Mindoro & Luzon, Philippines, Oct-Nov 2003

¤ IANTD Normoxic Trimix Diver
¤ TDI Advanced Wreck Diver
¤ IANTD Trimix Diver

travel blog

Philippines - info sheet

Visum	No visum is required - unless you want to stay more than 3 weeks. In Copenhagen, a 59 days visum can be obtained from the Philippines consulate within two to four weeks. Besides your passport you must bring one picture, a copy of your travel documents, fill in an application, and pay 345 DKK.
Time	Manila time = Copenhagen summer time + 6 hours Manila time = Copenhagen winter time + 7 hours
Weather	Air temperature: about 30°C warm and humid. Partially cloudy, with an occasional shower now and then. Water temperature: 27°C.
Currency	1 USD = 54 PHP
Language	English is spoken by most.
Electricity	Electrical plugs are USA style.

Seahorse parade

Armed with a Sea&Sea MotorMarine IIex underwater camera, it's a whole other game now. The hunt for subjects is open.

Asia Divers being rather busy, I've switched to Frontier Scuba. I already dived with them last year and know Rick (the owner) and Oying (the main guide). It's a smaller dive shop, offering a more personalized service, meaning you can have Rick or Oying as your private guide on most dives.


And they're a photographer's best friend! In stead of telling which dive sites I'd like to see, I ask them for a certain fish or marine creature. Then they just bring me to a site and find whatever I wanted to see. It's quite incredible. Today, Oying found three seahorses and a big orange frogfish on our first dive. And plenty of colourful nudibranchs on the second dive.


Not a day goes by without us seeing a new critter: pygmy seahorses, spotted and thorny seahorses, seamoths (aka dragonfish), slender pipefish, seagrass filefish, flying gurnard, dragonet, cockatoo waspfish, frogfish, lion-, scorpion- and stonefish, reef- and flamboyant cuttlefish, octopus, anemoneshrimps and -crabs, hermite- and boxcrabs, green and white mantis shrimp, blue and black ribbon eels, moray eels, flounders, various kinds of nudibranchs, seapens, etc. Besides of course all the other free moving reef fish (usually not inclined to be photographed) and the occasional turtle.

There was a problem with the camera's macro-frame, but several pictures did come out anyway, though not as many as hoped. Lesson learned: develop asap, so you can take corrective measures.

Recreational diving

Having finished all my technical courses, I can now enjoy the freedom of diving with just one tank again. All I have to do is rollover into the water, have a great time just looking around and surface when I'm done.


My recreational configuration is of course technically correct: meaning I'm still using a harness and backplate, but now with smaller, single tank wings. I can't get much more streamlined than that, except by becoming a freediver.

A typhoon passes by

It's been raining through the night and all of the day. The intensity varying from drizzle to tropical downpour, soaking everything and everybody venturing outside. A perfect day for watching movies, except there's no power and they won't start the generator until nightfall. So most tourists hang out in the bars, soaking there insides with San Miguel beer, thus restoring their humidity balance with the outside world.

IANTD Trimix Diver -upgrade-

Instructors	Dave Ross (academics+skills) Sam Collett (training dives)
Dive center	Tech Asia, Small La Laguna, Puerto Galera, Mindoro, Philippines
Duration	4 days
Dives	1 confined water session 3 trimix dives to max 80m
Price	300 USD + about 240 USD for Helium (incl. the instructor's)
Requirements	IANTD
Comments	Having done the normoxic trimix course only a few weeks ago with the same instructor team, this course was just an upgrade to full trimix. In order to go yet a little deeper, there are some new skills to master and some additional risks to consider. The main one being the fact that the bottom mix is now hypoxic at the surface and shallow depths. Actual bottom time gets even shorter and decompression time longer (e.g. about four times the bottom time for medium deep dives). As more Helium is needed in the mix in order to keep a clear head, the price tag per dive goes up accordingly too. Dave and Sam are great dive professionals who take their job seriously and do it thoroughly, gladly sharing their knowledge and experience - they're truly an example to follow. Remark that the full trimix course would normally take longer, require more dives and cost more.

