Today is a day trip to Apo Island, about a 45 minute boat ride away. I am excited as we have heard there are turtles at this island. We have six divers and three snorkelers, plus the crew, on board. We will be doing three dives, with lunch in between.
The diving at the island is different than the diving at the resort (muck diving). The slopes are filled with both hard and soft corals, all in very good health. It is so beautiful to gaze at the varying shapes and colours. We spy one turtle on the first dive and numerous nudibranchs. The second dive is similar to the first, but no turtles.
On the third dive, we swim over a sand patch that has champagne bubbles floating out of the sand. They give the water a party atmosphere. We spy another turtle as we return to the boat. So, only two turtles, whereas the snorkelers saw many more than that.
We meet folks from all over the world on our travels, and this time we chat to folks from Austria, Australia, Switzerland, France living in Singapore and an American living in the Philippines. We talk about travelling and working and diving, of course.
We have one more day of diving in the Philippines before we head to Manila and then to Australia. We will be muck diving once again and hope to find more exotic creatures.
I don’t really think of myself as old. I’m 66 and that is not old. 90 is old. This is the first trip where I am treated as old, or should I say, elderly. I guess men see my grey hair and my small size and assume I need help going up the stairs on the dock or climbing out of the water on the dive boat. I know, they are just trying to be nice, and helpful. But, geez! I train the dive boat guys that I want a safety arm, but not to pull me up off the ladder. I hope after a few times they could sense that I do, in fact, have strong legs. My standard phrase is now, “It’s okay, I’m good!” If they only saw what I do at home – climb mountains in the snow and ski down, swim 2,000 m in an hour and cycle 50 km in a morning – they would realize I am capable of climbing in a boat. Be nice, Debbie!
Juvenile Barramundi
A few years ago, I started booking hotels using my formal name, Deborah. It came from having to book flights with the name matching your passport. And some liveaboards and hotels want exact names also. So I use Deborah. Here in the Philippines, it just seems easier to be called Deborah – pronounced De-bor-ah, not Deb-or-ah. My Dad would approve of the use of Deborah, and I rather don’t mind it!
Karaoke. Filipinos love it. They are terrible at it! Right now we are listening to a woman crooning next door to the hotel. It is just awful! She’s is just singing away on the beach to no one in particular.
School of Batfish
Hard beds. We have encountered hard beds in the Philippines. First on the dive boat, where I would only sleep for a few hours before a throbbing hip woke me up and I had to turn over. Then, in the next two hotels, they were softer, but still harder than my hips like. Then last night we stayed in the Waterfront Hotel at the airport. I slept for 10 hours on a bed made for my hips! Superb! We have two more hotels in the Philippines before we sleep at my son’s place in Australia where I know there is a soft bed!
Backpackers’ mentality. Remember when we were young and, maybe not backpacked, traveled with small carry on bags and found hotels when we arrived in a city, or figured out how to get to a place the day before we were going there. Murray and I talk about how we still have some of that backpackers’ mentality even though we are traveling “heavy” with all our dive gear. It’s part of the adventure to figure out how to ride the bus to Maya port to get the ferry to Malapascua. It’s not really about the money, but the adventure. Old backpackers trying to not be so old!
Frogfish
We are now at a dive resort in Dauin, south of Dumaguete. We go diving today and see more frog fish than we have ever seen. These ones are small to tiny, one being less than the size of my small fingernail. We are getting used to a different dive operation and their methods. We’ll see what we find tomorrow!
Travel day today. From the island of Logon and the town of Malapascua to Cebu. We have a plane to Dumaguete tomorrow and we must overnight in Cebu because the trip from the north is too long and we would not make the flight.
When we left Cebu a few days ago we took a bus to Maya Port. It happened to be a local bus and it stopped for anyone that wanted to ride in that direction. It let people off anywhere along the route. This took a considerable amount of time but hell, we were not in any big hurry. We arrived at the port in 5 hours.
The boat ride to the island was on a standard boat and we had to wait until there was enough people to make it a worth while venture for the boat owner and then we left.
On the return trip today, we again took the standard boat across the channel. At the Maya port on the main island we then sought out a shared van for the road trip south. The cost was marginally more, 30 php, about 75 cents CAD. The van still stopped to pick up and drop off people but the stops were much faster. The driver was a little more impatient and we arrived in 3.5 hours.
All of this is good fun, seeing how the people from the Philippines go about their daily life. We could have booked private transport both or either way but it was quite a bit more money and it is such a sterile way to do things. For heavens sake…. don’t rub shoulders with the locals! You might actually meet one of them or maybe even another tourist.
