Cebu and the Visayas Islands

The Heartland of The Philippines.

Magellan had no idea how good the scuba diving in this part of the world was, but in 1521 when Spain was big time in to colonizing the world, you couldn’t find a decent set of fins or a mask and snorkel to save one’s own life, so instead Magellan attacked the locals of Mactan Island and you probably guessed by now that his opportunistic overtures didn’t end well. After several other attempts, the Spanish finally colonized Cebu Island in 1565 and they had no clue that the surrounding waters were filled with large whale sharks, thresher sharks, hammerhead sharks, and pristine coral reefs. They also had no way of knowing that one day, Cebu’s white sand beaches and tropical sunsets would be more precious than all the gold in…well…Spain.

Cebu is the ninth largest out of some 7,100 islands that make up the Philippines and Cebu is one of the 167 islands that make up the central region of the Philippines. Because of the Spanish conquest, Cebu city is the oldest, as well as the first Christian city in the Philippines. Right next to the three million inhabitants of Cebu is Mactan Island; home to the Mactan-Cebu International Airport. It takes an hour flight from Manila or a 24-hour ferry ride to reach Cebu City and Mactan Island. The reason we mention all this is because adjacent to Mactan Island are more than a dozen well known dive sites. You can start right off shore at Kontiki Reef, or dive off one of the nearby islands such as Nalusuan Island Marine Sanctuary, Cabilao Island, Olango Island Marine Sanctuary, Shangri-La Marine Sanctuary, out at Hilutungan Island Marine Sanctuary. As you can see, there are lots of marine sanctuaries around Cebu and the neighboring islands. Photographers might enjoy Tambuli Reef and airplane wreck, or a nice macro dive at Agus Bay with soft corals, sponges and colorful fish. For advanced divers, Mactan Island is home to The Marigondon Cave where the ceiling starts at 30m (90ft) and the floor base is 43m (130ft) and goes back 40m (120ft). If you like diving with Nitrox (enriched air), large invertebrates, and pulsing flashlight fish, then this is the dive for you. If you are into wreck dives, then the 63m (190ft) long San Juan Ferry is the largest nearby wreck, but this 400 passenger vessel rests at 50m (150ft) of depth with the top at 35m (105ft). It’s been collecting coral and fish since an explosion took out the engine room in 2000. For another deep dive, there’s Tingo Point off of Olango Island. Here at 40m (120ft) is a ledge that drops off into a deep wall dive, but right off the wall and into the blue you have a chance to see thresher sharks on the lookout for schools of fish. The Monad Shoal at Malapascua is another site known for seeing thresher sharks at shallower depths rather than there usual deep water habitat.

Down on the southwestern end of Cebu Island is the town of Moalboal where there must be more than two dozen dive sites. Pescador Island has the most requested dive sites such as Cathedral Cave with a awe inspiring view of the surface and a great place for night dives too. This area is also a marine sanctuary with plentiful fish, turtles, and coral. As for other dive sites, Tongo also has an impressive reef, caves, and drop off walls. Dolphin House has coral, caves, and pygmy seahorses. Panagsama Beach is the place to view the sardine run and Talisy Reef is a turtle sanctuary area. There are also lots of resorts, restaurants, and white sand beaches to check out here in your free time.

There are also charter operations that cruise around the Visayan Archipelago. You can dive Pescador Island, Balicasag Island off of Bohol Island and Sumilon Island. The marine sanctuary near the southern town of Oslob is where licensed operators can provide snorkeling and diving with whale sharks. Near Siquijor you can dive Sunken Island which is known for its schools of Napoleon wrasse, humphead parrot fish, and frog fish. As you can see, the diving sites seem to be endless and since Pilipino time is uncannily in sync with Margaritaville time, you can see how it could take many a fresh seafood dinner and incredible physical effort to leave the relaxing white sand beaches to visit all the local dive locations on a single visit.