Manila to Small LaLaguna

After a short overnight stay at Malate pension (550 PHP/night), I took an early morning taxi to the City State Tower Hotel (31 PHP) and bought a bus/ferry ticket to Sabang (400 PHP). The bus left a little after 8am, and we arrived in Batangas around 10:30, from where I took a big banca outrigger directly to Sabang beach. The crossing took an hour, and could potentially get wet depending on the wheather conditions.
My fully furnished studio at Sha Che (500 PHP/day) was waiting for me, and I made myself comfy straight away. Now I can truly relax, having worked my way through the two main dive courses I wanted to do here. The one left is just an upgrade of the first one, so I can take it easy from now on :o)

Subic Bay to Manila

Not liking Subic too much, I left it as soon as the course was done. I could again share a chartered van (2700 PHP) back to Manila with Mark and Steve. With the same old driver, barely understanding a word of english, and always nodding yes to whatever we'd ask him. But he got us where we wanted. Through the endless traffic jams.

TDI Advanced Wreck Diver

Instructor	John Bennett
Assistant	Mark Cox
Buddy	Steve Bates
Dive center	MasterDive (used as a base only), Subic Bay, Mindoro, Philippines John Bennett and Mark Cox run the Tech Dive Academy in Port Douglas, Australia
Duration	5 days
Dives	1 confined water session 8 wreck dives on air or nitrox
Price	750 USD
Requirements	TDI
Comments	More than just an introduction to overhead environment diving. The skills are very much the same as for cave diving, but the environment and its hazards pose different challenges. Again, buoyancy control is crucial to perform the line laying, following and retrieval skills, through narrow to tight horizontal, vertical or inclined restrictions. Propulsion technique is very important to avoid silting up. And of course one has to be very aware of one's air reserves. Contrary to cave diving, we were never totally gone from daylight sources, except for a short shaft penetration. Gear configuration is very much an issue here, as anything dangling or sticking out could be a potential entanglement hazard. And believe me, things do get tight in there, I've never felt so big before. Though the skills must be mastered, they're relatively easy to learn. The main challenge really is mental. To remain in control when things don't quite go as expected. With six divers (one instructor, one assistant and four students) we got to practice no viz exits a lot. With that many divers working their way through narrow corridors, silting up is almost inevitable. Bubbles cause falldown, holding on to a coral encrusted corroded beam causes clouds of rust particles to swirl around, just looking at something intensively might cause it to crumble. In these no viz situations, the guideline truly becomes a lifeline. My hands must have a hundred small cuts from feeling my way around and my fingertips are pretty much worn off. The equipment seriously gets roughed up too from all the bumping and scraping. My corrugated inflator hose didn't last very long before being punctured. My wetsuit still bears rust colored marks on the thighs, from when I clammed myself in doorways. And my fins have several new scars. The visibility outside the wrecks varied from around 3-5m to an amazing 8m the last day. A pitty really because one can not get a sense of the size of these great wrecks. Nor that some of them are actually battleships. Visibility inside the wrecks was usually better than outside - that is, untill we messed up everything. John Bennett, current world record holder of deep scuba diving on mixed gas (308m!), is a sympathetic man, who knows what he's doing. He's a good instructor, but being four students was a bit too much to my taste. We did get a lot of training dives, but not as much actual line laying/retrieval practice as necessary in my opinion. Especially if you've never done this before. The course itself wasn't somehow as structured as the cave course I did in Mexico. There wasn't e.g. as clear a progression in skill difficulty or general understanding. There's no exam by the way. We only used MasterDive as a base, it being located conveniently close to the wrecks. Having our own equpment all they provided was doubles with air or nitrox. The doubles were in a rather sorry condition and they didn't have enough of them. They've got no gear storage space to speak of nor adequate rinsing facilities. But what can you expect from a dive center squeezed in a cargo container. I can't honestly recommend them. They're not very well organised and the way the local shop assistants mistreated our precious life-support equipment was beyond stupid carelessness. I've actually never seen anything like it. I couldn't have subjected myself nor my gear to their care a day longer then required. My doubles were bubbling from the right tank valve in a rather noisy way (loosing 40bar overnight), but all one of the guys in charge could say was: "He'll survive". A pity really for I would have liked to do some non-training wreck dives after the course.
Training wrecks	El Capitan: Large freighter about 80m long lying on its port side between 6 and 21m. A nice wreck where we did our initial line laying, following and retrieval skills.
	USS New York: WWI battle cruiser about 100m long, sunk in 1941, lying between 18 and 21m. Ideal for wreck penetration training. Some passages have barely recognisable permanent line.
	LST: Land Support Transport vessel lying upright in 36m deep water. Allowing multi-cabin penetration, after getting through a short but narrow stairwell. We used a deco stage here, left outside the wreck during the actual penetration.

