Moalboal Trip Report (continuation of Malapascua Trip Report)
This was originally posted on a couple of other discussion forums... Unfortunately I can't include photos.... There seems to be some kind of restriction on how many photos I can upload. Doesn't seem to matter if it's a new thread or a separate post. I suspect that I won't be able to upload photos to the gallery either.... If you want to see photos look me up on facebook.... you can also see some of my photos at underwaterphotography.com entered in the photo contest... feel free to vote for any that you like :) Here's the link: http://www.underwaterphotography.com...aspx?MID=24058
Moalboal-Part One
We were transported from Malapascua to Maya by boat. Our driver was waiting for us and from Maya we went by car to Cebu City. Steve my instructor for all my courses came along. A clip on one of the buttons for his housing had somehow came off and he had got some moisture inside his housing. Not enough to totally trash the camera, but enough that his video camera needed a visit to the Sony Service Center. He was also hoping to find a replacement clip.
The driver took us to Castle Peak Hotel in Cebu City. 1188 pesos a night. It was a nice basic room. Full size bed, a/c, and of course hot/cold "freshwater" showers :-) As soon as we were dropped at the hotel in Cebu and we were checked in. I unpacked all my dive gear and gave it all a good freshwater rinse. I then had the first freshwater shower I'd had in a week and a half.
I met Steve downstairs and we grabbed a taxi. Taxis are cheap transportation in Cebu and unlike in Manila they will use the meter, except for special trips like out of town or to the airport. I don't think we ever paid more than 60 pesos for a taxi. We drove around for a while looking for a steak place. Eventually we ended up at a pub/restaraunt.
In talking to the waitress she says that one of the regulars is also a diver. After dinner we move to the bar. Turns out the bar is kind of an expat's hang out... We met the owner from William, from Scotland and Pat the diver, the waitress told us about who was from Sweden as it turned out, the same place Steve's girlfriend Mal is from. William was investing in a new business, a live-aboard dive boat to operate in the waters around Cebu and Pat was going to be in charge of the operation.
We met other various people as they came in who were from the US, Europe, and Filipinos as well. Ed one of the Filipinos told me I should really check out Moalboal. Go down and see Nelson he said, tell him I sent you. By this point several people had mentioned Moalboal to me. After I thought about it I remembered that one of my friends in the dive club in Japan who was from the Philippines had also been to Moalboal and mentioned Nelson as well. What are the odds that we would come into a random bar and meet other divers to hang out with? :-) In the middle of Cebu City, not on the water somewhere ;-)
After sleeping on it, the next day I called Philippine Airline and changed my ticket. I had planned on going to Manila. When I was planning my trip, I was between Subic or Anilao/Puerto Galera for the remainder of my trip. I figured I could decide once I got there. The lack of a "fixed" plan does give me a little bit of flexibility in my vacations :-) There was nothing really to prevent me from going Moalboal.
The airline asked if I could go to one of their offices in Cebu and pay the change fee. I met Steve downstairs for breakfast (they had a nice buffet). After breakfast we grabbed a cab and headed to SM Mall. We visited a couple of camera stores, had to stop in the bookstore (of course :-)) and we stopped by the Philippine Airline office so I could pay for changing my ticket. I had been having problems with my battery charger for my AA batteries. We stopped in at Ace Hardware and I picked up a voltage converter. After that we grabbed a taxi and headed to the Sony Service Center. After a visit to the Sony Service Center where they told Steve they would have to order parts from Manila we headed back to the hotel. There we dropped everything off and went to find a place to eat. We ended up at Ayala Mall at Tequila Joes a Mexican restaraunt. Good food. Not cheap, more in line with what we would pay in the US. We then found an internet cafe in the mall and got caught up on email etc... After that we went back to the hotel. Took a shower changed and headed over to Williams pub (which of course I can't remember the name :-)) I do remember passing a big church and a Mcdonalds to get there though :-)
We had a good time and headed back to the hotel around 2AM. When I woke up the next morning I grabbed a shower and packed. After checking out of the hotel, I spoke with the doorman of the hotel and got a taxi to take me to Moalboal. I had already checked around about the going rate and a couple of people had told me it was around 2000 pesos. This is probably a little high, but I'm not one to quibble to much (at least about certain things) when I'm on vacation. As long as I don't believe that I'm being ripped off or someone tries to change a deal on me.