Things to know before you go: current is 220 volts, so bring a converter or two. The water temp varies between 23-30˚C (73-86˚F). You will see potentially poisonous sea snakes, but they are mildly mannered and generally won’t bite your tail if you don’t pull on theirs. Giving them a meter (3ft) of space is also a nice gesture or common curtesy. Some 26 million people speak the Philippine National language of Pilipino which is a central Manila dialect of Tagalog, but in Cebu and the surrounding islands, some 20 million people speak Cebuano, which is the second most spoken language out of the 180 some languages and dialects spoken in the Philippines. Fortunately for many of us, the most spoken foreign language in the Philippines is American English.

Most diving is done from traditional Philippine wooden hull vessels with outriggers called Bankas; pronounced (Ba ankas) they range from several to 13m (10-40ft) long. They are very sturdy and dependable in open waters and you will quickly become an expert at diving off and boarding back on again. Other local types of transportations to try are the Jeepneys which were originally transformed WWII willys jeeps with elongated seating compartments on the back end and metal horse statues welded to the hood on the front end. Now, some are prefabricated or made using Japanese trucks, and include very elaborate paint jobs and more fog lights than Baja 500 dune buggies. The motorized tricycles are a hoot to try too. The limited number of occupants and restricted weight or size of luggage seems to be anyone’s guess.

Now on your non-diving day we recommend a day trip to nearby Bohol Island to view the Chocolate Hills, the Matutinao Nature Park, Philippine tarsiers, and a boat ride on the Loboc river. You can also do an eight hour trip up to the Chambuhat Oyster Farm for a delicious seafood lunch. Back on Cebu Island you should make a point of going to Oslob and possibly to Sumilon Island for some time in the sun, water, and beach.

Near Oslob you can go to the village of Tan-awan where they feed the whale sharks krill. Tourists on Cebu will fill a highly organized parade of boats. Tourists can paddle out to the whale sharks where they have an opportunity to get in the water and snorkel with a group of whale sharks. This is a controversial tourist attraction as the normal migration of whale sharks in this area is 60 days and one whale shark named Mr. Bean lingered in this area 362 days just for the free food. Secondly, the krill they feed the whale sharks is just a small portion off all the types of krill whale sharks normally dine on along their normal migratory path. The jury is still out on if this is like eating a diet of hotdogs every night, but you get the idea. Lastly, the local whale sharks have become unafraid of boats, yet they have not had enough evolutionary time to learn to be wary of boats with propeller blades, which has had some negative consequences.

There are also a number of water falls to explore and day trips that include picnics and private beach excursions. Cebu has a number of modern shopping malls to explore for those that need more surface time. There are also several historical museums, historical sites such as Fort San Pedro built (started) in 1565, a must see Taoist temple, Christian and other religious as well as cultural landmarks, including the encased cross that Magellan brought to the islands on his ill-fated voyage. It’s ironical, but had Magellan come to Cebu as a tourist instead of a would-be conqueror, he would have had a great visit and great memories, instead of just the time of his life.

Turks and Caicos

Turks and Caicos
White Sand and Wicked Wall Dives.

There’s a group of islands just over an hour’s flight from Miami and they are so much more than their ancient Lucayan name for red blossomed topped Turk cactus and string of islands (caya hico) implies. The low lying limestone islands here are bordered by white sand beaches and while at least one of them you can walk across to at low tide, a few are separated by the 7,200 plus feet deep Turks Island passage. Huge pelagics such as North Atlantic humpback whales pass between the islands during their annual migration from January to March. The passage also divides the main eight islands with West Caicos, Providenciales (Provo), North Caicos, Middle Caicos, East Caicos, and South Caicos on the west side, and Grand Turk and Salt Cay on the east side of the passage. Some 299 uninhabited islands help round out the rest of the island chain.

Whales aren’t the only thing that has passed by these islands. Christopher Columbus passed by here in 1492 on his first voyage to discovering a western route to Asia. He may have been off on his calculations by a continent and an ocean or two, but had he known how far the circumference of the Earth really was, or that the Vikings had made settlements in the New World already for some 500 years, Columbus might not have been able to talk anyone into joining him for the first of four total expeditionary cruises. Another explorer passing by Turks and Caicos, astronaut John Glen, orbited Earth three times in 1962 before making a splash near the islands and coming ashore for some rest and relaxation at Grand Turk.