Subic Bay

We stay at the Mangrove mini-resort hotel/restaurant on Baloy beach near Olongapo city. For 1200 PHP/night you get a big but not very well designed aircon room with hot shower (but no direct light in the bathroom) and small TV (uselessly far away from the bed). There's a small closet, but no wardrobe, no table, no chair. All rooms overlook the bay, and there's a mini swimming pool. The restaurant serves decent food at reasonable prices (150-250 PHP).

The busy main street, a 10' walk away from the resort, is rather shabby and of course dusty, heavily polluted and noisy. In short, not a pleasant sight.

Mangrove is a 15' ride from the ex-military base and the MasterDive dive center we'll be diving from. They'll pick us up every morning and bring us back in the afternoon.

Subic is a strange place, with lots of British and Australian expats, all rather storyful characters. Everybody on the wreck course I'm following being British too, I feel very much an outsider, having no particular interest whatsoever in the rugby championship nor being much of a social small talk beer drinking mate.

It being the 1st of November, I witnessed quite a sight: the hillside cemetery crawling all over with people coming to spend the day and night with their ancestors. Having a family picnic around the graves, chatting away with relatives, the ghosts left pretty much speechless as far as I could tell. At night the whole hill was lit up by thousands of flickering candles.

Manila to Subic Bay

I shared a chartered van (2700 PHP) with John Bennett, Mark Cox and Steve Bates. The long ride through congested traffic took about 3½ hours, including a short lunch stop, at, of all places, a roadside McDonalds.

Manila

Manila is a huge sprawling city, with over 10 million people living in it. It's got a chaotic traffic situation resulting in pretty mad driving habits and the accompanying pollution problem. Most of the public transport still seems to be handled by the typical jeepneys, together with loads of taxis, motorized tricycles, pedicabs and even the odd horse cart.

It's not a nice city, and though actually surprisingly clean when you think about it, it doesn't look that way, giving a faded, drab, dusty impression, except for some of the towering glass buildings in the better districts. There's no real side walks to speak of, but then, anybody with some means wouldn't think about walking anywhere. Besides, it's just too hot to do that.

Manila is a city of great social contrasts. Shiny tall buildings look out over corroded metal shacks. A rich inner world of clean airconned malls versus the sweaty hot outer world of the poor. Where one person carelessly spends in one hour what another barely scrapes together in a month, or even a year.

Where on one side of a window a fat kid stuffs himself with a burger, while on the other side a starving kid is sifting through some garbage for a scrap of discarded food. It's a tough world we live in indeed. Armed guards are everywhere, some of them with heavy shotguns, to protect these fairy innerworlds from the harsh reality of the outside.

Ignorance is bliss. Better not to think about it too much. After all, I'm here on holidays, not to change the world. It's just that, well, I guess it bothers me when directly confronted with it like this...

