22 Feb 2011 - Last day at Moalboal

Sadly it's our final day here in Moalboal. First thing I did when I wake up is to check my dive gear. Awesome! It's mostly dry except for the wetsuit and bootie which is still damp. Despite not having a dive today, we still got up pretty early. I guess I'm not a late sleeper. Woah, looks like the weather is turning a little nasty this morning looking at the sea when I step out from the room. The sea looks pretty choppy even from our resort where I saw a bangka boat bobbling up and down quite a bit when it went pass the shore just off the wall.

Its breakfast as usual and I've opt for yet another untried item. Bad mistake! I've had a vegetarian pita which was quite sizable. The pita bread itself was pretty okay but certainly not the fillings. To be fair, I generally doesn't like raw vegetables thus the raw tomatoes, onions, lettuce with yogurt (the sourish instead of sweeten kind) doesn't go to well with me. Phew, finally I finished it. 

The pita is larger than my face! (Photo courtesy of NE)

Surprisingly, the most active and adventurous among us turns out to be NE. She initially wanted to go over to the waterfall but time was a little too tight for that. But that didn't stop her from taking a motor trishaw ride out to white beach on her own, after an early morning massage. Apparently we found out later that her masseur also happens to be the one selling us my t-shirts. What diversification of skills they have. I wonder if any of the cook or baker also double up as masseur, working on the muscle just like they're tenderizing a piece of meat or kneading some dough? We also found out later that we could arrange for in house massage which VA and SC had in their room, for 300 peso each! If we knew that earlier, we would have done that at the end of each dive day to sooth our tired muscle after the torturous climb up the stairs.

Spa at Marcosas Cottage Resort (Photo courtesy of GT)

 
I and RL then went over to the spa in Marcosas Cottages Resort for a massage but the earlier slots have been taken so we settle for the following slots. Only on our way out did we realised that one of the slot was actually taken by GT. It must be good as she already had a session the day before. We pop in to Blue Abyss on our way back to the resort but it was quite quiet. I guess most of the folks are already out diving. Aw, I'm missing the dives already! As there's still some time, we went around with some souvenir t-shirt shopping which can be had for around 150-180 peso a piece.

Resting area for gearing up at Blue Abyss Dive Shop

Various rinse tanks at Blue Abyss Dive Shop

It wasn't too long before we return to the spa for our massage. While it didn't bring any relief to my sore knee, it was still quite soothing and relaxed. The only nit-pick will be the aroma oil (I had lemongrass) being too diluted that I can hardly smell it. Surprisingly when we got back to the resort, the rest are all gathered at the restaurant with their luggage already out by the front desk. The original plan was for us to check out at 2pm but apparently they need the rooms earlier for other guests. It's a quick dash to pack whatever remaining items into my huge duffel bag and off it goes to the front desk.

The whole gang then heads over to the other side of the beach for our lunch at Chilis Bar. It's our first time on this side of the beach during the day time and it's so much quieter than in the evening. Again, we shared a pizza, pasta and pancake among myself, GT and RL. Interestingly, the pizza was presented on some kind of weaved basket. The only awful item was the pancake, which was almost an inch thick in the middle. A friend who came to Moalboal 2 weeks earlier advise us against pancakes, which was pretty nice in the two earlier encounters. Perhaps this is the one he tried. While waiting for the food, we saw some divers heading out to dive. Perhaps due to the large number of dive centre, restaurant and resort in close proximity on this stretch of the beach, the divers seems to have to squeeze pass the huts and houses as they get into the water. Not a problem really but just seems to find it kind of weird and unglam. But it seems like they don't have a flight of stairs to fight with over here perhaps?

Heading over to the other side of the beach for lunch (Photo courtesy of GT)

The van is already waiting for us when we got back to the resort after lunch. Very quickly we load up the van and head for the airport. This was a bigger and newer van with much better seat, making it a more comfortable 3 hour ride than our earlier in bound journey. Surprisingly, the queue was moving very slowly at the check-in counter despite a rather empty flight where all of us and many other passengers can have an entire row of 3 seats to themselves. The counter staff was rather stringent in the weight of our check-in baggage. Fortunately my ticket was booked together with GT and RL and we barely made it within our 3 standard baggage plus one sports equipment upgrade limits. VA’s bag was exceeded by just 1-2 kg and she got to reshuffle her items out to her hand carry. That’s how strict they are on excess baggage so do be careful when flying Cebu Pacific.