The driving in the Philippines is much more organized than most of SE Asia. The talking horn is much less prevalent. It is used but with a bit of restraint. The lane lines actually mean something and for the most part the people drive in the lane. Signal lights are more than an ornament. They are used to indicate the driver’s intention to turn a corner or change lanes. Our van driver today drove quite fast and did a lot of passing. He used the dotted passing lines and waited until the vision was good before he passed the car/truck in front of us. I mentioned this before but drivers respect pedestrians somewhat. At least they don’t purposefully take a run at you. The traffic lights control the traffic and the walk and wait lights control the pedestrians. It’s still a bit crazy to us North Americans but I think I at least understand the ebb and flow of the system. Some places you have to be born there to understand how the driving system works.
Sometimes it is good to pull the ‘old’ card out of the deck and use it. Today we were at the supermarket picking up a few things and being Friday there is a line up at all the tills. There is one till designated for ‘seniors’. It’s clear of people. So being old, I sidled up there like I knew what I was doing, paid and managed to skip a 5-minute wait in a line.
So we made it to Cebu and are sitting is some fancy hotel across the street from the airport so we have easy access tomorrow.
Our last day of diving and we are the only two diving so we have our own small boat, captain and dive master. This is the life!
On the first dive we do not see many creatures, but the soft corals are incredible. So healthy, so many different colours and shapes. There is some current today, so the movement of the corals is mesmerizing. I enjoy the “artistry” of the reef as I float in the water.
The second dive amazes us. We swim at 75 feet depth over a mostly sandy bottom. Our dive master is wonderful at finding creatures and he finds four different seahorses, a mimic octopus, two pairs of dragon sea moths, a decorator crab and a mantis shrimp. This is definitely my kind of diving.
Mimic Octopus
I would recommend Malapascua Island to everyone going to the Philippines. Stay and dive at Kokay’s Maldito Dive Resort. The staff at both the hotel and dive shop are terrific – hard working and very friendly.
Today we dive at Gato Island, about a 45 minute boat ride from the port. It is a tiny island, with what looks like one inhabitant, or at least, one domicile. A fishing hut perhaps.
The North Wall has otherworldly landscape. The visibility isn’t great, but good enough to find lots of critters. We spy our first seahorse, a couple of pipefish and many nudibranchs.
Our second dive starts out swimming through a tunnel. I am not a big fan of swim throughs and tunnels but I head inside anyway. Not much to see and I am glad when we get to the other side. I like the open water above my head!
We see another seahorse in a small cave and two Pygmy seahorses on a fan. My camera chops are sparkling today and I manage to get some fantastic shots! (Sorry, but we do not post the really great shots on the blog.) We scour the terrain for interesting finds and end the dive quite amazed at what we saw.
Ornate Ghost Pipefish
This afternoon we are going to walk to the other side of the island (remember that the island is only 1 km wide!) to search for a restaurant. If we find it, we will sup there, and if not, we will go back along the beach and eat at a restaurant we came across the other day. We have noticed the entree portions are huge here, so we will probably share something. Will continue when we get back…..
Just back from supper. Our search for the Craic Hotel & Restaurant takes us past an outdoor market, the locals’ cock (as in cock-a-doodle-do) fights, which are legal in the Philippines we are told, down some narrow sketchy alleys to land on the beach right beside the restaurant. Upon asking one server, most folks just walk down the beach walk to get there! We sup there on a crispy chicken burger and fries and chicken adobe with garlic rice. Our return journey is done via the beach walk.
Last day of diving tomorrow. I wonder what we will find?
We are sitting in the restaurant/bar of our hotel, Kokay’s Maldito Dive Resort. Lunch is spring rolls and Coke on ice. It is already 3:00 as we did three dives today. We traveled to Monad Shoal and then Kinod Shoal.
The dive at Monad Shoal is to search for tiger sharks. There have been sightings this week, so we are hopeful. The shoal is about the same size, on top, as Malapascua Island. When I hear this, I think to myself that it is going to be luck that we see one. We dive for an hour and no sightings. Just as we are getting in the boat, the dive master signals that there is one below us. We just stick our faces back in the water, and see the shark swimming away. It is so large it looks like a whale shark. BJ, our dive master thinks it was about 4 m long! Not a stellar sighting, but it still is one.
Thresher Shark
The next two dives are at Kinod Shoal, looking for Thresher Sharks. We jump into the water, descend and swim to the edge of the shoal and almost immediately we see one, then two. For the hour each of two dives, we almost constantly see these marvellous sharks with their big eyes and long tails. Murray shoots video after video and I shoot photo after photo, hoping to get one great video and shot. As we make our way back to the boat, our group of five is alone in the water and one final shark, swimming around and around getting cleaned, comes to say goodbye.