After a very scenic drive I reached Moalboal around 2:30 in the afternoon. I walked into the dive shop and met with Nelson. We talked a little, I told him I was planning on staying for at least a couple of days, that I definitely wanted to do some night diving. He asked if I had a place to stay yet and I said no. I left my dive gear there in the shop and he took me next door to Eve's Kiosk which is run by his sister. I checked in there, 1500 pesos a night. A large room, hot freshwater... that was okay with me :-)
When I came down from looking at the room to get my bags, as soon as I set foot outside the hotel entry I was approached by a lady wanting to my laundry. I had quite a bit, even though I had been mostly in a swim suit and a wetsuit for the last week and a half. I ended up giving her I think 300 pesos to do all my laundry. I got everything back the next day neatly pressed and folded. There was also a small group of ladies who sat outside the hotel in the shade of a tree who would approach you to sell t-shirts and other souvenirs.
Since I was basically out of clean clothes, I bought a couple of t-shirts immediately and a pair of shorts from one of the souvenir stands that was right next to Nelson's storage room. I paid 250 pesos a piece for t-shirts. I found that if you really wanted to bargain hard you could get them for less ;-)... but not much less :-) They never came into the hotel itself, everything was transacted outside. They were all very nice and friendly people, but they were definitely trying to get a sell :-)) I got approached on a daily basis, the first day I was surprised to find one enterprising lady who was actually waiting for me on the beach when I came back from a dive to see if I wanted any more souvenirs :-)). I took all of this with a smile and a sense of humor since I appreciated they were just trying to make a living. I tried to buy a little from as many as I could, but had to tell them on the last day as they gathered around to make the last minute sale, that I only had so much money and so much room in my suitcases ;-) Everyone knew my name right away and they all said goodbye and see you next time when I left.
There was a restaraunt there in the hotel and I ate breakfast and lunch there pretty much every day I was there. For dinner I would walk around and try out some of the other local places. I went up got unpacked. Then came down and had a light meal. Cucumber Tomato salad with the crab/corn chowder. Very good :-)
Nelson had told me to come back at 5:30 for the night dive. To be continued....
Moalboal Part 2-Night Diving House Reef
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When I went back to the dive shop I met my guide Benjim Abenido. I showed my certification card, filled out some paperwork, and then started getting my gear ready. The shop is very convenient to the beach. I did three night dives while I was there. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. November 4-6.
We geared up there at the shop. Benjim was very thorough with the dive plan. He went through exactly what we would do, when we would turn, and reviewed signals to make sure we were both on the same page. After that we walked across the street, down an alleyway to the beach. We walked maybe 40 yards and we were in the water. We waded out till it was about waist deep, put on our fins and mask, and started the dive. The depth started to drop off fairly quickly.
I immediately saw an anemone with clownfish in only 8-10 feet of water. Within probably 30-40 yards we were over the wall. Basically the plan was to drop down to about 60 feet (unless we saw something interesting of course :-)), swim into the current along the wall. When we hit half a tank (1500 psi for me) then we would ascend up to about 30 feet and swim back with the current. This was the plan we would follow for all three dives. On this first dive I ended up with a bottom time of 51 minutes. About the same the following night. The last night I would have a bottom time of 63 minutes. Maximum depth of the three dives was 75 feet. We usually ended up with an average around 30 feet. Water temp was 85F. Visibility was basically as far as my light would shine, probably over 60 feet.
