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If you take a walk around El Galleon Resort grounds, you will notice the sparkling clean pool. One end is deeper to conduct in-house dive training and certification, with most common training and specialties available from in-house certified instructors. The pool has plenty of lounge chairs to relax on and read a book, then fall asleep to the sounds of the splashing waterfall that drops into the pool.
As for me, I can never seem to wait to see what new bizarre marine critters await my HD video captures in Paradise, so an hour or two later and all my gear is assembled, checked out and ready to go. Most dive gear, spares and accessories are available immediately in El Galleon's Asia Divers dive shop. From there my gear was always carried and never dropped I might ad, to the dive boat on El Galleon's private jetty. If you freak out at the concept of stepping on some marine fish with spines, which in 200 dives has never happened to me in the Philippines, or getting sand in your booties, you'll love their jetty! I liked it because when a storm passed quickly through one late afternoon after a days worth of diving, I ignored the exit ramp to the secured dive bangka, lept off the pitching bow, bounced off the bobbing platform and unceremoniously landed in the water. Hey, the water is 82 degrees! Who cares!? At least I had fun!
Typically there are 3 dives a day done at El Galleon Resort, with the possibility of night dives upon request. There dive staging and gear area is shown here, with fresh water showers and rinse tanks after your dive.
Most dive sites are within 5-10 minutes of the resorts private jetty, which gives you time to tweak your dive gear without spending much time getting there.
There are well over 50 dives sites around the Puerto Galera area. The dives guides know them all, just tell them what you would like to try to see, and they will schedule it for you when the tides are best.
As an example, if you want to see huge tridacna clams with their irridenscent mantles, they will take you to Manila Channel. If you want to see pygmy seahorses, they will take you to Kilima Steps If you want to see some wrecks teeming with fish and invertebrates, they will take you to Sabang Wrecks or the Alma Jane, both very consistent for holding large frogfish.
At Sabang wrecks, the middle wreck is a sailboat, wherein the left side has a large white seafan that usually holds a dozen clear shrimp and sometimes ornate and robust ghost pipefish.
In the shallows of Sabang Bay, the small sea grass often holds razor fish, Pegasus fish also known as Sea Moths, and make sure you look for those solitary tube stalk anemones out in the middle of nowhere, there WILL be 1 or two species of commensal shrimp on the stalk portions, a Thor amboinensis shrimp commonly called a sexy shrimp, and a brevicapalis species shrimp doing their hilarious rhythmic barrel roll movements.
The floating bars right in front of Sabang Beach are good dive sites too, as they hold zillions of silversides shimmering in the sunlight, and you can often find pelagic ctenophores called comb jellies, who locomotive cilia refract the light into the spectrums of a rainbow. Pelgaic colonial animals called salps often drift by here and they are all easy to spot in the gentle currents. Turtles are often seen here grazing on the sea grass too.
Make sure you schedule a day trip to Verde Island! This is about a 45 minute bangka dive boat ride across the channel. The clarity of the water here is amazing. The first dive which is deeper is usually at a site called “The Drop Offs”. This is a site with a 45 degree sloping bottom that dives off to the abyss. Stay close to the coral encrusted sloping walls here, the down currents off the wall can be strong at times.
After a break with snacks, a second dive is usually done off the southern point. This is where the thermal vents bubble up hot fresh water, and my temp gauge says the vent fresh water is in the 85-87 F degree range. You can see bubbles coming up from the bottom, and the irridescent shimmer of fresh water mixing with salt water.
The point pinnacle here often has pelagic big jacks. Look for the occasional dark jack, who will also be swimming like a remora over the top of a silver colored one. Why?
Do NOT venture out away from the pinnacle and into the school of jacks, as the manner in which even fish are getting swirled around belies the significant down currents that can come out of nowhere. Stick with your dive guide and do as they say, you will have a great time!
Lunch is served next and it is fun to walk along the shored of Verde Island. There will be cute little kids from the village gawking at you, wanting your empty aluminum cans or trying to sell you broken plate pieces from an 1800’s wreck that still washed up pottery pieces to this day. The kids will also offer to sell you shells. Normally eco conscious divers refuse to have anything to do with shells sold as souveniers, but the shells the kids sell arre the ones that wash up on the beach, they are not harvested from live animals like commercial souvenir places do, so feel free to give them 50 pesos or $1 for a shell or two.
