Apo island

2/22/10

As I said before, we are only kilometers from some of the best diving in the world. We had the pleasure of learning in Dauin, with some of the most diverse marine life around. Today we are going to dive Apo island.

We started off early and prior to heading out of town stopped by for a "sack lunch" philippino style. Basically take some stews, rice, soups and various dishes and put them in individual plastic baggies. We got to the pier and being from Montana we did our part of the workload, packing the boat up and getting it out of dock.

We headed out early in the 4 man banka loaded up with dive gear and 7 people. I'll just say that its a good thing I remembered to bring dry bags. The waves crashed over the bow soaking the first 1/2 of the boat. The water here is so warm that its actually refreshing, other than the taste of salt water.

We got out to the dive site and did the dive. It was similar in Marine life to Dauin but here we were able to dive a reef wall. It was basically a wall of coral that drops strait down from 5 meters to 30 meters (15ft to 90 ft). I'm still a novice to being able to spot all t he rare things here and its very easy to glance over things if your eye isn't trained.

Its hard to describe a dive, at least it is for me. Theres such a sensory overload the memory turns into more of an emotion, a maliable thing that can only be experianced and felt. To describe it would cheapen it and be ineffective any way. I can't even keep track of all the life that I saw.

We broke for lunch and tied to a tree, banka bobbing just off shore. We had about 90 minutes for food and decompresion. Nathan and I, per our usual, took off to explore a bit, looking for just the right spot to eat our food. The islland was bigger than we expected and had way more people living on it that either of us thought possible, or even desireable. There was a resevior of sorts not 50 meters inland and while we didnt taste it we postulate that it was fed by seawater being filtered and re eemerging on the other side. But its all guess's here.

We found a beach on the opposite end of the island that was the original marine preserve. Now the whole island is loaded with sea live but some people come to this specific area to dive and snorkle even though theres a "park fee". We decided this was a good enough spot to sit and havee our lunch.

Remember I said our food was in plastic baggies... These aren't ziplocks, they are just regular baggies. So here we are, no sivlerwear, no plates, biting little holes in our baggies and sucking out our "sack lunches" staring off into the ocean. I'm not going to say the food was bad because it was the same as everything else we have been eating but I will say sucking it our of a plastic baggie not only gives an interesting texture but makes me have a bit more respect for astronauts.

The second dive was much like the first but still amazing and before we knew it the day was over. The evening was our usual wandering around town finding cheap food and relaxing.