Finding a clown frogfish is hard enough - but to find a baby clown frogfish is a real red letter day for a diver

On a recent visit to Apo Island in Dumaguete in the Philippines, I was introduced by my eagle-eyed dive guide Gilbert to the delights of muck diving on Dumaguete's coastline. While Apo Island itself has some impressive walls and sloping reefs, the mainland coastline is an unappetising mix of black sand, straggly weeds and wreckage from old cars -- quintessential muck diving conditions. The stretch of coastline near to the town of Dauin is incredibly abundant - I was stunned when Gilbert found not only a clown frogfish, which is rare enough, but then pointed out a baby clown frogfish.

Baby Clown Frogfish, Dauin, Philippines

Baby Clown Frogfish, Dauin, Philippines

Baby Clown Frogfish, Dauin, Philippines

The baby clown frogfish is tiny - no more than about 2 to 3 centimetres long. The photos above are cropped in, as I didn't have a supermacro lens to fill the whole frame - it's such a beautiful and funny little creature, an exact minature except for the yellow rather than orange colours edging its feet and the darker red of its colours. The mature clown frogfish are still very small, about 6 to 8 centrimetres long, but a bit more bulky.

Clown Frogfish, Dauin, Philippines

Clown Frogfish, Dauin, Philippines

Clown Frogfish, Dauin, Philippines

This is just one of the amazing critters we found diving at Dauin and Apo Island and I'll be adding more pix of what else we saw soon.

There's only one problem with diving the central region of the Philippines known as the Visayas - there's just too many dive sites to see in even a generous vacation time. A newly launched Visayas liveaboard from Expedition Fleet makes it easier to see the best of the Visayas

This article was first published in Asian Diver magazine, Issue 100, 2008. It appears here in a slightly different form.

Photos below are my own, and differ from those used in the magazine

To see more of my stories for Asian Diver and Scuba Diver AustralAsia magazine, visit my Scuba Diving Magazine Stories page.

Scattered around Cebu City, the Philippines’ second biggest city, is a cluster of excellent dive destinations – Malapascua, Gato, Moalboal, Apo Island, Balisacag and Calibao - that could take weeks to properly explore if hopping from one dive resort to another. Despite being geographically quite near to each other as the crow flies, the vagaries of transport infrastructure in the Philippines means it can be several hours journey by several different modes of somewhat bumpy transport to get from one place to another. One solution is Expedition Fleet’s recently launched Visayas liveaboard, which runs in a week long voyage loop from Cebu City to explore the central island group of the Philippines.

Seahorse

Malapascua provided a suitably dramatic beginning for my own Visayas trip, the island famous as one of the few places in the world where the enigmatic, long-tailed thresher shark can be regularly encountered. We hit the water by 6am for our first dive, as sunlight was already breaking over Malapascua’s white sand and palm-tree fringed beaches. Down below, however, the sun’s rays were barely penetrating, and the gloom felt distinctly sombre as we made our way to the edge of the underwater cliff known as Monad Shoal.

Nudibranch Headshot

Here our group tried to keep as still as possible as we waited to see if the dive site’s famous inhabitants might put in an appearance. The flat plateau stretching back from the drop is blasted, both by currents and the after effects of dynamite fishing, so there is little distraction from staring out into the blue, waiting, and wondering if it really can be this easy to see one of the world’s most elusive sharks. As the minutes rolled by I was beginning to think not – and then our patience was rewarded as a thresher shark suddenly made its elegant appearance out of the gloom at the edge of the drop, following it around as if purposely giving everyone in our group a good look at the sheer bulk and grace of its silvery body and the iconic whiplash tail. It was a definite moment of celebration for some of our divers, who’d made three visits to the island and still not seen a thresher until now.

Two Pipefish

Our dive the following morning was also a little sombre, as it was on the shipwreck of the Dona Marilyn near Gato Island, a passenger ferry lost in 1988. Lying on its side, the sizeable wreck’s hull now has a forest of soft corals sprouting from it, while cuttlefish and sea snakes have made it their home. The visibility can be poor and currents strong, but the profusion of marine life around the wreck makes it worthy of investigation, as is Gato’s Cave dive site, where a large hollowed out underground chamber provides a tunnel for divers from one side to the other of the reef. Beyond the cave lies a well-encrusted wall, and amongst the debris lying at its bottom we encountered a startling sight – a tiny harlequin shrimp, resplendent in its orange and white dotted livery, making a meal of a starfish leg at least 10 times bigger than its own body. It looked like he would be there all week.

Boxfish

Moalboal’s Cathedral at Pescador Island boasts another beautiful cave, this one part of a sheer wall where the sea has shaped a sizable vertical chamber within it – we entered at 25 metres and exited through a couple of holes at 10 metres, all the while enjoying the spectacular play of light from above. Dense clouds of brightly coloured reef fish hovered along the wall’s length, while soft corals drooped under their own weight. We also encountered a big sea snake, easily over a metre long and thick bodied, sidewinding across the reef, his evident age a welcome sight that Pescador’s protected status is working.