I immediately started seeing lionfish. I saw more lionfish while diving the House Reef in Moalboal than probably all the other diving I had done put together. Night time is when we would find all different kinds of crabs, shrimp, the shells out hunting, sleeping sea turtles, banded pipefish, cuttlefish, goatfish, moray. There was lots of life down there :-) This was the way it went on every night dive that I made while in Moalboal :-)
After we came up from the night dive, we walked back across the street. Took care of our gear, and got it stowed away. I went up to my room and grabbed a shower, then went out to grab some food. Had a beer and then went to bed. Next morning I slept in until about 8. Went down and had breakfast. Was at the dive shop at 9AM.
To be continued..... Next Pescador Island. I'd really like to finish this up, but I have to meet my buddy at 6:30AM at the dive club. We're going diving in the morning :-)
Moalboal Part 3-Pescador Island
I should have mentioned before that this area is actually the village of Panagsama Beach which is part of the municipality of Moalboal. Ocean Safari's Philippines, better known as Nelson's Scuba Diving School has a webpage at: Moalboal OSP
The next morning I was at the dive shop at 9. They were opening up and getting setup for the day. The drying rack for, fins, masks, booties etc... was being carried outside from where it's kept in the equipment room overnight. Full tanks were being brought out of the compressor room. Rinse tanks being filled. All the normal activity of a dive shop getting ready for the day.
I went into the equipment room and grabbed my BC and regulators off the wall where I had hung them the night before and set up my tank for the morning. Benjim told me they would carry it to the boat for me. I pulled on my wetsuit and booties. I just left the top down, grabbed my mask, fins, and camera and walked to the boat which was waiting at the same place we had made our beach entry the night before for the night dive.
On the banca boat we were joined by a diver from Great Britain and two from Japan. Over the next few days they would be there on some dives, but often it was just me and Benjim. Once I was out with just myself and three divemasters. One was working on his own photography and the other two were both spotting for me :-)
We got underway around 9:30 for a 10-15 minutes ride out to Pescador Island. Pescador Island is only about two and half miles from Panagsama Beach. I made a total of three dives there in three days. Pescador is a drift dive, there is usually a current, but not more than a couple of knots. Less than walking speed on dry land. It is a deep wall dive. We would be dropped off on the south end of the island and the boat would wait for us at the north end. Pescador Island has mooring buoys in place so no need to drop anchor there.
On the first dive after a dive brief by Benjim we geared up with assistance from the boat crew and then stepped into the water. The first thing that struck me was just how many fish were there. They were everywhere and incredible colors. Cardinalfish, anthias, lionfish, jacks, flutefish, barracudas swimming by.... Visibility was easily over 80 feet!
I dropped down to 91 feet on the first dive that I made there, but you can go a lot deeper. We started our dive at 9:55 and I was up at 10:37. Average depth was 46 feet. Water temperature was 85F. On the first dive we drifted along the east side of the island.
Benjim found an Ornate Ghost Pipefish in a crevice. I got one shot which isn't very good... maybe next time. There were lionfish of course. As I said before, I probably saw more lionfish in four days at Moalboal than all the other times put together! I saw a Golden Trumpetfish, but wasn't happy with the shot, but I would get another chance two days later :-) I saw fish tearing up what appeared to be a jellyfish. They seemed to be enjoying it whatever it was :-) A very nice-sized stonefish doing a good job of blending in with the reef, but no so good that Benjim didn't spot him ;-) I got a shot of a nice Threadfin Hawkfish. All in all a very good dive :-)
The next day on my second dive there we did the west side of the island. We were in at 9:52 and out at 10:36. I didn't get any pictures on this dive. I had replaced the batteries directly from my charger before going out. The camera had turned on okay and I had turned back off. When I got in the water, I turned it on as soon as I got in. When I started to take the first picture... it flashed "change batteries" and went dead. I ended up throwing that set of batteries away!
The deepest point I reached this time was only 80 feet and my average depth was again 46 feet. Again we had prolific fish life. There is also a large cavern that you can swim through and exit at a different point more a swim through since you don't lose site of either opening. Another great dive.