With that comes the end of the trip. In retrospective, it was a wonderful trip at a reasonable price. In general, I don’t really like wall dives but the main draw of this place is the sardine bait balls which indeed was very nice. Except for Pescardo Island, the remaining dive sites are essentially lined up on a long stretch of wall just off the shore. The night dives here were awesome and were my favourite. Food is also nice and reasonably priced. The sardine balls have started appearing in just the last couple of years and who knows how much longer they’re going to be here. So do catch them before they decide to relocate someday.

21 Feb 2011 - Finally time for some land photos

Magandang umaga! The sky is clear with the sun out in full force. It's the first time we have a bright sunny day and yet is our last diving day for this trip. For once I decided to try something else for breakfast instead of the usual omelette while some others are sticking faithfully to their fruit yogurts. For me, it's mixed fruits pancake which I find pretty nice but nothing exceptional.

And it's off to the dive centre as usual. It seems less crowded today, perhaps because we're not heading to Pescardo for the sardines? While the weather looks great for diving, we choose to do the two boat dives today and call it a day. We could have easily squeeze in the 4pm house reef dive and still make it for our flight the next evening with ample time to spare for the 24 hour no fly interval. But I'm not taking chances getting stuck with excess baggage from my wet gear. My check-in baggage alone is already a whopping 25kg on my incoming flight! And that's excluding all the camera, housing and netbook which I'm hand carrying. And besides, I haven't had a chance to do any sunrise/sunset photo shooting thus far in this trip. Thus for once, the DDMD (Die Die Must Dive) spirit takes a backseat and have just 2 relaxed dive. For that matter, I was just mostly enjoying the dive and was hardly even grabbing any shots in the two dives (Like less than 10 shots each dive).

It was lunch at our usual hangout between the two dives. The carbonara pasta I had came in a huge portion but I watered it all down nonetheless. For sure all the finning and tank carrying is not sufficient to burn off all these extra carbs that I've been piling on these couple of days. Strangely enough, some of us commented that my pasta looks like the "hokkien mee" we have back home. But despite its less than ideal appearance, it actually tasted pretty good without any lingering strong aftertaste during my afternoon dive.

As always, time is never enough when I'm out enjoying and we concluded our dives without any major hiccups. And soon it was the most dreadful part of the trip where I have to wash up the gear. Being a basic no frill operation, we do have to set up our own gear and do our own cleaning up of the gear. Not that I mind since it's all my own gear and I would have expect to properly maintain and keep it in good shape. What's nice is that the washing is facilitated by a clean and spacious area in Blue Abyss. There are at least four rinse tanks for different equipment. Two tanks were available for the cameras, one for the booties and another for fins, BCDs and wetsuits. In addition, there are also a number of hoses for us to wash both our gear and ourselves. Since I'm going to be cleaning and soaking my gear in warm water when I get back home, I just do a "quick" rinse. But that still took me quite a while to get through with the cleaning. With the sun out today, we have a good chance of having our gear dried by the time we check out tomorrow. I leave my gear at the dive centre to dry while I get back to the resort for a quick rinse myself.

Drying my gear after the last dive at Moalboal, Philippines

With all the diving and cleaning up behind me, it's time for some land shoots. It's our final evening here and I'm not going to let this last chance slips by. Otherwise I'll be carrying all that extra weight from my land camera and tripod in vain. Being located much further east from Singapore but yet sharing the same time zone (GMT +8), the sun rises and sets at least an hour earlier. Not so good for sunrise but great for sunset since I can pack up and have dinner earlier after doing the sunset photos.