Clownfish

The quality of the reefs was also remarkable at Apo Island, another marine sanctuary that possessed spectacular viz. On our two morning dives I didn’t spot many critters because I was too busy marveling at the sheer abundance and density of the coral creating a vast carpet over Apo’s gentle slopes. I was so engrossed with gazing at what lay only a couple feet below that I nearly had a head on encounter with a giant trevally, its huge bulk glinting in the early morning sun as it dodged around me and sped off. I didn’t need to worry about my critter count - the afternoon and night dives at Ducomi Pier provided a smorgasbord of small stuff.

Juvenile Batfish

Ducomi is a classic muck dive, an unprepossessing slope of silt into which the pier’s support pylons have been embedded. The whole area is strewn with trash, but the marine life here is astounding – not only are the pylons covered in soft corals to the point of metal being barely visible, the protective nature of the structure makes it a perfect nursery. I was quite excited when I spotted a batfish with the last vestiges of orange on its wingtips, until I saw a perfect juvenile batfish appear next to it, ink black and fluorescent orange. I’d only seen a juvenile once before, and while skittish, this one was quite happy to circle around the pier’s base debris rather than disappearing completely from the divers. I’d been so fixated on the batfish that I’d missed the seahorse, but our guide promised to find it again on the night dive back at the pier. I was a little skeptical, as seahorses are not the most forthcoming of creatures, but we ended up finding not one but three of them, curled around fronds sticking out from the pier’s pylons, perfectly camouflaged against the mottled growth around it.

Seahorse

The following night’s dive at Balicasag went one better by finding that rarest, smallest and most dangerous of creatures, a blue ringed octopus. Between them Balicasag and Calibao, both located near Bohol island, turned up several surprises, including not one but two yellow leaf fish nestled together in a large clump of staghorn coral and a clutch of electric coloured nudibranches. Indeed, the only drawback of doing a liveaboard through the Visayas is that you quickly realise a day in each of these locations is not enough. However, it also provides an invaluable taster of the region for future exploration and pretty much every diver on the boat uttered the immortal words – “I’ll be back!”

Thanks to ExpeditionFleet.com for inviting me on this trip.

Nudibranch

Soft Coral

I Forget The Name Of This One... If You Recognise It, Please Let Me Know!

How To Get To Cebu
Cebu City is the main airport in the Visayas. Direct flights are available from Singapore and Hong Kong with Cebu Pacific and other carriers.

Entry requirement
Most countries' citizens are allowed to stay in the Philippines without a visa for 21 days after arrival. Check http://www.gov.ph/faqs/visa.asp for more info.

Currency
The Filipino Piso is the national currency. $US1 = 48 Philippine Pisos. US Dollars are also widely accepted and prices are often quoted in dollars, although you should always carry Pisos as well. Remember there is a $15 US airport departure tax for international flights, plus a terminal fee of P550. There are similar, smaller taxes charged for domestic flights too.

Electricity
220V. Twin flat blade and also twin round blade plug sockets.

Best time to dive
The dry season for the Visayas is November to May

Climate
Temperatures can rise to 34 degrees in the tropical climate. Wear lots of sunscreen and a hat.

Language
Tagalog is the major Filipino language and English is widely spoken

Despite having a feast of great muck diving, Davao Gulf in the Southern Philippines has remained largely off the dive map. All that could be about to change.

This article was first published in Scuba Diver AustralAsia magazine, Issue 4, 2008. It appears here in a slightly different form.

Photos were kindly provided by Jeff De Guzman, who also illustrated my story in the magazine.

To see more of my stories for Scuba Diver AustralAsia magazine, visit my Scuba Diving Magazine Stories page.

If you were asked to picture what an emerging macro diving destination looks like, chances are you’d be thinking of somewhere remote and uninhabited, a Lost Eden island in the middle of nowhere. But less than 30 minutes boat trip from the huge city port of Davao on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao lies a plethora of spectacular small critters that will have macro enthusiasts grinning with delight. While locals have been diving in Davao’s waters for years, there has only been a trickle of foreign divers visiting up to now. It’s still an undiscovered dive destination in both senses - there are exploratory trips being carried out by local dive company Wind And Wave each month to explore further along Davao Gulf’s miles of coastline as it rolls out to the ocean.

© Jeff De Guzman

Davao lies at the apex of Davao Gulf, a huge V-shaped swathe of flat calm water that eventually opens out into the Celebes sea. The Gulf is sheltered from typhoons thanks to being surrounded by a ring of mountains, crowned by Mount Apo, the highest peak in the Philippines. Within the Gulf itself, and just across the water from the Davao city, lies the large island of Samal, which creates a natural channel between itself and the mainland and harbours virtually all of Davao’s dive sites. Unlike the mainland, Samal remains largely undeveloped besides one luxury hotel resort, Pearl Farm. The rest of the island features the thickly set palm trees and fringing white beaches for which the Philippines are famous. It’s hard to believe it’s only a few minutes boat ride away from the traffic clogged streets of Davao. Local fishermen paddle tiny one man outriggers up and down the shore as they go about their daily catch, and the occasional container ship heading in for the port is still dwarfed by the sheer size of the Gulf. And all the while, Mount Apo looms overhead catching clouds amongst the bright blue sky. It’s not a bad view at all from the dive boat.