Now it’s easy to reach the shores of Turks and Caicos by scheduled airlines to the international airport with ongoing inter island flights or cruise ships. The Grand Turk Cruise Center is home to a 3,000 foot pier and the recreational and shopping center is home to the largest “Jimmy Buffet” Margaritaville in the world. If you want to visit somewhere less crowded, take a short trip over to Salt Cay and do some whale watching from the ruins at Taylor’s Hill or take a short excursion over to Gibb’s Cay to see the stingrays swim right up next to the beach. Don’t forget to visit the Columbus National Marine Park complete with 25 dive site moorings to visit with corals, garden eels, turtles, nurse sharks Nassau groupers and a host of smaller fish species.

Some 13 miles south of Salt Cay exists an ocean pinnacle and at 40ft of depth (12.5m), is the wreck of the HMS Endymion, a British fifth rate 49 gun warship that sunk in 1790. Ironically an early diesel five-masted schooner General Pershing wrecked here at Endymion Rock as well in 1921, and now you can see the chains running over from General Pershing’s anchor towards the Endymion’s anchor. As far as ship wrecks go, Turks and Caicos has the oldest wreck on this side of the pond. The Molasses Reef Wreck dates back to 1505. Many wrecks came to rest on Molasses Reef, but this Spanish ship was thought to be Columbus’s famed Niňa and so some divers in the 1970’s blew this historical artifact up in search of treasure. They didn’t find what they were looking for, but cannons, crossbows, and crew personal effects are now on exhibit at the Turks and Caicos National Museum built before 1885 and located near the seat of the government since 1766; Cockburn Town on Grand Turk. There is also a lighthouse built in 1852 with cast iron tower worth a sightseeing visit while on Grand Turk.

The ages may seem old, but when you consider that the Arawaken speaking Tainos lived here from 500 AD to 800 AD, and the classical Tainos moved here in the 1200’s, then anything after 1500 AD doesn’t seem so long ago. In fact, the classical Tainos had a good thing going for close to 300 years until Juan Ponce de Leon recorded the islands in 1512 and introduced the locals to a work abroad program that he just wouldn’t let them refuse. By 1513, His work and no-release program left the islands once again uninhabited until the salt collectors appeared in 1645. Pirates used the islands for awhile; the most notable being Anne Bonny around Parrot Cay in the 1720’s. Loyalists from America fled to the islands from 1775-1783. Also since Britain abolished slavery in 1833, many slaves that were shipwrecked or intercepted in transit in near waters were freed, and the population of the islands modestly grew once again. So now knowing the brief history of the islands, you are now able to appreciate the local architecture, the local island culture, cuisine, and part of the geography.

Across the Turks Island Passage you’ll find the Providenciales International Airport on Provo (Providenciales Island). Provo is the home of several major all inclusive and independent resorts. Some of these resorts cater to families, others to adults only, and all with miles of spectacular white sand beaches, beautiful pool settings, pool bars, and many with their own or otherwise serviced by dive operators with boats to take you to some of the hottest dive sites around the Caicos side of the islands.