I feel relatively safe walking around here, but I am cautious, trying not to display too much wealth. Most Philippinos strolling around in the mall are better dressed than me by the way. Nevertheless, with the amount of money I'm carrying, albeit in traveler cheques, the equivalent of several years salary for lots of people here, I feel like a walking talking winning lottery ticket.

The other day I'm pretty sure there was a guy following me through the department store. Maybe I'm being just a bit paranoid, but it would be quite a lot of coincidence that he happened to be interested in all the same random things as I was. As I slipped out, I saw him come out a couple of seconds later too, looking around, but by then I was already around the corner.

Small La Laguna to Manila

As I could get a private ride directly from Small La Laguna to Manila today, I got here a bit earlier than planned. I shared a big outrigger from Asia Divers with an american expat who'd chartered it, a 50' sail to some gravel beach near the Batangas harbour (1800 PHP for the boat, being only 2 that came to 900 PHP per person, but you could get a lot more people in that boat).

From there I got a free two hour ride to the Makati area of Manila in his chauffeured company car. From where I took a taxi to get to the Malate part of town (about 40' in the heavy city traffic, 90 PHP meter price).

Bug report

I've been indulgent with the mini-ants colony living in the kitchenette, thinking we had somekind of an understanding that they would restrict themselves to the garbage bag. Everything remotely looking like food being safely secured in the fridge, the only place out of their reach. However, I was barely gone for two days on a small exploration trip, and they already assumed they could just take over the place.

First I found a new nest in my logbook, which rather offended me, but still, I remained fairly polite, only shaking them into a frenzy and lecturing them about private property. Then I found another nest in a fold of my backpack, which quite annoyed me, but again I just sent them packing to a new location somewhere down the kitchen drain. And then my self-control just blew when I found a third nest in the lining of my jacket, which really pissed me off. No more mercy this time. The bug hunter in me took over and just wiped them all out.

Exploring the sunken past

Being a newly initiated normoxic trimix diver I got the chance to participate in a short two days exploration trip to Marinduque island to search for two Japanese WWII ship wrecks, estimated to be lying between 30 and 60m.

Trip organisers were Dave Ross, manager of Tech Asia, and Frank, a sympathetic ozzie owning "Rags", the very basic live-aboard for the weekend. Frank's also the manager of La Laguna Beach Club and Dive Center on Big La Laguna. They didn't need to ask me twice.

Friday around midnight we, four wannabe tekkies, Dave, Frank and three crew members boarded Rags. Rags is basically just a sturdy outrigger with a roof and four bunks, but you don't need more to go on a quest. Four tech divers means a lot of gear, each of us having a set of doubles and three stages (just in case), plus a compressor, and a couple of large oxygen and helium tanks.


The sea being a bit rough that night we only arrived at Marinduque the next morning around 9 am. We started by checking out the coastline, to compare the current shore's outline and background landscape with 60 year old aerial photographs from a battle report.

Dave and Frank kind of knew where to start looking, thanks to some written references in the report. A good thing cause I must say that every bay just looks the same to me. In the end however, it was an elderly local fisherman who helped us out, pinpointing the exact locations of both wrecks.


All excited we quickly geared up, eager to check out those forgotten wrecks. We jumped in as two buddy teams, and started our descend into the unknown and very murky waters. With a visibility of less than 2m, we had to stay close together indeed. The bottom appeared around 34m, a thick layer of very easily disturbed fine silt, full of worm holes. The anchor completely lost in it.

Slowly we started swimming around, not really knowing where exactly we were going. Being rather impatient I was already wondering whether to call the dive after 10', in order to avoid long decompression times, when Tex, my Korean buddy, suddenly signalled to me with his light. He'd found the first wreck.

At least what's left of it. It being a mine layer of some sort, it must have gone down with a nasty big bang. All what's left of it is some hull, strangely covered in what seems to be fist sized rocks. I picked one up, but gently put it back, just in case it was somekind of grenade...