5cm scorpion fish on the arm of a starfish © Jeff De Guzman Davao

Davao’s 20 plus dive sites are situated in clusters around the Pearl Farm resort and Samal’s three smaller sister islands, Ligid, Malipano and Talicud, as well as scattered along the coast of Samal itself. It quickly became clear from our first few dives that if you want gin clear water and big pelagics, you’ll probably be disappointed by Davao diving. While sailfish, dolphins. dugongs and even whale sharks have been occasionally spotted by local fishermen along the coast of Davao Gulf, they’re rarely seen by divers. The water can be turbid and silty, giving an average viz of around 10 metres, and there’s the occasional strong current which can signal the beginning of an impromptu drift dive. But for adventurous divers who aren’t bothered by less than postcard perfect conditions, Davao provides some fantastic opportunities.

Kaputian is a dive site in point. Dropping in at dusk, it seemed an unprepossessing flat gentle slope of small rocks, with patches of sand and sea grass. Within seconds I was mesmerized by the cowfish that seemed almost as taken with me, backing away slowly but keeping its gaze firmly fixed on me as I had a quiet grin about its cute big eyes and horns. When the cowfish had finally had enough of me, I’d only moved a few more metres before encountering the frozen profile of a reptilian eel, looking like an ornate bottle buried in the sand. More dynamic was the tiny bright blue bobtail squid that resembled a minature cuttlefish, which I only left alone when one of the guides started arcing his torch in a gentle circle to illuminate the graceful seahorse he’d found, some 8 inches or so long.

Yellow Frogfish © Jeff De Guzman

We had split up into two groups to maximize our spotting time, and there was a flurry of excitement from the other group as they stumbled across one of the holy grails of macro diving: a clown frogfish. This tiny creature, panstick white with a huge red stripe running through it just like its namesake, was almost wholly buried amongst the small rock chunks that make up the slope. Our guide Ricci was all smiles when he got out the water as it was the first time he’d ever seen one, let alone found one – even more impressive given it was a night dive!

As we headed back to Davao that night, it was already decided we’d go back in search of the clown frogfish. Instead, we subsequently encountered a harlequin shrimp in all its polka dotted finery and a pair of Pegasus. We dived Kaputian three times in all and it felt like a different site each time and that there was something not only new but quite special too.

Red Frogfish © Jeff De Guzman

Besides the fine muck diving along Samal’s coastline, Ligid and Talicud, two of the islands just off Samal, provide impressive coral landscapes with teeming fish populations. Big Ligid and Little Ligid are located around the other side of Samal on the north eastern tip. Little Ligid is a private island that’s available to rent by the day if you’re feeling particularly decadent. Big Ligid is one of Davao’s signature sites and provides the best chance of seeing roving pelagics like packs of barracuda and whitetip sharks riding the currents, which also improves the viz.

The island’s craggy limestone walls provide a scenic backdrop topped with dense foliage above water, while underneath the surface the ocean has hollowed out a fascinating cave in Ligid’s wall and a pinnacle off its furthest point. The vertical wall drops at around 20 metres and the cave is a large triangular gap at its base. The cave repaid our curious torchlit investigation of its floor with some vibrant nudibranches. Ligid’s wall itself is quite breathtaking – the vivid golds of the clouds of fish hovering over emerald green coral with random spots of bright pink and red look like the work of some aquatic graffiti artist, a stunning and slightly overwhelming mix of colours and textures. Seeing a full sized black and white banded sea snake gracefully sidewind across this landscape provided the final touch to a great dive.

Mushroom Rock at the other end of Samal is also a local favourite, a collection of sites with steep walls dropping to 30 metres completely suffused with a neverending tumble of soft corals whose fronds reach out from their vertical incline. It’s comparable to Mansud Wall, on Samal’s other small island Talicud. Both provide the perfect conditions for an exhilarating drift dive. The abundance of soft coral on Mansud’s vertical wall which has a plateau at around 12 metres and then continues down is breathtaking, perfect for hanging in the current and simply taking it all in. The fish life is also abundant here, with plenty of clownfish and the usual reef suspects, along with a ghostpipefish which seemingly materialized out of nowhere, so good was its camouflage.