Murray and I love to find weird creatures, small creatures, fish and rare stuff. Boy, do we find all that on our two dives this morning. Between our dive master, BJ, and us we find pipefish and nudibranchs and crabs and cuttlefish and a small shark. The diving is almost like muck diving. We swim across sandy/rubble and encounter corals in splotches. There is current, but not nearly the currents in Tabbataha.
Nudibranch
We know it is going to be a good dive when Murray finds a pipefish as soon as we descend. Pipefish are not that common, normally, but here we see different ones in three various spots.
Ringed Pipefish
BJ is quite excited about finding a shark, he thinks it is a Bamboo Shark. Pretty little fellow only a couple of feet long, spotted white grey and black. Once back on land, we check the fish books and it turns out to be a Coral Catshark.
Coral Catshark
The coral here is also in terrific health. There is more soft coral than hard and we watch it feeding in the slow current. We see many many anemones with their “clown” fish swimming in and out of them. I love these guys but don’t take too many photos and just enjoy watching them frolic.
Today our adventure is taking the bus to Maya, the port, where we take a ferry over to Malapascua Island. Without going into excruciating detail, I think there is a difference here to the meaning of “direct” vs “non stop”. Direct does not necessarily mean non stop. Our bus was direct, but NOT non stop. Ride took 5 hours. We are not in a hurry, get to see lots of towns and people, but it is a long time to spend on the bus. One interesting thing is at certain spots, hawkers get on the bus to sell water and snacks to the passengers and then get off after a short ride.
The ferry is a traditional Philippine boat with outriggers. There are only about 15 passengers and the crossing takes about a half hour for the 7 km journey. It is good to be back on the water again.
Malapascua is only 1 km wide and 2.5 km long. Tiny! Most tourists come here to scuba dive with the thresher sharks, us included. We are diving for four days, so hope to see more than sharks.
We will explore this little island more and let you know what we find.
Last night we go on an adventure. Murray chatted with the hotel desk lady and found out which jeepney to take to get to the Sugbo IT Park Mercado, an outdoors food fare. The 17C stops right opposite our hotel, we wave it down as it approaches, climb in the back and find two seats on the bench.
A jeepney is an vibrantly coloured extended Jeep like vehicle with open windows, two long benches and the passenger door at the back. The fare is usually 15 pesos (40 cents Cdn). Coins are passed along the line of passengers to the driver. Change is passed back in the same way. Everyone is very honest about paying and transferring money.
Jeepney
We are let out at the mercado, which seems to be a popular spot as the jeepney empties out there. The mercado is an enclosed area with about 8 aisles of food and drink kiosks with tables in the center. It is crowded, noisy and bustling. Murray has nasi goreng and satay and I have pad thai. We share, of course. Pretty good food for cheap.
On our return jeepney ride, we chat with a 12 year old boy who is returning from swimming practise. He has a competition the next day, swimming a 400m and a 200m freestyle. Pretty good for a 12 year old. As we get off, we wish him good luck with his races.
Today, we leave the hotel at 8:30 am to walk to the tourist sites – the Spanish Fort San Pedro first built in the 1500s, the Basilica del Santo Nino, Magellan’s Cross and Carbon Market. The streets are quiet when we start out as it is Sunday morning. As we approach the area, we see streams of worshippers going into the church for mass. The voices singing hymns carry into the street (most likely miked).
Carbon Market
The Carbon Market is a mix of fruits and veggies, meats, food fare, household necessities and tourist type wares. By the time we wander through it (it’s gigantic), we are exhausted and most likely dehydrated. We find some shade and lemonade drinks and sit until we feel we can move again. Once again, trusty jeepney 17C takes us back to the hotel!
Murray writes:
Sunday in Cebu. Our last day here and the goal is to cover off the sites we had scouted before we left home. Most of the sights are in the same general area. We figured out how to use the Jeepneys so we thought we should use the cooler mornings (only 30C) to walk there and then use the Jeepney to get back to the hotel area. Worked out perfectly. We found the ‘bus stop’ to get on and got off exactly where we wanted. You would think we were locals.
A few random thoughts about the Philippines in general and Cebu specifically.
There are security guards at every door, Walmart greeters if you will, no matter how small the shop. They open the door when you enter, sort of check for things you should not bring in, and open the door for you to leave.
Read your restaurant bills carefully. First you should check to see if there is a service charge. I was about to pay one bill but I thought it was too high. Upon checking with Debbie about the price of one item we double checked the menu and a wrong item had been added to the bill increasing the total substantially. They did make the difference between the items’ costs but there was no adjustment to the taxes paid or the service charge. Not likely we will be back to that restaurant anyway but it did leave a bit of a sour impression.