Fortunately for us, it was low tide and thus we can head on down to the "beach" below our resort for the sunset shooting. Why I said "beach" is that there isn't exactly a real stretch of sandy beach around the dive resorts. At best you may a couple of metres of sand inward from the shore during low tide, and that can be totally submerged during high tide. Oh well, at least there's some sand and it's not all rocks and boulder like in Anilao. During the shoot, I saw another group of divers heading down from Blue Abyss for their dusk dives. Oh boy, how I wish I could do that too. Soon, the sun was gone shortly after 6 in the evening and it's finally time to pack up and chill. Since I'm already shooting at the beach below the dive centre, I head up to gather and bring my gear back to the resort. 

Sunset at Moalboal, Philipppines

Sunset at Moalboal, Philipppines

 

Low tide at Blue Abyss house reef - Moalboal, Philippines

Panoramic view of shore to Blue Abyss house reef - Moalboal, Philippines

 

Some of the folks is having their dinner at our regular hangout while myself, RL, GT and NE decides to head over to the other side for some yummy dinner on our last night in Moalboal. For once, we've already a destination in mind and headed over to Pizzeria for dinner. We shared two pizza and a pasta among myself, RL and GT, while NE had some fish (tuna?) steak. Among the 2 pizzas, I really really love their Siciliana pizza with cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and other stuffs. That's my favourite pizza among the few we had in this trip. For that matter, I rank it among my all-time favourites! Service at the restaurant was pretty poor though. The waitress(es) doesn't seems too interested in serving us. But the more appalling situation was in one of our orders. As both RT and I were vegetarians, we specifically requested for the pasta to be without the ham in them. It may have slipped their mind when they brought out the pasta with a generous helping of hams. Guess what they did after we told them about the mistake? Instead of preparing another set, they simply went back and picked out all the hams! How we knew was the evidence left by one piece of ham that they've missed. It was truly disappointing in this aspect. But still, I must give credit for that wonderful Siciliana pizza. Yes, I just simply adore it! Haha, I was secretly hoping everyone is full so I can have some extra helpings. *Slurp* Yummy! :p

Pizza at Pizzeria (Photo courtesy of GT)

The rest of the folks are chilling with some drinks when we got back to the resort. Only join them briefly before I head back to the room to do some packing for the trip back the next day.

20 Feb 2011 - A 2nd chance with gazillion of sardines

Good morning! Again I'm having the Mexican vegetable omelette for breakfast for two days in a row. The omelette was awesome and my favourite among the breakfast items. A few others swear by their mixed fruit yogurt which they had every morning for additional fibre. I guess it was pretty good too. The yogurt was something which I’ve wanted to try for breakfast but never did for the entire trip. Guess I still prefer a good hearty breakfast to kick start my day. 

Mexican vegetable omelette and Mixed fruit yogurt at The Last Filling Station (Photo courtesy of GT)

The sky still looks pretty cloudy and the weather here seems change quite abruptly. On a few occasion, the rain seems to be coming in fast (and hard at times). And often before we knew it, the rain is gone. I remember on one shore dive where it was relatively bright and sunny before we went into the water. The sky still looks pretty clear when we exit the water but when we got back to the dive centre, I noticed that the resting areas were wet and the crew have shifted our dry bags to a sheltered area.

Panoramic view of the shore from the upper deck at Blue Abyss

 

Timing for the dive plan is pretty much the same each day and we're going back to Pescardo again in the afternoon for another chance with the sardines! The crew have decided to do Pescardo in the afternoon as they find the sea there to be not as rough the past few afternoons. When we return from our first boat dive, we also saw the KG (the boss of Blue Abyss) coming up with another diver from the house reef. Apparently they have spotted a black leaf scorpion fish and he'll be heading back in the afternoon with his huge video camera.

