Author: cbartazo

Passion for the Depths!

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angel 2
This blooming branching corals can only be seen in the depths!

Just recently I came across an article about scuba addiction citing all the symptoms of being one, bit hilarious but in a sense there some truth in it. For many and that includes me, has been bitten by the bug, and again I would say this could last a lifetime. In my own terms, it’s not addiction but more of passion, not an obsession but fervent devotion, not merely fancy but true admiration of the life beyond.

The lure of the underwater world sets a diver on a great voyage that goes to the bottom of the sea. A journey beyond the terrestrial dimension that set him apart from the rest after such glorious experience in a universe populated by weird or wonderful cast of thousands.

So in many ways, our passion would manifest in our behavior, habits that could become a lifestyle. Generally, there is nothing verbal but in many subtle ways the assertion is essentially clear of being a true blood diver.

  • Sporting a bulky watch even for women is not weird, because the dive computer will become one’s treasured time-piece. Now, I found it practical to wear my dive computer on my other trips other than diving, even if I went on my weekend walking. It has practically become my buddy!
  • My so called de-stressor trips revolve around dive plans, seeing one new place is something therapeutic for me but it must have dive sites and obviously dive operator. My official trips sometimes are coupled with a dive plan if such destination has diving opportunities.
  • Yes, my certification cards are in my wallet (all three of them), just to keep them handy. It might get misplaced if I keep it somewhere else!
  • I can have all my essentials in my back pack but I do always get extra kilos exclusively for my gears, always requesting the airline crew for tagging as “fragile”. Extra time is necessary for some questions and signing the waiver.
  • Well, incredible memory is necessary – for all the story telling what was seen underwater. The key is being mindful for those amazing moment, it is needed for taking notes on your log not only for sightings but more importantly for the lessons learned. You can always narrate when you saw your first shark, turtle, ray or whale. Or mention a site, and you can always tell stories what not to miss. 🙂
  • Learning and knowing an extra language in hand signals. You have leveled up actually, the “OK” sign is not about money anymore, or the “thumbs up” is always about going up. You easily get confused when such signals are used on the surface!

If these are not weird and all sound too familiar for you, then you are a diver by heart, the depth of your passion has sunk in your innermost being. Needless to say, if you don’t have these qualities, you’re not a real diver. Chances are, it was merely a whimsical urge which after a time, when the excitement wane it will become a thing of the past. A passé but never a passion….

Anemone!

cbartazo

 

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Spotting a pair of clownfish underwater always means they are near an anemone or most likely swimming and playing hide  and seek over a bloom of anemone. Anemones are named after a terrestrial flower, but it’s actually a marine animal.

Of the over 1,000 anemone species that live in the ocean, only 10 species coexists with the 26 species of tropical clownfish. Within these species, only select pairs of anemone and clownfish are compatible. Together, they are obligatory symbionts, which means that each species is highly dependent on the other for survival. Symbiosis between the two species is achieved in a variety of ways including a mutual protection from predators, an exchange of nutrients, and the clownfish’s tolerance of anemone nematocysts.

The relationship between the sea anemone and clownfish allows the other to flourish through symbiosis. They are mutually dependent from each other.  The  above explosion of colors was in Mag-aba Deep Wall in Pandan, Antique!

Diving in SarBay!

Diving in SarBay!

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In February we head for General Santos for a dive trip, it was a quick decision although there have been previous attempts, but deferred as I was thinking of the long land trip from Cagayan de Oro. My friends in our special project at work had been long recommending for the south, urging the richness of the bay. Of course, SarBay has always been known as the tuna country being one of the biggest domestic sources for yellow fin tunas both in the local and foreign markets. It goes without saying that its depths held rich marine life and well-preserved environment being hardly reached for water adventures.

The long trip to General Santos left me sleepless but my transpo connections went fluidly so I arrived earlier and have more than enough time for rest, and later explored the city by myself. The city has a diveshop I found in the net like three years ago but on a hunch I chose the one located at Tampuan Point in Maasim, the western town near the mouth of the bay. As it is, my dive buddy always afforded me to decide for the details of our dive trip, he has trusted my judgment for the necessary arrangements.

Probing Tampuan Point

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The depths is replete with diverse marine life!