Magellen’s Cross
Know your cab fares. The people at the front desk of the hotel are pretty good at passing on at least a ballpark figure. I paid too much for one fare I had not checked on. It only cost me a couple of Canadian dollars but still if I had known I could have been closer to the mark when bargaining.
Man, this country is noisy. When we are on the street Debbie and I yell to communicate. Talking loudly is also required in malls and restaurants. Last night in an open air ‘food fair’, the Sugbo Mercado IT Park, the din was overly loud and again we had to yell to converse.
The mercado we went to last night was quite a distance. The hotel receptionist told us to go outside catch the 17C Jeepney and it will drop us right there. For 15php each ($.40 CAD) we saved our feet. It was a truly ‘local’ experience. We climbed into the back of the vehicle, the ceiling was low, even Debbie had to duck. Squeezed in on the sideways bench seats and passed a few coins to the driver. Then as more people got on they passed their coins along the line of people and that money made it to the driver who made change and the coins were passed back to the proper passenger. Very trustworthy system.
I think most Asian countries have this problem but there is a considerable amount of pirating electricity. We walk under the power lines and there are many lines hanging down unconnected to anything. Someone has obviously cut the line, piped into the receiving power side and left the on going wire loose. Weird connections are everywhere. No need to install solar panels when the electricity is free anyway.
Scooters and small motor bikes are not as prevalent here as in other Asian countries. There are still a lot but there are a lot of cars as well. All the powered bike riders wear helmets in Cebu. Not the case in Puerto Princesa where is seemed to be some what optional. Probably law, just not enforced.
I’m quite sure there are loads of tourist somewhere in the Philippines but in the two cities, Puerto Princesa and Cebu, Debbie and I have spent time in are not tourist meccas by any means. We do see obvious tourists occasionally, especially around the ‘sites’ but for the most part we are unusual when we are out walking and the local people acknowledge the fact we are not a common sight. They’re all really friendly. They say hi or good morning or sometimes they just stare with a dropped jaw until we say good morning then they smile and return the greeting.
Friendly Folk
There are a few more homeless people in Cebu then in Puerto Princesa but it is a city of 3 million so I guess that can be expected. There are out and out beggars but it is hard to tell if they are for real or just preying on tourists. Some of them look like gypsies, but we are long way from Romania. The locals ignore them so, so do we. I have had a couple of well-dressed kids put their hand out to which I just scoffed at them. I wish bleeding heart tourists would stop handing out money and encouraging such behaviour.
We are in Cebu City today and tomorrow to dry out and see a different part of the Philippines. Our goals today are to exchange some Canadian cash for Philippine cash and to check out the bus to the ferry dock to get to Malapascua Island, our next destination.
Murray likes to play the exchange rate game. At the Puerto Princesa airport, we exchanged Canadian for Philippine at 40.3. Not bad. No one in town would deal in Canadian. We get to the Cebu airport and the rate is 37.4, so we didn’t exchange any. While going through our notes this morning, we notice there is an exchange office right across the street from our hotel. The rate there is 41.7! We exchange cash needed to get us past the next leg of the trip. As we walk this morning, things are churning in our brains and we decide to use that exchange rate to get the cash needed to the end of our whole trip, so we timed our return to make a stop at the exchange. Now, you are probably thinking, why go to all that fuss? I exchanged $850 Cdn the second time. If you take the difference between the Cebu Airport rate and this rate, it is about a $90 Cdn difference. In the Philippines, that is more than a few meals!
Water dispenser
As we walk towards the north bus terminal, I keep seeing these funny dispenser machines. I can’t figure out what they are for. Down one street, I point a blue one out to Murray. Then we see a red one on the side of the street we are walking on. We stop and as Murray is taking a photo, three fellows come out and talk to us. They have a machine shop that makes car parts. One fellow explains how the red machine works. It is a water dispenser, with one of those big jugs inside it. For a peso you can fill up a plastic bag with about 300ml of water. He was going to spend a peso to show us but we said no no that’s okay. I think they enjoyed our chat, talking about winter and summer and the temperatures in Canada vs the Philippines. We wished them a good morning and off we continued.
The streets are filled with a mix of new, modern buildings and old, rundown buildings. It is quite the contrast. Here there are side walks on many streets, which is better than walking next to the traffic zooming by. Canadians are not used to that.
We locate the bus terminal and find the answers we are looking for. Here is another aspect of how we travel that is different than most. We could have pre-arranged a transfer to Malapascua Island for about 3,500 pesos for the two of us. Easy, no fuss, no excitement. Instead, after researching at home and talking to people on the liveaboard, we walk to the bus terminal to inquire about the schedules, cost etc. An air conditioned bus costs 350 pesos each and leaves every hour. The car trip will take slightly less time than the bus, but do we mind? So, it will be an adventure to take the bus to the ferry to go to Malapascua Island.
