the boat we started our 40 minute boatridt to Apo. We had a nice mixed group, a swedish, french, philippino, british, german mix ensured thatthere was a lot to talk about.

The first divesite was Chapel-Point, a shallow corall plateau goes into a wall on 8 meters and drops down to 40+ meters. The wall is coverd with softcorals and sponges. Along the wall are some small caves and overhangs. In one of those we found a blue ribbon eel, 2 clown frogfish and some good-sized scorpionfish. When the wall ends it is time to multilevel up to reach the area of Katipanan where you see beautifull softcoral gardens as far the visibility allows. The snorklers were already on the boat, so we left the water after 58 minutes.

We spend our surface interval on the Island, where 20 “lovely” T-shirt ladies welcomed us to show us their souvenirs. There is a lovely little resort on the Island where we went for lunch. As Apo Island is very small and the main-income of the people there is fishing it was a bit sureprising that the resort was out of stock for all fish-dishes on the menu…  

While we divers wanted to go for the second dive the snorklers enjoied to hang around and moved very slowly. The swedish guys started already with SanMiguel Light, so we had to force them a bit to go back to the banka.

The second dive started at Rock Point east. The stunning corals at the entry area  are only at a depth of 3 meters and goes over into a steep slope to the right. After 10 minutes into the dive a gentle current picks up to bring you around the corner to Rock Piont west. While drifting along the slope you feel like in a aquarium. Millions of colorful reef-fish just surrounding you with their nose in the current.  After passing the corner the current stops and you finally make your safety stop in the soft-coral gardens around the mooring bouje of Rock-Point west. After 65 minutes we were back on the boat. A bit cold as we had no sun.

The trip back was a bit rough and nothing and nobody stood dry on the boat. Back at Dauin into the easy-ride and 25 minutes to the dive-shop where we finally got some food and cold drinks. Diving with the smaller dive-shops here is different as you will miss some convinience of the big resorts but it also has more charme. I can highly recommend Mikes Adventure-diveshop for this unforgetable trip.

cheers

Rhoody

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