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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Just finished another great week of diving and teaching. While my friends in Luzon complained about bad weather, it couldn’t be much better here in Dumaguete.  Blue Sky, flat water and great visibility in the whole area.

Mike from the Adventure Dive Shop called me up last Sunday to teach some classes for him so I started Linda from Australia and Nicky from England to teach them the Open Water course.

The whole week together was just a blast and I had so much fun with that lovely couple. They were well prepared and paid attention to everything. I am sure the great conditions and the turtles on their very first open water dive was also encouraging them to run through the theory and skills with flying colors.

Midweek Dave from England joined them to do a refresher after some years of being out of the water. The week ended with a great trip to Apo Island. We were guided by some dolphins on our way to Apo Island, were the two finished their last course dive at chapel point, a nice wall with wonderful coral-gardens on top to do the safety stop.

So it was time for the first real fun-dive. I decided to go with them on a drift-dive, as they I was sure they are confident in the water and stay close to me. When we came to the huge school of Jackfish, I grasped both at the tank-valve and pulled them into the middle of thousands of Mamsa (Local term for Jackfish). Nose in the current and hard fining we spend a couple of minutes in the middle of these beautiful creatures.

The third dive on Rock Point was relaxing and just before we went on the boat to head back to Dauin, a turtle passed and waved us bye-bye.

Well, back at Mikes Diveshop we finished the paperwork and I signed the log-books. Here is where things started to become a bit weird.  I am really not sure what made Linda and Nicky drawing that stuff in their Log-book, but I guess they will have to answer this question each time they enter a Diveshop…

Hope you two guys have a great time in Palawan…. and don’t forget body position and exhaling are the secrets of diving… Thanks for diving with me… I had a great week with you two

Cheers

Rhoody

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On Sunday the 6th of January we scheduled a side-trip to Subic with some friends to have a great time and do some diving on the famous wrecks of the Subic Bay. I was there some 5 years ago and was pretty much exited about the trip. So at 7 in the morning there was a nice crowd of people standing around the van, wondering how everybody should fit into that. 5 guys, 6 girls, 4 sets of dive-gear, 2 driver, 11 back-bags, several notebook and camera-cases, 3 pillows and 2 monster stuff-toys squeezed somehow into the van and a rental car and headed towards Subic Bay.

With the new highway open, it was just an hour drive to the diveshop of the Camayan Beach Resort. After the typical paperwork we set up the gear and got our briefing for the El Capitan. I had a look at the rental gear and it seemed to me in good and well maintained conditions. The tanks were full with 200+ bars and the Banka big and spacious.

We had a five minute ride and tight the boat up on the mooring buoy of El Capitan. I could see from the boat that the visibility was not really good and after entering the water first I could barely see the end of my fins. I thought right away: That dive will be for some of our group a big challenge. Descending down the mooring line did not change anything in terms of visibility and my body and I were the first after the divemaster exploring the wreck.

To be honest, it could have been anything down there as there was nothing to see other than light green, dark green and black after we penetrated the wreck through one of the cargo-holes. Occasionally I saw the shade of the Dive-master and felt the hands of my buddy. I was not sure if he wanted to grasp my big Lubud or just keep in contact with me.

Finally towards the end of the dive I saw shades of schooling Bat-fish in the green and I think there was a Ray sliding of the subject we were diving on. What I am 100% sure is that there were some clown-fish…

After surfacing everybody had really sore eyes, so we decided to skip the second dive. We still can go back to Subic another day and the Ocean Adventure-Park is in the neighborhood so we can watch some dolphin and sealion-shows.

Cheers

Rhoody

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I received a letter from a Dumaguete company  about one a Topic what is sad for the World of Diving as that company probably need to destroy one of the worlds best Macro-Divespots.

The Dumaguete Coconut Mills Inc. will renovate “The Pier” or “Ducomi” as it is known in the diving world.

Right while typing that article, local experts and dive-operators meet, to talk about any solution for saving or relocating at least parts of this wonderful dive-site.  

Here is the letter as send out by the corporation.

Gentlemen:

                Just recently, the Board of Directors of DUCOM approved the budget for the repair of the steel piles and concrete slabs and beams of our pier. This project was supposed to be scheduled early this year but we held it in abeyance the approval of the owners.

                We deeply regret to say that this project necessitates the scraping of the nudibranches and other living things which consider the pillars as their home but we have to undertake such costly move in order to avoid further damage to our installation. If we don’t do this now, we would be incurring much greater cost in the future, which we can’t afford.

                The project is scheduled to start this coming month and the contractor will be mobilizing this weekend. As we have no idea yet on the details of their repair methology, we remain hanging on our decision whether or not to continue allowing diving on the early stages while creatures still exist for the nature lovers to see.

                What a waste, but we have no choice. We hope to preserve, conserve, retrieve or replace those marine beauties for them to still be visible after the repair works. Frankly we need them as a living proof that our industrial effluent is not polluted. It took years for them to build up on the pillars; we don’t want to loose them in a wink of an eye.

                If you have any suggestions or comment about their conservation, please feel free to communicate with us. We need environmentalists like you.