Snake Eel © Jeff De Guzman

Mansud’s two neighbouring sites are very different – Coral Garden is a slightly murky coral patch that provided fantastic photo ops of jawfish peering suspiciously at us from their vertical hideyholes. There is an abundance of the always noteworthy spearing and peacock mantis shrimp in Davao Gulf as well – we spotted them on several dives, lurking amongst rocks and coral and, in one instance, defiantly standing out in the middle of the pebbles and facing us down. Babu Santa was particularly good for spotting mantis shrimp, another ugly looking site of scrubby vegetation on white sand that revealed playful pairs of puffafish cavorting wide-eyed around us, leading the way to the highlight of this dive and a first for me - a clown snake eel, much smaller than the reptilian eel and its crazy paving camouflage making it look a little less sinister. Even the trash on this site (Talicud island is a popular place for Davao partygoers) had become home to glass shrimp peering out of the neck of a discarded beer bottle.

Right by the Pearl Farm resort are the tiny islands of Malipano, on which are built the owner’s quite stunning array of beach houses. Two WWII era Japanese wrecks lie directly in front of the resort in murky conditions that make them only of interest to wreck enthusiasts. Besides seeing another seasnake racing across the deck of one wreck, we also encountered the biggest lionfish I have ever seen, nearly a foot across, only rivaled by the giant puffafish that hoved into view during our following dive at Bing’s Corner.

Hairy Pipefish © Jeff De Guzman

Bing’s is a site on Malipano island that encapsulates Davao diving in a way, with a contrasting mix of big, expansive reef and tiny creatures. It’s an excellent wall dive with a spectacular carpet of soft corals, lots of fronds and fans meshing in with one another, with a strong drift current in places too. The viz was a little silty but that didn’t really matter. Amongst the explosions of coral growth we went looking for pygmy seahorses in one of the immense scarlet gorgonian fans jutting out from the wall – we had no luck this time round, but the giant puffafish was a consolation, as was the plethora of nudibranches we found along the way, with no less than five vivid green and red nudibranches grouped together (easily identified post-dive as chromodoris nembrata).

When you add up the beauty of Davao’s natural surroundings above water with the fascinating array of critters under the surface, the ease with which you can visit the city and get to the dive sites as well, the convenience of having big city luxury nearby, and the genuine pride and excitement the dive guides have in Davao in showing off what is still a largely undiscovered dive destination, Davao has got a lot going for it. It may never be a chart topper like Palau or Sulawesi, but Davao has its own unique dive charm.

Thanks to: Albert and all the team at Wind And Wave Davao for organising a great trip in Davao. And to Carlos, for the cheese.

How To Get To Davao:
There are regular daily flights from Manila to Davao with Cebu Pacific , Air Philippines and Philippines Air. Air Philippines allow scuba divers 25kg of extra baggage for free on production of their scuba certification card. Check flight comparison sites and for current flight prices.

Entry/ Visa Requirements:
Most nationalities can get a free 30 day visa on arrival at Manila Airport. Check with your local Filipino embassy.

Language:
Tagalog is the official language of the Philippines. English is spoken widely.

Best time to dive:
Davao’s sheltered position means year-round diving is possible. The official off season is July to February - I went in September.

Currency:
Filipino Peso. US Dollars and credit cards are widely accepted, although check ahead with your dive operator to ensure you take acceptable payment.p

Tubbataha Reef is the Philippines' diving jewel in the crown, two remote, submerged atolls that are only accessible for a few months each year. If you like wall diving, you'll love Tubbataha.

[This article originally appeared in Issue 101 of Asian Diver magazine].

Speeding along in the midst of a strong drift current, I look up from the reef wall that falls hundreds of metres below to realise there's a pack of sharks right ahead of me. There's five of them skulking on one of the wall's flatter sandy sections, and I'm currently on a collision course with them. They're all whitetip reef sharks, some up to a metre and half in length, but hopefully more intimidated by my fast moving black clad bulk that I am by them. I raise my camera to see if I can get a shot of the sharks as I hurtle towards them, but as I get to within a couple of metres propelled by the current, the five sharks suddenly scatter, a quick flick of their sinuous tails sending them in opposite directions. As they lazily regroup behind me, I'm busy checking my depth on my dive computer and grinning into my regulator. I may not have got a photo but scaring a pack of sharks won't be fading from my memory for a long time. Welcome to Tubbataha, home of spectacular reef walls and adrenaline drift diving.

Located 160km south east of the island of Palawan in the Philippines, Tubbahata Reef consists of two remote, uninhabited coral atolls that are part of a Marine Park first established in 1988. Given its unique diversity of life both above and below water, Tubbataha was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993, the only solely marine site to receive such an accolade in all of South East Asia. The result of such protection is a profusion of marine life which divers get to glimpse as they drift by the walls, riding the current through this unique place.

Tubbataha is protected not just by international recognition and local laws, but also by the weather. It's only possible to go diving in Tubbataha on a liveaboard between March and June, because conditions are too rough during the rest of the year. Situated in the heart of the Sulu Sea between Palawan, Negros and Malaysian Borneo, Tubbataha is wide open to weather and ocean current systems from every direction.