Now, although thousands of boats have sunk around the islands, the main attractions are the reef and wall dives. That is except for the Mad Max style Thunderdome that was used for the pilot of a French game show. The thunder dome collapsed during hurricane Francis in 2004. But at 20ft from the surface and 35ft at depth, it makes a great swim through to view shrimp, scallops, clams, barracuda, queen angelfish, gray angelfish, lobster, and schools of snapper, goatfish, and others will surround you on this one of a kind dive.
Many of the dive sites here are named after what you expect to see at the site: Hole in the Wall starts at the top of the reef at 55ft and a tube goes down to and you exit out onto the reef at 90ft. The Crack cuts down the reef at 55ft down to 100ft, Eel Garden…take a guess at what is found here besides peacock flounder, and nurse sharks. The Amphitheater is a wall dive with an under hang that goes back about 15ft at the base at 85ft of depth. Perhaps Becky’s Beautiful Bottom doesn’t quite describe the huge coral heads off West Caicos, Brandywine doesn’t quite showcase the sand chutes at this site. G Spot doesn’t at first invoke images of Gorgonian soft corals. Double D off French Cay might not readily conjure up images of two pinnacles, but other dive sites such as Shark Hotel, Elephant Ear Canyon, Aquarium, Football Field, Graceland, Grouper Hole, and Highway to Heaven may appear less scandalous when mentioned in your log book and social media posts. Oh, and expect to see big eye jacks, grouper, rays and schools of smaller fish just about everywhere you go. Some sites such as the Molasses Reef, a wall dive, is south of Provo by French Cay and takes awhile to get there, so it’s usually part of a two or three dive excursion that may leave in the morning and not get back until 5pm. The two and three dive boat trips are the best way to see the sights at the farthest ends of the islands. For extended liveaboard trips around the islands may we recommend the Turks and Caicos Aggressor II or the Turks and Caicos Explorer. Remember that the winter months are peak tourist season, and dive boats may fill up fast. It doesn’t help when these islands are getting so much good press as being one of the top dive destinations but the reefs are available every month.

Turks and Caicos has several marine and shore preserves and national parks to see on your non-diving days and besides viewing birds such as frigates and flamingos at the parks, there is a Rock Iguana preserve on Long Cay. You can get around the islands by car, scooter, TCI Ferry system, and other boats.

The Caicos Conch Farm on Provo is the only place in the world where they raise queen conch for local consumption as well as export. This ten acre oceanfront aqua culture farm has 65 acres of adjacent circular pens where queen conchs graze and grow. People will think you’re a marine biologist after a short tour at this site.

And speaking of conch, no trip to Provo would be complete if you didn’t stop for conch served at Bugaloos Conch Crawl or da Conch Shack and Rum Bar. Fried or marinated, you “conch” go wrong man, with this delectable and renewable island resource.

So there you go, islands filled with tourist attractions, cruise ships, shopping and dining, islands uninhabited, islands with long white sand beaches to relax on, or get up, dive and explore almost endless miles of reefs, walls, wrecks, with extensive marine life such as turtles and corals. So no matter how or what century you get here, Turks and Caicos has something for everyone.

We Dove or Did We Dive That Dive Site?

We dove or did we dive that dive site?

Recently, at a well known dive destination, we overheard two scuba divers talking about a dive site where one of the divers dove the other day. The other diver happened to be an English major and insisted that dove was not the past tense of dive. The first diver disagreed saying that dive and dove were like drive and drove and divers have routinely used the word dove for more than the last 50 years. The English major countered that dove refers to a type of bird use in a Prince song as well as a chocolate covered ice cream bar and a brand of soap.

You could not say we dove the Titanic, but that we were diving or went diving on the Titanic. In an old fashioned way, the English major had a point, but English is a dynamic ever changing language that continuously allows us to form new nouns, verbs, and change words as we deem them needed. Eventually, certain words are used in certain ways so frequently that they become officially accepted by leading contemporary English Dictionaries. Television shows, Movies, Internet, and Pod casts seem to only increase the accumulated speed of new words, verbiage, and jargon.

Take a TV show like “Finding Bigfoot,” although the one thing you will never see on this show is an actual bigfoot, you will pick up a whole array of words never before known to those outside the bigfoot community. The cast of the show routinely makes comments that have reference to Sasquatch; the Northwest First Nations word for Bigfoot. In the show, they hunt for squatch or go squatchin in the squatchiest places they can find and the squatchiestness of a site determines how close to finding a bigfoot they ultimately almost get.

In the popular show “Call of the Wildman,” Instead of saying rat raisins, porcupine scat, raccoon excrement, or animal feces, Turtleman calls everything “Pootie poot or poodie poo.” You might even hear someone on the set yelling, “something was pootie pooing in here”, and by now there is no one in Kentucky or anyone who watches the Animal Channel on a regular basis who doesn’t know the meaning of Pootie poot. By the way, for as far as we know, this word has no affiliation with the “Pootie-poot” nickname former President George W. Bush gave Mr. Vladamir Putin of Russia.