The last dive is done at a site aptly named “Washing Machine”. Only once has it ever lived up to it’s name, and I received a fun thrashing that made videotaping anything but my demise futile. If the current is strong, stick with your dive guide and buddy here. Most of the time it is a great dive with all sorts of soft coral like xenia abounding.
Back after a days worth of diving, one walks up the short steps to the staging area where you can take a fresh water shower, dump your gear in the fresh water rinse tanks, and stow your gear.
Now after an exciting days worth of diving, it is time for an hour long massage which can be arranged with the front desk right in your own room for about $15-$18 or so dollars-for the hour! Try THAT at home! When you wake up, it is time for dinner. Below are my two favorite dinner dishes at El Galleon Restaurant, whose breakfast, lunch dinner and snacks and sweets are QUITE up to Western standards. My favorite was these giant barbecued shrimp basted in garlic butter sauce. These shrimp are caught by local fisherman when small, sold to families who have ponds next to their houses who feed the shrimp daily till they are the size of nightmares, then sold to fish vendors who deliver to restaurants.
After dinner, I enjoy the 15 minute beachfront walk into the small town of Sabang, which by the way, is not pronounced "Suh- Bang" but is properly pronounced Sah -Bahng where the a is a shwa, or the neutral sound of two combined vowels, short form of a and the short form of o.
Sabang is a fun little town crammed full of small stores, eateries, watering holes, dive shops, small mom and pop markets, a camera store, money changers, motorbike rentals, clothing shops, etc. make sure you walk to the open air fish market, where vendors offer every sort of freshly caught seafood. You can also take the ubiquitous Jeepney's, which are a blast, or for more fun, rent a motorbike for $10 for the entire day. T-shirts can be had for 180-200 pesos, which is about $3-4$. Same goes for board shorts and bathing suits No need to pack expensive clothes and weigh down your checked luggage. And beware, the Rolex watches are all fake, and 20% of them WILL fog over inside if you take them on a dive. But what did you expect for $20?!
The below T shirt vending stand, this is not the $3-$4 dollar T-shirt vendor, but a stand run by the sister of an incredibly talented local Philippino artist who airbrushes marine animals on t-shirts. She can arrange for something custom for you too, with your name airbrushed in script if you have 4 or 5 days to wait. But be forewarned, it takes several days for airbrushed custom designs to dry, and I ruined two when they stuck together when I was in a hurry. Oh well, I guess I will just have to go back and get two more, and of course get in some diving while I am at it!
El Galleon Resort / Asia Divers Review in Puerto Galera, Philippines
Open every night, but packed Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights is El Galleons “Point Bar”, aptly named as it is right off the point up high next to the dive gear area, and just past the below stream which cascades fresh water down the side, giving you a scenic view of Sabang Bay and an excellent venue for sharing good food and drinks, and tall dive tales with old and new friends. They have all manners of appetizers available, and do a once a week buffet dinner here for guests.
If you get too tipsey, there is always the house dog that will bring a leash to attach to you and he will gently guide you back to your room.
El Galleon Resort conducts all manners of tech diving and instruction via their Asia Divers' “Tech Asia”, which has has pure 02, helium and trimix available along with double rigs and Halcyon tech gear. Nothing like a 175 foot dive on trimix in the tropics with water temps in the 78-80 degree range at those depths and visibility in the 100 foot range!
And unlike many resorts in Asia, El Galleon Resort and Asia Divers is quite Internet savy and responds to all e-mails quite fast I might add. And rather than some character off who knows where ignoring the business, you will usually find the owner Allan Nash and his lovely wife right in the thick of things making sure all the guests are happy as clams.
Sadly, even though we stayed for 8 days, our time too soon came to an end and we sadly had to depart.
Much thanks to Allan Nash and his lovely wife, dive guides and staff for serving up another grand adventure in Paradise that is guaranteed to be the time of your life.
In the meantime, enjoy the below HD video we shot there.
El Galleon Resort / Asia Divers Review Continued
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