Angel caught up with me very early the next morning for the dives, too early he had almost four-hour nap to freshen up from the sleepless trip to the city. Rushing up in the morning, we arrived at Lemlunay Resort somewhat delayed from our promised time, but was grateful we were not yet late. They started to prepare for the gears when we caught them up at the shop. A bunch of male divers were there already, I guess they were bit surprised of a lady joining them. In a way, I tried my best not to let my presence an intrusion to them. 🙂

Our first descent was at the Kamanga Marine Sanctuary just a bit off the resort, but we still got into the boat (with no gangplank). It was high tide and the Tinoto Sandbar I was hoping to see was nowhere in sight. Sir Joel was our head DM and Nolan as our guide, the guys were a bunch. The instruction was to stay close the wall, currents can be strong which can pull one down and away to the deep blue. We drifted awhile passing whips, sea fans and soft corrals until the current got stronger. Our DM signaled to get away from the wall and seek refuge up the slope. We circled around up the wide sandy area until we sighted the turtle, everybody moved swiftly and the poor turtle scampered away! We found a herd of shrimpfish, angels, moorish idol, sand perchs, clownfish and variety of juveniles. We found cluster of concrete reef mounds scattered around the area as fish shelters. It was a different kind of model, indeed lot of tropical fish like chromis, damsels, sergeants and anthias hovering over and down the mounds. The turtle appeared again but swam quickly away seeing us! As we prepared for our ascent, a blue ribbon eel came into view as if some closure of our search! We ascend after 48 minutes, my deepest at 23.9 meters with my air still at 110 bars.

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Reef mounds scattered in the marine park serve as marine life shelters

We had a treat of warm divers’ soup as we got up in the shop and spent our surface interval lounging near the infinity pool watching the blue horizons. 🙂

Our second descent was still at the sanctuary off the Tinoto Reef, I think the healthy environment of the depths is owed to the concretes domes installed in the area, the artificial reef greatly enhanced the marine life. Our DM after learning of our dive sites quest around the country was bit pressured to find us something interesting in our dives. We shun away from the currents and as we went around sighted nudis, shrimpfish again, chromis and damsels. Obviously, the diverse marine life of the reef is a clear proof being awarded as one of the most outstanding marine protected area of the Para El Mar MPA Awards. As we lingered on hoping to find a rare specie, I caught up with our DM inspecting a crevice on hard corals, he found two bulging eyes protruding. At first, I tried to figure out what it was, something strange. It was upset, it came out – an octopus! It was my first sighting of a cephalopod in its habitat – pure amazing! It didn’t fled away, but courageously stood its ground and before it left, shoot a cloud of black ink, then left nonchalantly in front of us! It was a show, an actual observation of the specie’s behavior. 🙂 After 51 minutes, we ended our dive still amazed of our last find. I went 26.9 meters as deepest, my air still at 100 bars.

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Seeking refuge on the slope, the currents went tricky!

It was worth the trip, the probe was more than successful and without doubt a future schedule for dive trip in this corner of Mindanao would be in order. I am convince there are more amazing finds in the SarBay depths just waiting for curious souls! 🙂

Travel Notes:

  1. My route for this trip was:
    Cagayan de Oro to Davao – 12mn Rural Transit tourist bus (6 hours)

Davao to GenSan – 7:30am Yellow Bus Line tourist bus (3 hours)

  1. GenSan to Tampuan Point is 26 kilometers approximately 45 minutes travel by van
  2. The next town of Kiamba (Sarangani Province) has established a marine park, the LGU also offered diving in the marine sanctuary
  3. Again, the moon cycle should be considered when scheduling a dive trip, the current in the bay can be so tricky!
  4. Dive rate is considerably good, we paid only PhP 1,800.00/pax for two dives including gears.
  5. South Point Divers shop is housed at Lemlunay Resort, the owner of the resort is the head dive instructor, Mr. Paul Partridge whom we met during our surface interval.
  6. Lemlunay, which, in the B’laan and T’Boli tongues, roughly means “the good place one goes to in the afterlife”.

Exploring the Deep Seas of Tubbataha Reef

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Last month of May was the fifth year of our Tubbataha 2011, but until now it still bring a lot of fond memories. Reminiscing and scribbling once more those wonderful moments…..

If you are a Filipino diver, chances are you have cruised to Sulu seas towards Cagayancillo, Palawan for the only UNESCO marine heritage site in Asia – the Tubbataha Reef National Park. If you love the marine world, this is your place and you will never get disappointed. Most often, works and beauty of nature are beyond the surface and it can only be revealed to curious spirits who choose to tread afar for a paradise quest.