As such, Tubbahata's currents are unpredictable and you simply have to go with them, often reversing direction during a dive to go with the new flow and making every dive an adventure in itself. Sometimes, as when we dived at the Malaya Wreck site, a fragment of a boat left in the shallows above a beautiful wall, we had to give up immediately on the idea of seeing the wreck itself as soon as we got in the water, as the current was pushing us insistently the other way and was not to be argued with. This means divers must remain alert and watch their guide as well as their depth and air at all times.

It's precisely this exposure that makes Tubbataha great for diving, because the currents bring in the big pelagics while the reef walls provide shelter for a myriad of smaller critters. If you are not fond of wall or drift diving, then Tubbataha is probably not for you, because wall drift diving pretty much covers the topography of every dive.

If, on the other hand, you want to experience the true vastness of the ocean, Tubbataha is hard to beat. Everything about diving at the atolls is epic in scale, from the remoteness of its location, with no other land and barely another boat to be seen throughout the course of a 4 day liveaboard, to the truly vast reef walls that await below the water. The lighthouse on the South Island is the only feature to break up the expanse of sea and sky. Dropping in from a chase boat, it's hard to adequately describe just how huge Tubbataha's reef walls are - given the visibility is usually 50 metres downwards and around 20 into the blue, they fill your entire field of vision, like an inverted mountain. Even a group of 8 divers is dwarfed by the size of this underwater landscape. There are few other places I've dived that gives you such a dramatic sense of the true scale of Nature. It’s really quite humbling.

On several of Tubbataha's sites, like Bird Islet for example, the wall drops down to around 40 metres and then has a lip that juts out about 10 metres or so before continuing its descent into the depths. (On the others, like Delsan, it's simply vertical). This wall lip is a favourite patrolling ground for sharks - on numerous dives we saw big sharks, at least 2 metres in length, cruising back and forth along this perimeter, as if they were guardians for what lay beneath. They looked like silvertip sharks, but their depth and demeanour meant we didn't go and find out first hand. Indeed, given the clarity of the water even at 30 metres, it was important to keep a watchful eye on our depth - the clear viz and similarity of the wall all the way down can combine to be a little disorientating.

It's not just big sharks that can be seen at the lip of the wall. Manta rays are frequently spotted at the Bird Islet site, which is widely regarded as Tubbataha's best dive site. Our divemasters looked genuinely disappointed when we didn't get to see any during our trip, but that's simply the luck of the ocean. We did see something almost as good at the sheer wall of Delsan, a beautiful eagle ray at least a metre wide, speeding like a dart at 50 metres but clearly visible and then suddenly racing vertically up the wall itself after executing a split second 90 degree turn. It moved so fast I was barely able to keep my eyes on it, and within seconds of seeing it, it had disappeared once again. Talking to another boat group when we got back to shore who'd been at Tubbataha at the same time, I was told they'd see three manta rays and a whale shark over the course of their trip. Some people get all the luck...

However, even without the headline attractions, it would take a very jaded diver to be disappointed by Tubbataha. As we criss-crossed back and forth between the north and south island to avoid the occasional squall of bad weather, we discovered plenty of other activity out in the blue, like the several massive dogtooth tuna we spotted in the depths at Delsan. There was also the unforgettable sight of a big school of barracuda balled together catching the light a few metres below the surface while being circled by reef sharks at Malaya Wreck. My favourite was an impressively large shoal of jacks schooling by the wall, moving in synchronicity to present a liquid silver circle in perpetual motion, pouring off the top of the reef and down the wall vertically. Thanks to the visibility, we could clearly see the entire school moving as one over what must have been a 20 square metre area, all the while hanging in the blue witness the whole event.

Indeed, there is an abundance of fish at Tubbataha thanks to its marine park status - the clown triggerfish is probably my favourite individual fish as its idiosyncratic markings always make me smile, and at one point I saw three of them gnawing the coral - a personal record. Other coral munching favourites include Tubbataha’s turtles, who surprised me on several dives by launching themselves into the blue from the reef only a few metres in front of me. Watching a turtle ascend to the surface is something I never get tired of. There is also a lot of young sharks on the reef too, which is heartening given the worldwide onslaught against the ocean's shark population in general and Tubbataha’s own ongoing battle with illegal poachers. There are occasional signs of the aftermath of dynamite fishing as on the reef at Staghorn Point, but for the most part Tubbataha has genuinely spectacular coral wreathing its dive sites. Fans of huge fan corals will be well rewarded on virtually all dives, with a plethora of hard corals up in the shallows too that provide perfect territory for exploring at the end of a dive.

After four days of diving at Tubbataha, I felt like I had just got completely used to the rigours of drift diving its massive walls when it was sadly time to head for home. Exploring these vertical faces while drifting past them, sometimes at speed, provides a little more adrenaline than normal reef dives, but that just adds to the excitement of exploring Tubbataha’s unique underwater panorama. It’s one of those places that feels like a true adventure to visit thanks to its remoteness and the huge hidden world that lies underwater beneath a seemingly tiny atoll.

