Philippines: The Diving

SCUBA diving is one of those things that is awesome pretty much no matter what you see. It is just such a magical experience. For the most part on this trip, Peter and I alternated diving days. Occasionally though Peter and Soren came out and snorkeled while I was diving.

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I don't have any pictures of the dives. I'm not an underwater photographer (nor do I currently have any interest in becoming one.) But it just seems a shame to not include it here since the diving was such a central part of our trip. So, with credit to the others on Flickr who have taken photos, here are a few of the favorite sites we saw underwater.

Pufferfish are always adorable with their big cow eyes. They were ubiquitous in the Philippines. We saw them on almost every dive and every time we snorkeled.

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PufferFish1332
(Credit: Pstarfill)

I had never even heard of basket coral before, and if my dive instructor hadn't pointed it out to me I would have written it off as just another lovely feathery coral. We saw this on a night dive. If you touched it, it actually kind of gripped your hand. And when you were up close you could see that the long spine parts were actually crawling along. Fascinating.

Exquisite Jewels of the Deep
(credit: Mauritz Preller)

Trevally aren't a terribly interesting fish. They are shiny, but otherwise fairly plain looking. But seeing them schooling is fabulous. All of them swimming in the huge group and the light reflecting off them. We saw these often on the wrecks.

School of Jacks
(credit: p@ragon)

And how is this for an amazing camouflage job? There was a crocodile fish that had taken up residence on the top of one of the ships. You could be almost next to it before you spotted it.

Crocodile fish
(Credit: maliavale/Mary Hartney)

As I mentioned, wreck diving was the big thing here. I hadn't done too much before, and what I had done wasn't all that exciting. In Honduras it was kind of cool to swim through these big metal sunken ships, but for the most part I have always love the tropical fish and the bright corals when I'm diving. THAT is the kind of stuff that I love to see. All the little (and big) creatures that are so beautiful and on display.

The Philippines changed that for me. Sure, I still love the tropical fish, but wreck diving - on the right wrecks - is just beyond awesome. It helps that these ships have been down for 60 years now. So many creatures have moved in and made it their home. But even the structures themselves, and diving through the kitchen or stairwell or boilerroom was breathtaking. Even looking ooking out the windows was surreal.

My favorite dive with the Irako. It was a very deep dive, yet we were able to spend nearly 20 minutes just exploring inside. With credit to Discovery Divers, here is a glimpse of what it was like:



I actually got my advanced SCUBA certification on this trip. It isn't an important certification, you are either certified (and can dive) or you aren't. You don't get a special crown to wear with your wetsuit when you have advanced certification, so I never bothered with it. But this time I decided to do it. It was a lot of fun working closely with an instructor on some advanced skills. Particularly since this was challenging diving, in tight quarters and at great depth. And considering that it has been 18 years since I was first certified, it was kind of fun to do.

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