Diving in the Tubbataha Reefs was a dream come true, the four-day expedition was total immersion in this hidden paradise. What about having four dives in a day? It was really wet! The richness and diversity of the park is hard to equal – from bobbies to sharks! Not to mention turquoise waters, azure skies and vast open horizons decorated with sunrise and sunsets. There was stillness and serenity.

My thirteen dives were filled with great sightings and here is my account for what I encounter in different spots in the park.

Malayan Wreck

A wall dive decorated with active fish life, then with a sandy slope to the wreck. It is the home of white tips and gray reef and giant trevallies. We sighted two white tips perching on white sand as if sleeping, so with gray reef in different locations. There were triggers, large snappers, groupers, sweetlips, napoleon wrasses and breams. There was a turtle, a school of barracuda, moray eel with a remora, fusiliers and emperors and there was lot more I couldn’t name them all. Of course, I didn’t miss the large gorgonians in lavender, yellow and green.

The small shipwreck here was also an attraction, I love wrecks and my last of the three dives here had a safety stop going around searching every corner of the wreck!

Wall Street

It is another wall dive with filled with white tip & gray reef sharks, variety of tropical fish
variety of colorful sea fans and soft corals. You must be careful not to bump with the sharks!

Amos Rock

This is located in the southwest of the North Atoll with a breathtaking wall decorated with large gorgonians and variety of colorful corals. Sharks are again often seen here, we found more than ten swimming coyly. Other species are sweet lips, groupers, trigger fish, large parrots, giant moray eel, boxfish and puffers.

Ranger Station

It was already late afternoon almost a night dive when we descend here. Large groupers, sweet lips, snappers were the common residents. Variety of sea cucumbers like ananas and leopards were sighted here.

Seafan Alley

I found more fish life here than the seafans.Like snappers, triggers, wrasses, parrots surgeons, emperors, angels and pufferfish. Sighted here at least two turtles swimming coyly before us.

Shark Airport

This dive site is also located in North Atoll, is one of the best places for spotting a variety of marine life. Perhaps, it is a playground of white-tips, gray reefs and silver tip sharks as they abundantly swam in the area. We encountered a giant manta ray here! Or was it a devil ray? It was a real surprise!

Delsan Wreck

I could still vividly remember having a relaxed dive here waiting for some little surprise that day. Indeed, a whale shark about 5 meters trooping with white tips & gray reef sharks, giant tunas and trevally parading before us! And as if to emphasize its splendor, they made another round for all of us to watch. It was a real show!

There were triggers, blue fin trevally, sea turtles and one of my favorite – a large school of jacks!

Lighthouse (Delsan)

Located in the South Atoll, the site features a large reef and a steep wall with another active marine life – black tips, gray reef, blue fin trevally, barracuda, moray eel, turtles to name a few. Anemones, sea fans, sea cucumbers and colorful hard & soft corals abound in this site.

The excitement of getting into the waters and breathing deep down or discovering the unknown are just coating of this incessant aquatic adventures. It’s more about passion of the marine world, the life beyond the depths – just pure love for these creatures, admiring and watching in awe all these wondrous forms of life. You can’t help not to fall in love and feel grateful you had the chance to witness its splendor. My dive buddy and I agree it was worth for another visit.

The great waterworld of Tubbataha is a piece of heaven on earth. The exhilaration of being surrounded by colorful fish of great variety is simply hard to equal. It was a very moving experience. While you’ve probably seen photos and videos on diving, you won’t understand what it’s really like or how it really felt until you’ve experienced it yourself.

Tubbataha – where a brave and passionate diver’s dreams come true!

NB. This piece was written for letspalawan.com

The Pulchritude of Puerto Princesa

The Pulchritude of Puerto Princesa

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Those “hitting two-birds with-one-stone” trips are the kind  that I usually look forward to, I found it more productive and obviously it is time and money saving and with trip arrangements in place, all I need is to extend one more day to accommodate flying restrictions after diving. Being the gateway in the last Frontier, Puerto Princesa is impossible to be unknown and more than that, the city evolve in tourism as it cradled one of the seven new wonders in the world!  And its being the greenest and perhaps cleanest city is not for nothing.

My dive plans at the start of the year was clueless as other priorities that needs my immediate attention were at hand, but the week-long official trip in the city was just perfect.  All previous visits in the city were too brief being just for stop-over to El Nido, Cuyo and Sulu Seas.