--
Thanks to all the staff on the M/Y Borneo Explorer (www.ExpeditionFleet.com) for their help
--

Bearings

Getting There
Liveaboards are the only way of accessing Tubbataha. Puerto Princessa on the island of Palawan is the main departure point. Puerto Princessa is served mainly by domestic flights from Manila (1 hour flight) - Air Philippines (www.airphils.com) allows extra weight for scuba divers at no charge if you produce your Diver Certification Card at checkin. You can book Air Philippines flights via email and collect and pay for them on arrival at Manila domestic airport. See and for flight comparisons to find the cheapest fares.

Entry requirement
Most countries' citizens are allowed to stay in the Philippines without a visa for 21 days after arrival. Check the official Philippines Government Visa FAQ for more info.

Currency
The Filipino Piso is the national currency. $US1 = 47 Philippine Pisos. US Dollars are also widely accepted and prices are often quoted in dollars, although you should always carry Pisos as well. Remember there is a $15 US airport departure tax for international flights, plus a terminal fee of P550. There are similar, smaller taxes charged for domestic flights too.

Electricity
220V. Twin flat blade and also twin round blade plug sockets.

Best time to dive
Tubbataha is only accessible by liveaboard from March to June each year.

Climate
The Tubbataha dive season from March to June coincides with the Filipino Summer. Temperatures can rise to 34 degrees in the tropical climate. Wear lots of sunscreen and a hat.

Language
Tagalog is the major Filipino language and English is widely spoken

Issue 101 of Asian Diver is now out, and I have two stories in there as part of the Philippines special.

One is my account of going to Tubbataha Reef, the remote and spectacular wall off Palawan - and the other is my trip around the Visayas, visiting several of the Philippines' top spots like Moalboal, Dumaguete, Cabilao and more easily on board a liveaboard. Both stories are accompanied by beautiful photos from Yvette Lee.

Asian Diver issue 101

The issue also features a stunning photo portfolio from my mate Jez Tryner - you have got to see his pictures of whale sharks and manta rays over a reef - absolutely amazing.

I am already thinking of going back to Dumaguete, as Apo Island and the muck dive under the Ducomi Pier were my favourite spots on the whole Visayas trip - very few other people there and reefs in great condition.

DivePhotoGuide has a great, in-depth article on diving one of the Philippines' most famous dive spots, Puerto Galera. Matt Weiss has written up his trip as a guide to underwater photography in Puerto, along with some great shots.

I'm just back from my trip to the Visayas in the Philippines, been a bit sick since I returned, but will be posting some photos soon. Seahorses! is all I will excitedly squeak for now.

I'm off this evening to the Philippines, spending a week on the Expedition Fleet Visayas liveaboard. The trip will be taking in some of the Philippines' best known diving areas - Malapascua, home of the famously long-tailed thresher sharks; Moalboal and Pescador island; Apo Island; Bohol; and Cabilao. It's going to be a bit of a primer in all these different Philippines sites that I've heard a lot about - certainly being on the liveaboard will make it much easier to see all these dive areas in one week - to get to each place by land would take forever. The Philippines is sadly not blessed with great infrastructure.

However, this is probably going to be my easiest trip there so far - I can fly straight into Cebu via Manila, hop on the boat, and then fly straight out again when we get back. Usually there's a tortuous 2/3 hour car journey involved, but not this time... Full report and photos when I return. Sadly no wide-angle shots as my replacement Nikon D70 has turned out to be a dud. Grrr. I'll be sticking to my trusty Canon and macro photography.

If you're flying with dive gear on budget Filipino carrier Cebu Pacific, you'll want to take advantage of their new Prepaid Excess Baggage facility to avoid a lot of grief at the check-in desk

A quick followup to my Beating Excess Baggage Charges For Scuba Gear on Budget Airlines post - Cebu Pacific have recently introduced a prepaid Excess Baggage allowance. Cebu Pacific have been running very cheap flights from Bangkok to Manila for the last couple of years, but they are very strict on their baggage allowance of 15kg. If you are travelling with scuba gear, you will get quite heavy excess baggage charges - so much so that it can wipe out the point of flying with a budget carrier. Indeed, Cebu Pacific will weigh your hand luggage as well as your checkin bag and total them up - so if you have camera gear in your carry on, beware.

Cebu Pacific's prepaid Excess Baggage allowance allows you to get 20 per cent off what you would pay at the check-in desk, and it also means that you don't have the hassle of the staff messing around with the excess paperwork. See this page on the Cebu Pacific website for full details - the Prepaid Excess Baggage allowance info is halfway down the page.

However, it's important to check a variety of airlines and take the excess baggage charges into account. I am going to the Philippines later this month, and to get from Bangkok to Cebu I'll need to go via Manila. Looking on flight comparison site Kayak, I can get a Philippines Air flight via Manila for just under $500 US. That seems quite expensive compared to Cebu Pacific, until you add on the cost of taking 30kg of luggage - even with the prepaid excess baggage, it works out almost as expensive to fly with Cebu Pacific, and with all the hassle of leaving Bangkok at midnight and having to wait around in the domestic terminal at 5am. (Done it before - not fun).