Now some words have fought hard not to become generic words that we take for granted. Take the word “xerox” for example. In the seventies everyone was making, taking, viewing a xerox of some other piece of paper. Xerox was a noun, a verb, and a corporation, but now that anyone can make a copy by using almost any copier/printer, we have a whole generation of kids that may not even know what a Xerox copy machine looked like or how enormous it even was.

On the other hand some words seem to have lost the battle no matter how hard they tried to keep pure a trademark brand. The Kleenex Corporation put tons of money into the words “Facial tissue”, but despite their best efforts, people still find it more convenient to say, “Hey, pass me a Kleenex,” and blow their nose without any regard as to what specific brand of facial tissue that they have truly just desecrated.

Now we could continue on with other innovative and new words, or you could Google a few more of your own: Oh, we mean search for words online using a well-known yet definitive free web browser service. We googled “dove” and found plenty of references towards scuba diving, but I guess the people employed at certain definitive dictionary companies are not into scuba diving, sasquatch, or pootie poot, as much as other niche groups of people are, so it could take another 50 years for the word “dove” to become officially sanctioned as a proper word.

Then again, some words will never be officially acceptable such as the word “ain’t”. This word is used by hundred of millions of people yearly, found in countless books, and occasionally slips from the lips of past presidents, senators, and congressmen alike, but it is loathed more than the nine words that you can’t say on public, non paid, free access TV or radio. Ain’t is just one of a few select words that could potentially break the backbone of the English language and ruin the livelihood of countless English teachers: just the mention of this word can cause acid reflex in some social groups. We hope that the duel or triple meaning word “dove” is not as loathsome to those in power as the word “ain’t”, but ultimately that’s not our call.

Even here, our work is not done, as scuba instructors routinely tell students, “Inflate your BC!” and seldom do you hear anyone say,” Inflate your buoyancy compensator!”, or shout out even the more less used and outdated phrase, “Inflate your buoyancy compensating device.” By the time you spit out all these old antiquated words, everyone has surfaced and they are heading for shore or they have already stepped aboard the boat.

So tell us where you last dove, and do you plan to dive there again?

Papua New Guinea: Diving At The Edge Of The World. Part Two

Papua New Guinea: Diving At The World’s Edge: Part Two

To see the entire country of PNG one would have to choose from 578 landing airstrips and untold trails, but as scuba divers we would like to define our trip to the three different locations we mentioned in Part One of this article.

Starting on the southeastern edge of the main island we arrive at Tawali Resort. This is a beautiful hand crafted resort created over two years without the aid of power tools. One image online is worth a thousand words so we will let you look at your leisure while we concentrate on the 60 dive sites found nearby. First of all, PNG is home to the word “Muck Diving”. When you are looking at or taking images of small creatures on the substrate or coral rubble, this is muck diving. On the House Reef divers go muck diving to see mandarin fish and to watch them court one another. At Dinah’s Reef one of the five local species of frogfish is the main attraction. Frogfish are capable of increasing the size of their mouth by 12 fold and their stomach can hold fish up to twice their own size. They can change their colors over a few days or weeks as well as change the texture of their skin to resemble coral, stones, or sponges. If a divemaster points at a rock and you have a camera, snap the image and see a rockfish become ever so slightly visible. Wahoo Point offers views of hammerheads, minke whales, whale sharks as well as elephant ear sponges and many small invertebrates. Wall dives, pinnacles, and bommies “reefs” make up some of the other dives sites. At night, all the reefs become stages for new creatures with different behaviors such as the mimic octopus, lobsters, crabs, and inquisitive sharks.