Puerto Depths

After haggling for a slot for a Friday dive, they took me in and informed the diveshop as a caution that I was alone.  Actually, the confirmation was last minute on Thursday, later I learned the water conditions was unfavorable. The big waves were uncontrollable and all water activities in the city were cancelled for safety reasons. So on that Friday morning, I took a trike though I knew the diveshop can be reached for a walk but I need to be early for the appointment.  It turned out the driver was not familiar with the streets, how come? – such a pity. I was much earlier from the rest including our DM and after almost an hour of waiting, we all piled up in the multicab heading for Pristine White Beach.  And again, we were a bunch, majority was foreign nationals!

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Although the sun was brightly shining, the waves were insurmountable.  At the back of my mind, I trusted the DMs judgment, and we all piled up on the speedboat after assigning our buddies. We sped off riding on the big waves, spraying us with salt water like rain!  Our first descent was in Crossing, the DM offered me to go down immediately thru the anchor line to avoid the surface turbulence, and wait until we go around down together.  Indeed, it was more calm down but alas, the viz was hazy.  It rang a bell in my mind, I must be careful not to get lost! Despite the blurred vision, I found active fish life.  A parade of breams swimming coyly at a distance, there were variety of trigger fish but no titans! 😛 And there was a turtle!  Our DM had to drag me to catch up but there was only blurry outline of the turtle swimming away.  I think if not for the murky viz, I could have sighted more of the marine life. We surfaced after 52 minutes, my deepest at 19m still with 100 bars air.

We sped off back to the beach for our surface interval, which is much better than stationed there with waves rocking our boat high and low. The Taiwanese couple begged off after the first dive.  We stayed on the shallows biding our time, the waters was perfectly calm.  With the sun shining and blue skies, it was a picturesque summer scene.

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As we prepared for our next descent in Maris Rock, I heard the friendly Canadian asking if it was safe with the big waves, and again I trusted the DMs judgment.  We sped off holding fast for safety, I knew the waves were getting higher!  The site has rock clumps scattered over white sands, the surface was still choppy so immediate descent was appropriate.  The viz wasn’t any better, it was still foggy but thankfully there was no current.  The fish life was much better, sighted giant puffer fish, clown fish, triggers, anthias and throng of juveniles over corals.  We went slow and perhaps I was more observant in the second descent, even with the haze we found cleaner shrimp, some nudis and a small frogfish!  We surface after 45 minutes, my deepest at 21 meter and with air still at 100 bars.  The choppy water was heart pounding in a way, but it was another learning to my advantage.  I believe the depths of Puerto Princesa has much in store even more in clear visibility.

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Around Puerto

There were much more to see around the city – Mitra Ranch, The Bakers Hill, the Crocodile Farm, the famous Underground River , the island beaches in Honda Bay. The last two requires more time and getting a quick hop of the first three visibly offered more improvements compared a decade ago.  Personally, I was more impressed what I saw in Iwahig Colony, it have transformed into an agricultural community with the detainees as workers and producers. The rice fields were maintained as well as the fresh water fishpond, other crops were also produced at the same time working with their handicrafts.  It is a big boost for all the detainees inside Iwahig, aptly the facility is now called Iwahig Penal Farm.

Unfortunately,  I failed to visit the public market , my office mates always aimed for pearls and dried fish getting cheaper deals!  Puerto has now a mall which is another improvement in terms of market & economic activity.  There are new cafes and restos down town, Angel and I used to have lunch in barefoot at Ka Lui for their delectable dishes and lounge at Atoy’s Café while waiting for our flight.  Well, indulge after a dive is the usual thing, and I went to White Fence for that French café ambience. To my delight –  the homey atmosphere, good food and reasonable price was a perfect combination. I think the café deserves another visit in the future!  🙂

Another Reminder

I thought there would be no hitting the grounds as I go through the transports heading home alone, the perennial flight delays almost created disaster in my connecting flight. I thought I wouldn’t make it, but I literally race for the gate as soon as I got my luggage from the carousel.  It was miracle, my final flight towards home was accordingly delayed and in less than five minutes after I step on the area still catching my breath, the gate opened for boarding!  And these are the kind of circumstances that prod travelers, which I correlate in diving as S R T A.  A dose of adrenaline was in the rise. 🙂  Just the same, it was another miracle!

Travel Notes

  1. I booked at Dive Puerto Princesa (www.divepurertoprincesa.com) for my dives
  2. Best month to dive is between March to August, January is still habagat and waves can be too rough
  3. There is lot of low-priced accommodations around the city, some have easy access to the airport