The new issue of Scuba Diver Australasia magazine just out has my article about diving Davao in the Philippines -- a still largely undiscovered muck diving paradise

UPDATE: I've now published the full Davao article here on Divehappy - please go to Scuba Diving Davao - The New Muck Diving Destination to read the complete story with some excellent pictures by Jeff de Guzman.

The southern Philippines have been off the dive map for a few years due to unrest around the large island of Mindanao, but stability in the region has seen Davao open back up for intrepid foreign travelers. It's easy to get there, a quick flight from Manila with Cebu Pacific, and the diving is equally easy to access too - despite Davao being a huge port city, within 20 minutes of heading out from the marina, you're in the middle of the huge Davao Gulf, with the pristine Samal Island fringed with palm trees and beaches dead ahead.

The diving around Davao is great if you want to find weird and wonderful critters and don't mind the viz being a bit turbid. The local guides can't do enough to help you and are justifiably proud of the diving in the area. Now's the time to go before everyone else gets there...

You can read more about Davao in my article in the current issue of Scuba Diver Australasia - it's the cover story, Diamond In The Rough

It's the Filipino equivalent of Truk Lagoon - a spectacular collection of huge Japanese warships sunk around Coron, at the northern tip of Palawan. Ayesha Cantrell explains why Coron is wreck heaven

When most divers think of wrecks, places like Truk Lagoon and wrecks like Egypt's Thistlegorm spring to mind. Unfortunately for those who have visited, these memories can sometimes be clouded by bubbles from too many other divers also getting wrecked. This is why I chose to get my metal fix in Coron. "Where ..?" I hear you ask - my point exactly!

Location and History
Coron is the main port of a tiny eastern Filipino Island called Busuanga. During WWII this dusty island and its immediate locale was occupied by Japanese invaders. On 24th Sept 1944 some 120 Hellcat fighters and Helldiver bombers took flight on a mission to destroy Japanese targets in the Philippines. Travelling 350 miles to reach their target, the strike was to be the most distant at that point of history, yet 45 minutes after reaching Coron Town the 15-18 Japanese vessels at anchor there were left behind burning, exploding and sinking.

Sunset at Coron

Getting Your Scuba Gear To Coron: A Weighty Issue
I flew to Busuanga from Manila on a 19 seat Sea Air twin propeller plane. The views were breathtaking and the ambience certainly heralded the adventure to come. Propeller planes have very particular weight regulations; both you and your luggage will be weighed and charged accordingly. If you travel with lots of dive gear and photographic equipment it's sometimes cheaper and less hassle to book an extra seat for your party's luggage. If this sounds like you then be sure to remember that you are purchasing the luggage weight allowance and the human weight allowance for that seat. Daily flights operate and the journey is just a short hour hop from Manila. Buses were ready to meet each plane for the dusty and bumpy journey to Coron Town.

Overnight ferries operate between Manila and Busuanga. These take longer, around 16 hours, but aren't so strictly observant of weight allowances. The ferry terminal is just 2 minutes away from the resort in Coron Town itself. Accomodation ranges from seats to dorm rooms, shared cabins and private cabins. If you like your privacy and a good night's sleep then book a cabin to share with your group or pay the extra for your own cabin - it's worth it.

Dive Centres
There are a number of dive centres in Coron itself and a few more dotted on neighbouring islands. I chose one of the busier dive centres, Sea Dive Resort, as it is a technical dive centre, offers nitrox, has a great on-the-road reputation and is always going to have enough divers to ensure that a wreck trip leaves everyday.

Sea Dive has a great waterfront location which is reached by a snakes-and-ladders route of alleys and bridges from the main road. The resort houses the dive centre, bar, sun deck, restaurant and rooms. Rooms range in size and most offer nice seaward views with a choice between fan and aircon. Outside of being on one of the nearby islands in a resort, they are probably the best you will find for the price. The resort is busy, so do book in advance. Built for divers, you can literally step away from breakfast to the deck of your boat and upon return you'll have a cold beer in your hand whilst the crew are still securing the mooring lines.

Internet is available and free wireless is easily accessible in the restaurant. The food is great solid fare and the best I ate in the Philippines - ideal after a hard day's diving. The staff are friendly and helpful, get talking and you will hear tales of lost ships and planes. A Hellcat propeller decorates the bar wall and it seems the prize was so great that the salvager was killed for his plunder and with him died the Hellcat's location. With vessels and planes still to be found, speculation is easy to stir and a great way to pass the time while enjoying a few beers.

The Diving
Fish spotters and coral fiends beware - this is not the place for you. Metal heads however will be wallowing like the proverbial pig-in-a-poo-pile. Of the 14 wrecks that have been found, I visited 7 and repeated 2 due to their size. I took a day to de-magnetise and visit the thermal lake and a local reef too. Destinations are flexible, with often a choice of two trips, so you can be reasonably assured you'll get to see the wrecks you want.