The following day I mentioned to Benjim that I had heard there were frogfish there and I would really like to get a shot. He said he would see what he could do. We entered the water at 9:57. Within 5 minutes he was pointing out a frogfish! In all we found 3! They were all the grey/green kind. He was disappointed he didn't find one of the red ones for me as he said they were usually there. I was more than happy though :-)
Right after I spotted a White-eyed Moray. This was one of only two morays that I saw my entire stay in the Philippines (both in Moalboal). Thats not a complaint by the way, I see Moray's on most dives at Hayama here in Japan and the same was true when I went to Izu the end of September. I noticed that the two morays I saw in the Philippines were very small compared to the ones that I see in Japan. Different species.
Benjim spotted a goby for me. I had told him that I really wanted to get a shot of the goby and the shrimp that lives in the hole with him. I got some interesting goby shots, but I was never able to catch the shrimp. it was too shy I guess, although the goby was pretty quick to back into his hole too :-)
I spotted a Red and Black Anemonefish. A little later, Benjim pointed out a Tomato Anemonefish with a Bulb Tentacle Anemone. The anemone was this amazing white color, that I had not seen before. It made a really cool contrast with the clownfish. I was more than happy to add it to my collection of other species of anemonefish. Towards the end I finally got a of a golden trumpetfish which is an "uncommon" variation according to my "Reef Fish Identification" guide :-) As always there were clouds of damselfish, butterflyfish, wrasse, angelfish.... the list just goes on and on. Another amazing dive!
Pescador Island is probably some of the best diving that I've done to this point. It really deserves it's reputation as one of the best diving spots in the Philippines!
Moalboal Part 4-Conclusion
I'm going to put all these together in this part, because with the exception of the House Reef, I dove these places only once.
Remember I was only in Moalboal from Sunday afternoon to Thursday morning. A night dive on the first day and then three dive days. I was only able to cram in 14 dives :-( I really would have like to have stayed for at least another four or five days. I think if you're doing 4-5 dives a day, then in about 7-10 days you should be able to pretty thorougly cover Moalboal.
On Monday the 5th after finishing up our dive at Pescador Island we then headed over to Kasai Wall. After tying up to the mooring buoy. We took a break. It probably didn't take more than 30 minutes to get there and we wanted to have at least an hour surface interval. My morning dive had ended at 10:37.... at 11:39 I was starting my next dive :-)
Kasai is a drift dive. There can be a little current running at times. We just went with it. Water temp as usual was 85F... Visibility was 70-80 feet. My maximum depth on this dive was 77 feet with an average depth of 39 feet. Total dive time was 55 minutes.
Saw a nice lionfish almost immediately... that was the one I dropped down to 77 feet to grab a shot of. Then a grouper (least I think it's a grouper, I can't find it in my books). Nice variety of angelfish, damselfish. A Pink Anemonefish and the usual assortment of butterflyfish and anthias. A turtle swimming in the distance. A nice dive. Fifty-five minutes flew by and the dive was over before I knew it.
The boat picked us up and we headed back for lunch. After lunch we went to Talisay Point. Again almost immediately into the dive I spied a nice-size lionfish. I saw an interesting looking Toby, which was not in my fish identification books... sometimes I wonder if I were actually looking at a new species that hadn't been officially identified. Probably not :-) Then I got another shot of another Spotfin Lionfish which was almost as common as the "Common Lionfish" ;-) Then a Puffer which again was not in my fish identification books. Saw two turtles... one swam off as soon as he saw us the other just kept calmly munching away on sponges :-)
A night dive that night and then the west side of Pescador Island the next morning on the 6th. After Pescador we went to Tubla Point. Stonefish... a nice nudibranch, two species of anemonefish within three feet of each other, sea turtle swimming by, a group of barracuda in a line swimming by and of course... lionfish ;-) Visibility was down a little, but still over 50 feet. My maximum depth was 71 feet, average of 41 feet. Dive time was 53 minutes.