Though there wasn't very much recognizable structure left, it's still quite fascinating to explore such a lost wreck. The other team, of older and more experienced tech divers, missed the wreck on their first dive, and tried very hard not to let their annoyance show. Even though we found it on our first dive, we almost missed it again on our second dive.


The next day we moved to the second wreck's location, hoping for better visibility, as we could see the anchor line going down a fair bit and the sun rays clearly visible in the dark water. Alas, 15m deep the visibility quickly dropped to about 1m.

Again we ventured out slowly in the misty green water, again I was wondering whether to call the dive, as suddenly a dark shape loomed up to my left, barely a meter away. If I'd looked to the other side at that moment, we would have missed it. This time there were some structural elements recognizable in the wreckage, making it a bit more interesting, but no artifacts. Either they've been taken away already or they've sunk in the silt.

This wreck had a bit more life on it too, coral bushes and a couple of fish seeking refuge in the many blast holes. Again the other team missed the wreck on the first dive, now seriously damaging their reputation. But they made up for it later on by drinking loads of beer. Sometimes blurred memories help soften reality I guess.

All in all a great trip, with Frank being an excellent host, cooking up great food for hungry divers. The return trip to Sabang only took six hours thanks to a gentler sea on the way back.

A little beyond recreational depth

To go just a little bit deeper (in the 40 to 60m range), for a little bit longer comes at a high price. For a bottom time of about 20' we usually had twice as much decompression to do - and that on trimix with special deco-gasses, on air I don't even want to think about it. The decompression time would also increase dramatically if the bottom time was to be extended.

The actual price tag per trimix dive varies according to the amount of Helium in the bottom mix - which is in function of the target depth and the equivalent nitrogen depth - but averages at about 100 USD for shallow deep dives (in the above mentioned depth range), Helium not coming cheap (about 0.04 USD/liter) and having to pay for the instructor's or guide's as well!


As preparation to deeper dives, I did several dives with 3 stage tanks (one 10l bottom-gas and two 5.5l deco-gasses), all clipped to my left side, besides the twin set (2x12l) on my back. Quite a load on the surface and a bit of a hassle to get them all clipped onto the harness on a rocking boat, but surprisingly alright once in the water, except for some clanking tanks noise when frogkicking.

You need to be very careful when switching gasses. Breathing the wrong one at the wrong depth could be fatal. But so is crossing the street at the wrong moment. After those practice dives, having only one stage tank seems like a breeze.

IANTD Normoxic Trimix Diver

Instructors	Dave Ross (academics) Sam Collett (skills + training dives)
Dive center	Tech Asia, Small La Laguna, Puerto Galera, Mindoro, Philippines
Duration	5-7 days
Dives	2 confined water sessions 2 training dives on air or nitrox 3-4 trimix dives to max 60m
Price	675 USD + about 180 USD for Helium (incl. the instructor's)
Requirements	IANTD
Comments	I might not be diving like a duck yet, but I sure can talk like one now. It took me a couple of dives to get used to diving with twin 12l tanks and two 5.5l deco-gas stages, while having to demonstrate all kinds of skills: total buoyancy control being the crucial one. But by the end of the course I kind of got most of it under control. A great course indeed, where I gained a lot of insight in decompression theory, thanks to Dave's ability to explain complex theoretical models in a very clear and simple way. Sam then put all the theory in practice, showing me how to safely plan and execute deeper dives. His very detailed de-breefings always to the point and crucial in improving my performances. Thanks to his good advice, I have indeed become a safer and more knowledgeable diver. I haven't been deep enough to notice that trimix breaths easier at depth than air, but then, I barely have any reference to compare with. Deep air diving definitely isn't my thing. Even with trimix I could still feel some narcosis, mainly because of the task loading I guess, and maybe also CO2 build-up, everything being new and me still having to actually think a lot instead of just doing it.