The wrecks can easily be enjoyed by recreational divers but an advanced certification is recommended and can be taken during your visit and a nitrox licence will certainly lengthen your fun. Technical courses are offered all over the Philippines and in 2 centres in Coron and while it's not necessary to enjoy the wrecks, if you're certified, bring proof. I dived all the wrecks on a single air tank in a recreational set up but took a sling tank of 50% EANx and undertook either accelerated decompression dives or mulit-level profiles extended by the richer gas. For me this was great as it meant I got a guide all to myself and could be very flexible with my dive plan. So if you are qualified to do this kind of diving it easier and cheaper than a full tech set-up. If not - don't worry: by far the norm was air or recreational nitrox!

Boats
The dive boats are based on the traditional Filipino banka but are larger and have a second deck. The day was unhurried and relaxed, long surface intervals and lazy days. Lunch was served on the boat and the crew cooked up a mean feast of freshly caught fish and local dishes, plenty of choice and enough to satisfy the most voracious appetite. We were even treated to fresh seaweed picked from the mast of the wreck we'd just visited, a lovely, tasty addition. The cooler was stocked with a mix of fizzy drinks and water and a few cold beers for the return journey.

Wrecks
The wrecks themselves are stripped clean and clear, you will not be artifact hunting but you will enjoy relatively tangle free wreck penetrations. The swim throughs and metal seascapes are stunning and your dive boat is likely to be the only one at any given site. Ask your guide and you may even get the opportunity to swim through a propeller shaft and pop out the stern - great fun !

A very experienced guide will really make the difference to your diving. I'm an experienced diver and love wrecks but I was happy to have a guide. He'd dived these wrecks for years and easily led me in, out, through and around, pointing out all points of interest and much that even the most experienced diver would have missed on their first tour around the wreck. The wrecks have become makeshift reefs and home for much sealife and you will see barracuda, hundreds of jacks, bat fish, puffer fish, grouper and the wreck loving scorpion and lion fish.

The Irako has to be the largest wreck, locally called "the monster". She is also one of the deepest, sitting upright in 42m of water. I dived her twice, once to see the outside and once to see the inside - she really is that big. Divers are split into groups based on their experience. The full penetration is not for the faint-hearted but is awesome. I spent my dive swimming through multiple decks eerily lit by shafts of ethereal light penetrating the hulls fissures or streaming through portholes. The interior is quite silty so perfect buoyancy and careful fin kicks are needed to ensure those behind you can enjoy too.

The Akitsushima is a wreck I will always remember for re-enforcing the perils of wreck penetration. She sits on her side and the diver is treated to spectacular cathedral like views. A well lead tour will take you around the engine room and point out many interesting features. The main part of the penetration here is easy wide uncluttered decks,lying on her side the spaces are wide. The more experienced you are the tighter spots you will found yourself being led into. Most people have ended up the wrong side of a jammed toilet door on dry land, but not many have been unable to find their way out of the toilet due to a silt-out 18m below the surface. I was third in the group when the visibility dropped to near zero because the diver infront mistook the wrong gap for the exit, hit the wreck causing silt to rain down. My heart rate went up but I had been memorising the reverse path to each exit we passed. Just as I was wriggling backwards the guide's hand lifted my first stage clear. No harm done but lesson learnt!

The Kyukuzan lies upright in waters off the North East coast of Busuanga and was easier to access overland. The journey seemed endless and was certainly not as comfortable as lazing around on deck but it was worth the trip. Swarming with fish and home to the aforementioned seaweed salad the cargo rooms hold such delights as car and trucks. The large wreck certainly merited two dives!

The Olympia, Taiei Kyogo Marus are simple wreck dives, easily enjoyed with large airy cargo areas and lovely swim throughs, swarming with fish and some great coral. On the Kyogo you can see a bulldozer in her holds.

Hot Water: Diving The Thermal Lake

For something a little different the thermal lake is quite an adventure. A winding rough wooden stairway cuts a path up, over and down to the lakes edge which, like a military assault course you will complete fully kitted up. The lakes surface temperature is normal but the deeper you go, the hotter it gets until its too hot to bear. The thermoclines are clearly visible and very distinct but once you disturb them will blur into a milky cloud. Some small fish inhabit the lake and shrimps will come out of the rock crevices to clean your fingers. The day was coupled with a reef dive, I did see an eagle ray but otherwise I was quite disappointed. If you've come to dive the wrecks of Coron - then do just that!

Seasonality and conditions

Diving is year round with water temperatures ranging from 27-31c. Rainy season is July to October and the hottest weather December to May, in between times the weather can be changeable but due to the sheltered nature of the dive sites, boats rarely get cancelled. Visibility can be a bit hit and miss and you probably won't be treated to 20m plus aqua marine, but visibility was certainly good enough for wreck exploration.

Overall I loved my time in Coron, for me it was the best part of the Philippines and I would highly recommend it for avid wreck divers.