It's almost lunch hour again by the time after we got back from the first boat dive and suddenly, the long interval between the 2 boat dives doesn't seems so long after all. We'll reach the dive centre earlier in the morning to start rigging up the gear and got onto the dive boat around 8.30 in the morning. It's usually around 9am by the time we hit the waters and surfacing about an hour later. Thus it's easily 10 plus in the morning when we got back to the dive centre. It was quite comforting to know that we can leave our dive gear on the boat in between the two boat dives and just bring our used tanks up to the dive centre. By the time we’ve changed and walked back to our resort a short distance away, it’s already close to 11am. Just about nice to place order for our lunch. We did all our lunch at The Last Filling Station and leave the food exploration for the night. I had the Pesto Tomato spaghetti for lunch which I thought was pretty decent with generous amount of pesto. However I realised later it's not such a good idea after all to have pasta with strong taste as I literally tasted pesto throughout my next dive. Fortunately I didn't end up feeding the sardines with my puke. Phew. But the sardine ball dive was truly an awesome experience for me! What a dive for GT to wrap up her diving and chill for the remaining of the trip. During the surface interval after the sardines dive, a street vendor came by the dive centre to sell some fruits and guess what VT bought for us? A Philippine durian! Never quite expect to see and taste durians here in Philippines on my dive trip. I guess I still prefer the usual D24 durians that I'm used to but this isn’t too bad either. Needless to say, all the other Caucasians hide their disgusted look and quickly move out of the way of this fragrant fruit. But of course to those who hate it, it’ll come across as having a strong ammonia pungent smell. 

Pescardo Island from Blue Abyss Dive Shop

Heading into the sardines (Photo courtesy of RL)

Shooting the sardines (Photo courtesy of GT)

 

Strangely enough, there aren’t much other divers going for the 4pm house reef dive. Maybe they're already contended with the sardine balls! Haha. So essentially within our group, it's just me and VT who are doing this dive. Since the boss himself is heading back to video the black leaf scorpian fish he've spotted earlier, I'm definitely not going to skip this dive! Thereafter, we did one more night dive. Sadly our DM is not joining us, saying the water's too cold for him. While we spot slightly lesser creatures today, it's still a wonderful dive and I just love night dives. :)

Some of the rest have already had dinner or has called it a day by the time we got back to our resort around 8pm+. And it's just the four of us night divers plus GT (who had some horrid watery mushroom soup at our resort restaurant) who again venture over to the noisy stretch for some food hunting. After deciding that we’ll be having some Japanese food, VT brought us to a small Japanese restaurant by the corner. Oh ok. Perhaps it was an overstatement to say it was a restaurant but rather in the night, it look much more like an extension to the kitchen of a local home. Yes, where we sit, I can see the chair and telly (and the bed maybe?) of their room just barely a couple of metres away. Some of us was thinking if it was a mistake stepping inside and was hesitating on what to order. It doesn’t help to see that it looks like a totally local setup (Pinoy style Japanese food?) That uncertainty lasted for a while until a Japanese man who hastily emerged from outside the restaurant. I've heard from VT that he is usually at the Chilli Bar when not at the restaurant. Some of them tried the tuna sashimi which VT particularly adores for its freshness. Some of us shared some ramen, soba and egg rolls. I didn't try the other meat dish so I can't comment but for those that I had tried, only the egg rolls tasted ok. I guess perhaps the chef have migrated over to Philippines for a long time and have adapted to the local taste. The ramen was done using some yellow noodles and the whole bowl looks (and tasted) like our mee soto back home. The soba was even weirder with chilli flakes and strong ginger taste in the sauce, making the dish somewhat spicy. Ok. No more Japanese food for me here at Moalboal. :p

Outside the Japanese restaurant (Photo courtesy of GT)

19 Feb 2011 - Sneak preview to the sardines

Apparently not many people turn up for breakfast this morning. I have my Mexican vegetable omelette and mango juice for breakfast. Once done with the food, we head off to the dive centre to rig up our gear. A typical dive day includes 2 boat dives at 8.30am and 1.30pm, and a shore dive at the house reef at 4pm.