Tufi Resort is a boutique resort with polished wooden floors and traditional woven mat covered walls with 180° panoramic views of the sea, fjord, and surrounding mountains. The fjords create sheltered havens for larger than average size sea sponges and fragile shelf corals. The House Reef (Tufi Warf) is a muck diver’s paradise complete with WWII debris including early Coca Cola bottles ornate ghost pipefish, which are related to seahorses. The males are 37% smaller than the females and the females have the central brood pouch that also helps makes them look bigger. Because of their camouflage abilities, it’s easier to spot them in mating pairs than individually. One fish that is easy to see are the swarms of Anthias fish that come in pink, yellow and orange. What makes them interesting is that they are all born female, but the largest female will change to a male and they live in harems of less than a dozen, but join together in groups that can swarm in the thousands. Another favorite dive site is Blue Ribbon Reef, which is named after a certain yellow and indigo colored eel. Clancy’s Reef is known for reef sharks and white hammerheads. With over 30 different bommies close by and some with multiple dive sites, it’s tough to dive the same dive site twice even if you dove here year round.

Lissenung Island Resort has four two room rustic bungalows for a total of 7 rooms: each with an ocean view. Even when they reach their max of 14 guests, you may still get that feeling of being on Castaway Island, only with clean and comfortable accommodations and great island food cooked by the staff that commutes each day from a nearby island. Here, you are only steps from the beach no matter which way you go and when it comes to sea life, this is where many marine science graduate students from around the world would like to study. Right off the shore scientist have found new species of allied cowries and a tiny olive shell along with 300 other confirmed species of fish and invertebrates. Nudibranchs and leaf scorpion fish are also big with photographers at Lissenung Island Resort. There are more than 40 dive sites around New Ireland and New Hanover and more dive sites at every other bommie you wish to stop at and visit. The House Reef goes 2/3rds around Lissenung Island and is home to 6 species of clownfish. Currently, black and white Panda Clownfish are very popular with underwater paparazzi. Albatross Passage is home to large pelagics such as eagle rays, tunas, jacks, barracudas and lot of different healthy species of sharks. At the same time, there are corals, sponges, and pygmy seahorses: one of the smallest of 54 species of seahorses. Unique to seahorses is independent eye movement like a chameleon, the male broods the eggs and supplies the eggs with prolactin the same hormone that promotes milk production in mammals and the male even provides oxygen in his controlled brood incubator. Bermuda Drop has colorful coral that slopes to 25m/80ft then drops off. A giant clam sits at 14m/45ft as well as nudibranchs, leaf scorpion fish, crocodile fish, moray eels, and flame shells. Add to all this the wreck of Der Yang at 31m/103ft, hawksbill turtles, green turtles, and occasionally inquisitive pods of dolphins and you have great diving all around you.

Now on your non-diving day, all three mentioned resorts can provide tours to island villages and schools where you can meet the locals, participate in local cultural events, or connect with people happily living life surrounded by fjords, bays, and oceans for generations on end.

We should mention that PNG has over 840 different languages and studying one single indigenous tribe can take an entire semester of college level cultural anthropology. The book “Pigs for the Ancestors” by Roy Rappaport has been a cultural anthropology staple since 1968. The book “Lost in Shangri-La” by Mitchell Zuckoff covers the story of a US military plane called “ The Gremlin Special” that crashed in low visibility weather in May of 1945 and has become another popular book about PNG. For scuba divers though, one of the best books about PNG has to be by Bob Halstead and is entitled “The Dive Sites of Papua New Guinea”.

Perhaps PNG’s proximity to the edge of the world has kept many explorers and tourists at bay. You have to take multiple flights just to get to PNG and you most likely will overnight in PNG or another country on one leg of your trip. This trip isn’t for those that are squeamish or for those that need every amenity offered by 5 star accommodations to survive, but it is one of those rare magical destinations that will affect and influence you for the rest of your life. PNG may have the most diverse human communities in the world, but for true adventurous divers, Papua New Guinea is teaming with thousands of rare and interesting species of nature’s Life on Earth.

Cebu and the Visayas Islands

Turks and Caicos

We Dove or Did We Dive That Dive Site?

Papua New Guinea: Diving At The Edge Of The World. Part Two

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