                                                                                                                Sincerely yours,               

                                                                                                                Romunaldo S. Domingo

                                                                                                                Plant Manager

I hope we find a solution to safe at least a little bit about this unique underwater paradise.

cheers

Rhoody

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Like mentioned earlier, there was a Typhoon warning and that tail of it hit Dumaguete City with full force. When we reached the divesite big waves were rolling in and the visibility was less than one meter in shallow water. A strong surge was present and pushed us with each wave some meters to the left and pulled us back with the outgoing water. We rushed to get below 5 meter where the visibility was acceptable and no strong surge anymore. We rushed through the skills and headed down to 18 meter, the maximum of Open Water dive 3. With the “little” work out on our way out we reached quickly half tank and made our way back. Due to the decreasing visibility and increasing surge we surfaced quite a distance from the shore and the waves helped us to push us in.

During our surface interval the wind increased dramatically and out changing area was totally under water. This place is usually such a peaceful spot where locals meet to have a great BBQ and to chill out on a lovely beach. Not today…. The place was flooded and the ocean showed his force. I wanted to skip the dive but Mike told me he wanna finish even with a short 20 minute dive. So we geared up and try to enter the water. This was very clear against Neptun or Poseidons plan. A huge wave grabbed us and spitted us out back on the beach, or what was left of it.

Mike didn’t wanna give up and after 10 minutes of catching breath we gave it another try. I was counting the waves, height and strength the whole time and figured out a rhythm when it’s the best going through them. We helped each other through the breaking waves and swam out as far as necessary to descend into a brown soup. I could not see the end of my own arm and we were holding each other until we hit the ground. Again, we rushed to go deeper but even on 12 meters the visibility was below one meter. Deeper at 16 meters we had about 3 meters, enough to let each other go. The surge was still there and even the Clownfish were all over the place, but not in the Anemone, where they usually belong. The underwater navigation was even for a UPS Pilot a drama but finally done. We decided quickly to return and get back to shore. Somehow we managed to get out of the water… not without the help of some locals, thanks for that. We quickly disassembled and rinsed before we were heading back to Dumaguete for a hot shower and a cold beer. If somebody can dive in this condition he can dive everywhere. Great Job Mike !!!!

Typhoon Frank hit the Philippines badly and left huge damage and plenty of victims behind. We were lucky ones this time to “catch” only the tail of it. Everybody says that the Central Visayas and the area around Dumaguete is safe and very protected, but who does really know ???  If the nature wants you it will get you.

all the best

Rhoody

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A year ago or so my friends Tom and Kim were living down here in Dumaguete or better 20 kilometer south of it in a small village called Maajong Tubig. We were drinking and partying many times together but never dived. When they finally decided to move back to Angeles City we ran almost out of time and squeezed in as many dives as possible.

Finally 2 days before departure Michelle the lovely girlfriend of Tom decided to make a PADI Discover Scuba Programm with me. A DISCO is usually the first experience in the water with SCUBA equipment. The participant has almost nothing to do… just breathing. If the DISCO programm is conducted in the open water they have to clear the mask and recover the regulater as some easy skills.

Michelle did it with flying colors and the rest was simply fun. Sometimes it is just great to be a PADI Scuba Diving instructor in the Philippines. Now almost a year later I dedected a short video of that dive on youtube. I thought Tom was just making pictures, but obviously he recorded a few frequences of that dive. Good that I behaved a kind of…

Somehow I must thank Asia Divers in Puerto Galera and PADI. Asia Divers made me to a complete diving addict and PADI gives me the tools to enjoy that kind of stuff.

cheers and enjoy

Rhoody

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Finally… after the longest raining season since I life in the Philippines it looks like we finally left all the clouds rain and storms behind. In seven years I never experienced a rainy-season starting in late September and lasting until the middle of march.
The sun hit Dumaguete like a hammer. It is HOT.
As I moved to Dumaguete from Dauin in November I had the whole time no real change to work a bit in my own garden and that is exactly how it looked. Knee-deep grass was attacking me in the back of my house. Millions of leaves were laying on the ground, rotten Banana leaves were hanging down from the banana-trees… (is it a tree ???? after I cut one down it appears to me more like a “monster-grass”) By the way, I had some 50 plus bananas hanging up there, this was the reason why I cut it, as I had no idea how to bring them down in any other way.

With big help of  two  sweet helper I started to collect all the leaves on three different spots and burned them. The smoke of it raised that high in the sky that whole Dumaguete thought there is a new volcano in Batinguel. I guess my neighbors hate me for that now. I was more concerned to avoid burning down my house…

Unlike my daddy, I don’t give much about gardens but the hours yesterday were amazing for me. At lunchtime the sweat was floating in liters and we were completely exhausted. But I must admit that my first own harvested bananas were the best in my life so far. I guess it will be the same with the Papaya and the Mangos. Yes, all that stuff is just growing here in my little Paradise.

After the lunch-break we slowed down a little bit and played around with the water-hose, but even the water from my tank was almost to warm to help for refreshing. Finally we ended up doing exactly that what we should do in that heat….. Nothing !!!! Actually we were sitting in the grass and watching killer-spiders how they catch grasshoppers for their lunch. I found some “space-spiders”, tiny little creatures which are amazingly colorful. If they would be bigger they would scare the sh%@ out of me.

Around two o’clock we decided to go to the beach as it is better to lay in the ocean with an ice-cold coke-light and let the spiders and grasshoppers do their thing. I loved the day in the garden and it will not be my last, but I am sure that I will prefer my time under water much more, especially when it is hot like now… and there are no space and killer-spiders…

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