I like to maximize my underwater time as far as I can and hence have opt for additional night dives, which turns out to quite awesome at the house reef. As far as it seems, the majority of the divers there were Caucasians and they like to take it at an easy and relax pace with just 2 - 3 dives a day. Hence I would suppose night (not dusk) dives were quite uncommon there at Moalboal. I wonder if they would have thought of us as a bunch of crazy fellows pushing for 4 dives a day. Oh boy, if they can open much earlier for dawn dives, I would have done that too for 5 dives a day! :p

The least enjoyable part of each dive was getting to and back from the dive boat or the house reef, particularly during low tide. Typically, you'll rig up your gear at the dive centre and carry your tank, gear and camera down a flight of stairs to the shore below. Going down was bad, getting up with the wet gear and camera was a torture. The crew does help to bring the gear up and down for the ladies and some others. For some reason, I always had to haul all my gear up and down for every dive. Haha. I guess I should take comfort in that perhaps I look stocky and fit enough to handle all my own stuffs. The other hassle besides the stairs is the long walk in knee/waist deep water for the shore dives and a shorter walk for the boat dives. The topology of the shore is quite interesting with very shallow reef flat stretching out for perhaps a hundred metres or so, followed by a vertical drop (wall) down to around 50-60 metres.

The dive boat is the typical bangka (aka outrigger) that you see around in Philippines. I only saw one boat for Blue Abyss, which was about the same size as the one I used previously in Malapascua. The only noticeable difference is the absence of a "covered" toilet in the Blue Abyss boat. Similarly, the boat here couldn't turn very well and I suspect it was also powered by some engine from a truck or something. 

Divers going down to the beach during a very high tide (Photo courtesy of GT)

Divers heading out to the outrigger (Photo courtesy of GT)

Divers getting onto the outrigger (Photo courtesy of GT)

Heading out for a dive on the outrigger (Photo courtesy of GT)

  

Diver (me!) caught by surprised. :p (Photo courtesy of RL)

Divers returning with empty tanks in between the 2 boat dives (Photo courtesy of RL)

Stairs heading up to Blue Abyss Dive Centre from the shore

  

Anyway, we started the morning with a dive to the much anticipated Pescardo island where the huge sardine balls were known to lingers. The sky looks pretty over casted and the sea was pretty choppy with 1-2m waves on the way to the island. Near the island, we saw a row of small bangkas with fishermen doing line fishing. Nets were banned in the area which allows the marine life to continue flourishing. If not for the ban, perhaps the only sardines we’ll see here will be in cans. While I didn't feel cold in the dive, the boat ride back in the wind and rain was certainly a little chilly for me. Phew.

Only VT, RL and I opt to do the night dive along with the DM while the rest chill out somewhere on land. Hit the water around 6pm+ after the sun has completely set and got back an hour later. The dive was awesome with plenty of crabs and shrimps around. The crews were eagerly waiting for us to unpack up our gear and promptly close the shuttles to the dive centre as soon as we stepped out.

After a quick shower, all of us venture over to the other noisier stretch of the beach where most of the resort, dive centres and eateries are located. There's a number of restaurant selling freshly caught seafood which presumably were pretty cheap and good. We didn't take long to pick a place and settle in at Silver Ray Bar & Restaurant. Some of us went for the seafood while GT, RL and I shared 2 pastas, 1 fried rice and a pancake. To my crude taste bud, the food is just about average and pales in comparison to what I had at The Last Filling Station. We took a short walk around after dinner before heading back to the room to prepare my gear for tomorrow. 

Outside Silver Ray Bar & Restaurant (Photo courtesy of GT)

Hungry diver after 4 dives with 2 pastas, 1 fried rice and a thick yummy mango juice (Photo courtesy of GT)

18 Feb 2011 - Off to Moalboal

Happily, I arrived at the budget terminal for the midnight flight to Cebu. It was my first time at this terminal and was quite surprised at the small size of the departure hall. There are just 7 of us for this dive trip to Moalboal and I've been so looking forward to seeing the sardine bait balls. Previously I can only dream of seeing these magnificent sardine runs in South Africa but apparently a more "toned down" version without the larger sharks, dolphins and birds started appearing on a regular basis in Moalboal in the last couple of years. Who knows how much longer are they going to be there and I'm not going to wait until they are gone before I go visiting.

Given the lack of a queue at the check-in counter, I was quite surprise to see a full flight and getting seated right at the last row. But I sure felt quite like a VIP for being the first to disembark onto the parking apron after stepping off the rear exit door 4am in the morning. The van ride to Moalboal took around 3 hours. Just as expected, I didn't manage to catch any sleep throughout the entire journey.