After a break for lunch we headed to Sampaguita. The cool thing here were the schools of razorfish, lots of baitfish, two turtles and several batfish were the highlights of this dive. This was again a drift dive, we coasted along with a slight current and were picked up by the boat at the end of the dive. This was the pattern of pretty much all the diving here except the beach dives we made at night. My maximum depth on this dive was 60 feet with an average of 37 feet... Bottom time was 45 minutes.
After a short surface interval we made another dive on the House Reef. It was starting to get into the late afternoon now and there were huge schools of baitfish (sardines). In some cases they would literally block out the surface there were so many! There were also schools of trevally. We spotted several Banded Pipefish and also a Sea Moth.
Another night dive rounded out the day.
On the 7th which was my last dive day for this trip we were in the water shortly after 8AM making a dive off the beach on the House Reef. Again we were seeing huge schools of sardines and trevally. Also big tunas making runs in and out of the sardines! Awesome! Also spotted some nice nudibranchs :-)
After that we were on the boat out to Pescador Island. I had expressed the desire to photograph frogfish and we found three within a short period of time.
After Pescador we headed over to Dolphin House. Visibility was over 40-50 feet. Lots of lionfish. A nudibranch, and a very tiny juvenile scorpionfish that was maybe only 2-3 inches long. Very cool! :-)
We had a break for lunch and then we headed over to White House Reef so called because... you guessed it! There is a White House there on the shore :-) This was probably my best dive for turtles. We saw three different turtles and I got some really nice shots :-)
I skipped the night dive and decided to just relax the last night I was in Moalboal. The next morning I settled up with the dive shop for my dives, packed my things and my driver showed up to take me back to Cebu. I checked into my hotel, took a shower, watched a movie. Then walked down to a nearby internet cafe and checked my email. Then went and had some dinner and came back to my room and took a nap until I got up to be at the airport at 4:30 AM.
I had a layover in Manila. I went out for breakfast and then visited the Mall of Asia before heading back to the airport to catch my afternoon flight to Tokyo and home to Japan. I began planning my next trip almost immediately.
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Photos from Cebu and Moalboal
The glitch that prevented me from uploading photos when I originally posted this report seems to be fixed now... so a few photos from Cebu and Moalboal :)
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More photos from Moalboal...
More photos from Moalboal and Pescador Island...
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and yet more photos from Moalboal....
and here are some more photos from my trip to Moalboal...
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okay... a few more photos....
and more photos from Moalboal.... are you guys ready to go dive there yet? :)
Photo equipment, technique, etc...
For those who are interested, my camera is a Canon A630. This is basically a little $200, 8.0 megapixel, digital, point and shoot.
When I started diving again last year I looked into different systems. I decided that I couldn't afford what I really wanted yet, so I bought an Ikelite housing for the camera that I already had.
I considered a Canon housing, but decided to go with the Ikelite because I liked the extra safety margin that a housing that is good to 200 feet (when I'm never probably going to go that deep) gave me.
Additionally, I purchased an Ikelite DS125 Substrobe with a manual controller. This strobe I will be able to utilize with the system that I will eventually have.
I had a lot of experience in photography, but had never done any underwater photography before August of 2007. Digital is nice because you get instant feedback on your mistakes and trust me I've made plenty :)
My digital zoom is turned off. I normally have the camera set on manual and will manually white balance as I go. Sometimes I use the strobe and sometimes I don't.
I do have some software programs that allow me to make corrections once I've downloaded the originals onto my computer. I make a copy and then make all my corrections to it, keeping the original untouched. I liken this to when I used to do custom color printing. I'm taking the original image and making it as good as it can possibly be.
I'm planning on eventually moving to a Nikon D300. Before that I will probably purchase a second DS125 as I can incorporate that into my current setup. It's a lot of money, so its easier to break it up a little and work on my system a piece at a time :).
Hope everyone enjoys the photos as much as I enjoyed making them :)