Small La Laguna

It's pretty quiet here at the moment in Small La Laguna. The atmosphere kind of subdued. Though there's a bit more people now compared to when I arrived. Sabang is a bit more busy.

Having a kitchenette in my studio, I'm able to have self-made breakfasts and lunches, as I can find most of what I need in the local supermarkets: instant coffee and milk, sugar, drinking water (I have to drink at least 3l of water a-day to keep hydrated at 70 PHP for a 20l jerrycan), softdrinks and juices (about 1l a-day at 15 PHP for a CocaCola can), Nestle cereals (80-135 PHP), peanut butter (95 PHP), canned tuna or sardines, tomatoes and cucumbers, etc. There's also a Swiss deli where you can get decent European style bread (80 PHP for a large one), some pastry, ham and Kraft processed cheese (95 PHP/8slices) - perfect for sandwishes (given the local conditions).

You can buy all kinds of exotic fruit from women strolling along the beach, e.g. small bananas, green oranges, mangos, mangosteen, papaya and some kind of lychees with a potato-skin. I usually buy it from an old woman who probably charges 3 or 4 times too much, but I just can't bring myself to haggle about a couple of cents, when paying big dollars a little later for my diving.

Just to give you an idea, a dive boat captain or dive shop assistant earns about 100 USD per month. And that's probably a well paid job here.

At night they come out to feed

Another 6 recreational dives, this time with other tourists, just to attract some attention with all my tech gear. One of these dives was a night dive in Sabang bay. Except for the current being a bit too strong for a night dive it was pretty nice. My Green Force light was a pleasure and my 2 TekTite backup lights just great. I saw lots of small crabs and shrimps, beautiful anemones and a long slender pipefish.


During the day dives I swam around twice with a big green turtle; lay face to face with a white tip shark; admired some pretty fancy nudibranchs; a pair of anemone crabs; an egg cowry enveloped in its pitch black mantle; a couple of scorpion fish and a baby frogfish almost undistinguishable from the coral rubble it was lying upon.

I also did a short decompression dive, just for practice. According to Sam, my skill level is what he would expect from an advanced nitrox diver. And they can teach me a lot. Somehow I kind of slightly felt insulted by the way he said that. But then, I'm a sensitive person :o)

In a coral fan lives a happy pygmy seahorse family

I've done half a dozen recreational dives with twin tanks, just to get used to the feeling again. And except for my SuperWings being indeed a bit too much for this type of diving, it's going alright. I've been diving with a personal guide, Sam the first day, Alli the other two.

The water is a comfortable 28°C, so my 7mm wetsuit is more than enough, though not too much for me. Visibility could be better, I'd say about 10-15m.

I've used my Green Force Tristar Diamond primary light on 2 occasions now. Once in the shark cave, an overhang where whitetip reef sharks come to rest. And indeed, there was one, tucked away as deep as it could. I wasn't too impressed by my Green Force light though. Mainly due to the beam being too wide and diffuse under the circumstances, there being too much sunlight and too many small particles and fish in the water causing a lot of reflection. My TekTite Expedition Star backup light (at 1/5 the price) with its more focussed beam actually did a much better job. The second time I was a bit more satisfied, as I swam inside the Alma Jane wreck, where the Green Force's soft white light was quite pleasing, though lacking in power.

The coral reef itself is quite nice actually, and they've got plenty of critters in the shallower parts: praying mantis shrimp scurrying around or peeking out of their holes; cute little pygmy seahorses (smaller then my finger tip) holding on to their host fan by their tiny tails while looking at me with big round eyes; bully frogfish; shy electric blue ribbon eels; beautiful nudibranchs and amazing pin-cushion seaurchins. Even a sleeping extremely venomous seasnake lying motionless on the bottom. Untill I came too close and it lazyly took a peek at me through half-closed lids. After which I slowly backed away.