We arrived at Tipolo Beach Resort where we'll be staying for the next few days. As it's only 7am in the morning, only two out the three rooms were available. I dump my bags into one of the room and proceed for a quick breakfast at The Last Filling Station where we have a large number of our meals. Tipolo is a small operation with just a handful of rooms, located at the more peaceful end of the "beach". There's also a minimart at this end of the beach for some basic necessity and tidbits should you need any. The rooms though small, are clean and come complete with free WIFI. The Last Filling Station is the resort's restaurant which serves some great pizzas and killer mango juice which is really thick and wholesome! The only issues I have in general were the food which are often too salty but that is fine after we ask them to go easy on the salt.

On arrival outside The Last Filling Station at Tipolo  (Photo courtesy of RL)

Courtyard of Tipolo Resort with my room on the right (Photo courtesy of RL)

Minimart near our resort and dive centre (Photo courtesy of RL)

As the time was a little tight, we couldn't make it for the 1st boat dive at 8.30am but instead opt to do a checkout dive at the house reef once we're ready. We're diving with Blue Abyss dive shop for this trip, with G as our DM. In total, we did 3 dives today. As we started a little late and due to some miscommunication, we couldn't do our night dive today. Dinner was done at The Last Filling Station. GT, RL and myself shared a vegetarian and funghi pizza which were baked in a wood fire oven. The funghi pizza is the winner here. Together with the thick mango juice, life couldn't have been better.

Upper deck for chilling out at Blue Abyss Dive Shop

At Blue Abyss Dive Shop (Photo courtesy of RL)

 
Then it's back to the room to prepare my camera and gear for the next day of diving. We're going to see the sardines at Pescardo Island tomorrow morning! Woohooo! I just can't wait for that! But for now, I really need sleep after missing a night of rest. Good night world! :)

18 Feb 2011 - Off to Moalboal
18 Feb 2011 - Dive 1 to 3 at house reef and white beach
19 Feb 2011 - Sneak preview to the sardines
19 Feb 2011 - Dive 4 to 7 at Pescardo island, Talisay and house reef
20 Feb 2011 - A 2nd chance with gazillion of sardines
20 Feb 2011 - Dive 8 to 11 at Tuble, Pescardo and house reef
21 Feb 2011 - Finally time for some land photos
21 Feb 2011 - Dive 12 - 13 at Dolphin House and Tongo Point
22 Feb 2011 - Last day at Moalboal

24 Dec 2010 - Christmas Eve at Semporna

I'm the last to arrived at the airport for our connecting AirAsia flight to Tawau via KL. Given that its Christmas eve, the checkin counter was fully packed. Fortunately we're doing a group checkin as my luggage was over weighted at about 22kg. It will surely be worse coming back.

It was my first time on an AirAsia flight and my first flying in to KL. Didn't quite expected the long walk outside in the heat before getting from the aircraft into the terminal. We took a while to get through the custom which leaves us little time for any meal after going through the checkin for the onward flight to Tawau. I had a near miss with overweight cabin luggage when the person ahead in line was stopped to have his cabin bag weighted. Excluding the camera bag, mine was well over 10kg. Trying my best to stand as straight and making the backpack look as small as possible, I quickly walked through the gate. Phew.

Without any further incident, we arrived at Tawau and got through the custom in a jiffy. A van picked us up and we have about an hour drive up to Semporna, which is the gateway to Sipadan, Kapalai and Mabul island. We proceed for a simple dinner at one of the local coffeeshop after checking into Seafest Hotel. Semporna is a small and quiet fishing village and there is hardly a tinge of Christmas in the air. Dinner was thus a quick and quiet affair.

Most of the folks turn in for the night after dinner and some of us made use of the free Wifi in the hotel lounge area. Getting fed by countless waves of mozzies in the sleepy hotel certainly isn't the greatest way to spend the eve. While we're getting fed by the mozzies, the sky opened up and started raining cats and dogs. I did a quick check on the weather forecast by the Malaysian met station and saw something I really hate to see. It seems like it's going to rain a whole lot over the next few days over at Sipadan. Phew. Just got to keep my finger crossed that it'll turn out to be fine. Time for bed. I hope I can sleep. :)