Adventures in Diving - Anilao, Philippines

One of the things we really wanted to do in the Philippines was to learn how to dive. This blog entry is for Uncle David and Dave Daikens who shared their passion for the sport onto us. We have been fortunate enough to go diving the past two weekends (we now have a grand total of 21 dives!). We invested in a new underwater camera as the beauty we experience needs to be shared. Enjoy....

Here are a few highlights and interesting things we have seen and learned along the way:

Jeff's Dream.... to swim with a sea turtle, and finally on dive number 20 as he swam up over a coral cliff, he found himself face to face with this fellow. They looked at each for a moment, and then the turtle slowly swam away.

At one dive spot, Cathedral, the fish gather around you knowing they will be fed. See if you can find Linda in this picture.

And now look for Jeff...

Night Dive: Our dive master, Hernel, felt we were ready to participate in a night dive, so with lightening overhead we jumped in. It was a truly unique experience being 20 meters below the surface in complete darkness with the exception of your tiny flashlight beam. The ocean is a very different place at night - the corals open up to feed and are even more colourful, different creatures come out to hunt (we were too big for them) and other fish go to sleep. Here is a parrotfish fast asleep. Look closely and you will see that he creates a bubble around himself that hides his scent from predators.

This "little" puffer fish (approximately one and a half meters in length) calmly swam by us with his trusty little cleaner fish (juvenile Jackfish) following him everywhere he went.

Near the end of the night dive we happened upon this angry looking crab. Hernel was quite ecstatic following the dive as this the first time in his almost 10,000 dives to see this type of crab. And it only took us 19 dives to find him!

Current Dive: Another experience is something referred to as a 'current dive' and it is exactly as it sounds. The current is so strong that divers crawl along the sea bed grasping rocks and coral CAREFULLY to keep from being swept away. Its all worth it because fish love to feed in the strong current so there is much to see. Watch this video to experience the strength and speed of the current.

Most Bizarre... and the winner is the frogfish. A fish only a mother frogfish could love.

To our Mothers - stop reading now!

To the rest of you....interesting and dangerous creatures:

 

Look very carefully at this picture...do you see him? He sees you. This is a stonefish and it is considered to be one of the most poisonous fish in the ocean. As he is demonstrating, he also has the ability to change and camouflage to closely match his surroundings. Important rule, always check for eyes before grabbing coral.

Ah, the friendly and beautiful lionfish....each one of its elegant feather-like fins contain a poisonous needle. Do not touch.

This guy's scare tactic is worse than his bite as he won't come very far out of his hole during the day. This was an exceptional shot.

And to show that we actually "look" like we know what we are doing, we end with these action shots.