Bamboo Reef Scuba Diving Centers - Bamboo Reef Scuba Diving Centers

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Unfortunately all good things must come to an end. For me it is this vacation, for my faithful readers (if I have any, doesn't seem to be anyone leaving comments... hmmm) it is the pleasure of reading my daily musings.

Our final dive day was a trip a return trip to Apo Island. The diving was beautiful as always. The coral reefs are incredibly healthy. The water is clear. There is an abundance of marine life. Lots of colorful nudibranches, and some not so colorful, variety is everything I suppose. All sorts of trigger fish (including titans again, nasty meanies), schools of big eyed jacks, and an awesome turtle sleeping under an overhang at fifty feet.

A quick note on photographing turtles. Approach them slowly. Keep a little distance. If they start to get fidgety, back off a little bit. If it is swimming, swim along side it, not towards it. If you follow these rules you can get some great pictures. The turtle might even become curious and swim towards you to check you out. Otherwise the turtle gets annoyed and swims away. Then you (or the next diver who has been waiting patiently for you to move so they can get picture) are left with pictures of turtle butt as it swims away.

Jen and I decided to check out the local hotel on Apo over lunch. This of course meant passing through the Apo Shirt Ladies again to get to shore, and then back to the boat. It is almost impossible to get through them without buying something. In our case that meant two more t-shirts and a sarong. Supporting the local economy is important. And being able to walk without trailing a dozen old ladies is more important. The Apo hotel we looked at (there are two) was, shall we say, rustic. Mosquito netting around the bed. A bucket of water and a large ladle for the shower. But a great view.

After our final massage (*sob*) was our final dinner. A party event where the restaurants rules were no sarong, no entry, regardless of gender.

Tomorrow morning its time to pack, then after lunch its is off to the airport. This will be my final posting. I hope everyone has enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

The last pictures are a cool flatworm, a school of jacks, friendly Mr. Turtle, and Wing-Wing showing off his bubble blowing skills.

-Matt

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Sometimes it's really cool, when you're having a great dive, and then you stumble across something you didn't even know was there. That was our first dive this morning. We were having a great muck dive. All the critters that we normally find on a much dive. Various frogfish, hairy, painted, and just warty. Mantis shrimp out and about for a stroll. A very aggressive titan triggerfish that kept buzzing one of the divemasters. And then there it was. The wonderpus octopus. Now I had absolutely no idea that the wonderpus could be found near Dumaguete, so this was a great surprise for me. It put on a great show, flashing colors along its arms and dancing around a bit. Great way to start the day.

Three more dives brought some more new critters, like pipehorses, porcelain crabs and sexy shrimp (no, I'm not making up these names). We also saw a couple of blue spotted rays today, the first rays of the trip. At lunch we were talking about what was left that we wanted to see here, and Jen mentioned she had not seen a single ray yet. Five minutes into the next dive, there was a ray.

Then the fifth dive of the day, the night dive. We (possibly) found the one thing we were hoping to see more then any other. The divemaster thinks it was, but needs to see the picture to be sure. The elusive blue ring octopus. He was being shy and wouldn't poke his head up for long, and no tell tale blue rings, but they don't always flash blue. We think it was, we hope it was, and we're going to say it was. Mission complete. Just to be on the safe side we found a second octopus on the night dive, definitely NOT a blue ring, but it still took five minutes to pry Jen away from it.

Wrapped up the day with the usual massage. Only one hour instead of ninety minutes. Trying to wean myself off slowly.

One last note. We celebrated the one hundredth dive of one of our group this trip. He made the requisite sacrifice for the hundredth dive. For those of you who don't know what that is, he dove naked for half the dive. No pictures of the celebration. You're welcome.

Tomorrow is our last day of diving, so we're going to finish off in style with a return trip to Apo Island. Stay tuned.

Todays pictures are the two octopuses from the night dive (the second MAY be a blue ring, will try to confirm) the wonderpus octopus, and because it is so colorul, a mantis shrimp.

More to follow...

-Matt

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The variety and the colors of the nudibranch here never cease to amaze me. For those of you who don't know what a nudibranch is, other then a colorful looking thing I keep talking about, I will explain. Briefly. Very briefly. This paragraph is actually already longer then the explanation will be. A nudibranch is a slug. The name nudibranch means 'naked lung.' Those fluffy protrusions on the back of must nudibranch are it's gills, which are external. Neat eh?

I could fill these posts each day with nothing but pictures of different nudibranch, never showing the same species twice. But then I'd be leaving out all the other odd and amazing stuff we see each dive. Today was a full day, four more dives. First dive was a deep dive at Sahara, then Masaplod North, and then back to Dauin North. We were supposed to do our fourth dive on the house reef, but decided to go back to San Miguel, since this time we all had our cameras and we knew where the flamboyant cuttlefish was last spotted, and they don't wander far.

For the last dive at San Miguel we had Gabi as our dive master instead of Wing (he also did the night dive with us last night). Another great example of a dive master. He knew we were looking for the flamboyant cuttlefish, so his dive briefing focused on where to find it. Locate the anemone with the saddle back anemone fish, ascend up the slope to thirty feet of depth, look around there. We followed that plan, and sure enough, there it was.

Our other dives also brought us more great critters, like leaf scorpion fish, painted frogfish, clown frogfish, mimic octopus, and a really friendly bat fish that kept following me around like a puppy. Quick note, the picture of the minuscule frogfish the other day was a CLOWN frogfish, not painted. We saw both and I got them mixed up. That's it for now. Stay tuned.

Todays pictures are another nudibranch, an ornate ghost pipefish, a mimic octopus, and an orangutang crab.

More to follow.

-Matt

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