Diving in Dumaguete & Oslob

I’m still having a vacation hangover so let’s talk about the Philippines dive trip that I just came back from few days ago. This was a long awaited trip that I desperately needed as a little breather from work. 9 days getaway for the sun and the sea sounded just perfect for me.

Dumaguete is a city totally unheard of before we started planning for the trip. I was really excited when being told that there could possibly a session of whale shark interaction if we were lucky. Little did I know it would turn out to be a trip unforgettable. 

Thanks to Chris Yoon and Scuba Venture Voon who organized this trip so well that the rest of us could just sit back, relax and let the adventure unfolds. We took Cebu Pacific where we took a transit at Manila International airport for Dumaguete. If you buy a direct flight and not ala-carte, then you’ll also get to enjoy a seamless luggage check-in process. (totally recommended!)

Our group consisted of 7 people – all of them experienced divers except yours truly so this made me the most pampered girl among the group. I cannot thank my DMs enough for taking so well care of me throughout the trip, Reno and Jant. They are part of the Scuba Ventures dive operator in Dumaguete.

 

9 days stay was splitted into two parts – 4 days at Eldorado Resort in Dauin and 4 days in Dumaguete city itself (Nicanor Hotel).  Eldorado Resort is a nice and relaxing resort style hotel about 20 minutes from the city centre. The staffs are friendly but you don’t get much choices when it comes to food. Nicanor Hotel on the other hand is located right smack in the middle of the city centre where everything is within walking distance. Restaurants, money changer, wet market, shopping malls and beer joints you name it. My favourite restaurant in Dumaguete is this Spanish influenced establishment - Sans Rival Restaurant.

It’s a friendly university town, not too commercialized and it’s also the safest city in The Philipinnes! Living expenses is dirt cheap, a taxi ride on their colorful tricycle costs 9 pesos (RM0.65) for any destination within the city.

San Miguel 35 pesos/ bottle. You could literally drink like there’s no tomorrow.

One feat about The Pinoys though… they have no clues about our nasi goreng. One day Mae and I ordered a “nasi goreng with complimentary fresh fruits” from the hotel menu and it was disastrous. Imagine rice, prawns, ripen mangoes and bananas all stirred fried together. So eww!

 

The dive sites at Dauin, Teluan and Seqijor are paradise for macro lovers, unfortunately I’m a shallow person who doen’t know how to appreciate smaller &finer things in life under the water, I found muck diving quite a bore.

The monsoon rainy weather didn’t help either though we saw a rich variety of frog fishes, stone fishes and even crocodile fishes camouflaging in the sand and reefs. Where are the pelagic?! (but when I came so upclose and personal with those whale sharks at a later part, I was so overwhelmed that I literally peed in my wetsuit)

 

So things started to take a turn when we dived at Apo Island on the third day, the sun decided to entertain us a little longer. Loved the vertical wall dive and drift dive experience, it was really cool. We also saw a gigantic turtle oblivious to the group of divers surrounding him. Oh I almost forgot about the huge school of jacks too! They came in a pair of black and white which I thought was pretty interesting.

The reefs were so colorful and somehow marine lives also seemed to have magnified too, especially the clown fishes and nudi branches! Crazy huge.

 

But nothing quite prepared us (or at least for me) for the experience awaiting us at Oslob. It’s a Whale Shark Point where the struggling fishermen accidentally discovered it just last year. So here’s the controversial story, these fishermen started feeding the animals which makes them keep coming back for food and within months it has turned into an attraction spot for divers interacting with the 12 whale sharks. I’ve personally seen 8 or more and disclaimer, I learnt about the history of Oslob and the Butandings during the visit and admittedly, this may not be the right thing to advocate but I’m not here to support or condemn the moral behind this, so please don’t shoot me or do stop reading from here on if you are against sharks feeding.

 

We paid 2 trips to Oslob on separate days. That feeling was so surreal, my heart started to pound when I first saw those erected fins moving along the water surface, it reminds me of Steven Spielberg’s movie “JAWS” no less.

As our boat drew closer to the site, the sight of those huge black spotted sharks opening their mouths waiting to be fed was unbelievable. I went speechless. OMG Steph these are whale sharks, really, whale sharks! I was telling myself. Everybody started jumping into the water and few seconds later Chris Yoon yelled from the water surface, “This is actually quite scary! They are so huge! Becareful when you jump don’t hit them!”

 

True enough, I felt slightly disoriented as I was descending… those gentle giants were so overwhelming in size I was hanging on to my DM like a leech. I tried to distract myself and focused on the octopus (a first for me too) that the DM found hiding somewhere in the reefs while the whole time my heart didn’t stop racing. It was so cool… have you seen whale sharks? Checked. A school of them.

 

On our last day, we decided to pay these sharkies a visit one last time. It was a beautiful Thursday 12^th October 2012 and thank you Voon again for capturing this million dollar video clip. I shall let this video speak for itself.

 

It still feels so surreal how friendly these sharks were towards us. Even the DMs said it was also their first encounter seeing how they interacted with human in such a playful way.

 

All in all, it was a good dive trip, everyone had a great time and yours truly came back feeling rejuvenated

Credits to the below dive operators who have organized this trip:

Scuba Venture, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia– Voon 0164439733 (info@scubaventure.com.my)

Deep Outdoors Dive Shop, Manila, Philippines (https://www.facebook.com/deepoutdoors.diveshop)

Scuba Ventures, Dumaguete, Philippines (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Scuba-Ventures-Dumaguete/152212664844117?fref=ts)

Cooking dinner

is not exactly my forte.
One of my rare attempts in cooking up a storm on a quiet Sunday evening… well, not quite but it’s close. They say practice makes perfect right? Here’s a display of my culinary adventure…
Menu of the day:
1) Claypot chicken rice (first time was burnt, pic below was a better result in my second try )
2) Lotus roots with ribs soup
3) Stirred fried bean sprout with salted fish
4) Bavarian sausage from Jason’s Food Hall


and the verdict? well, nobody died :)

Super Kampung Style

 

Of all the Gangnam Style vids I’ve watched, I love this Malaysian parody best.

Are you part of the Gangnam fever yet?

Diving in Tioman

 

A year has come and gone like a whizz, as you know dive season in Malaysia only lasts for a good couple of months in a year (Mar – Aug) to guarantee good vis and safety; while the rest of the months are not advisable for diving as the coast is often plagued by monsoon & torrential rain. I am so happy to have logged my first dive trip this year in beautiful Tioman Island just last month.

This is my second visit to Tioman Island. Still remember once upon a time, I was once so skeptical about getting drowned and challenged myself on the probability of being eaten by sharks… but all is history now cos I took the plunge and did my open water in Tioman Tekek Village 2 years ago.

 

This time, we picked ABC Village for a change and we went with Ray’s Dive Centre. Why Ray’s Dive? There are other more notable dive operators to choose from like B&J (they seem to have more boats thus flexibility in choosing dive sites) but they are also super crowded. Ray’s Dive Operator on the other hand offers a very personalized experience, not to mention  Dive Master Brian is a super friendly guy!

On top of all that, they’ve earned extra brownie points from me for always equipping my gears and sometimes even carried them to the boat.  How gentleman of them right. Yes I can be a lazy diver like that

We’ve been very lucky to be blessed with great vis and splendid weather throughout the 4 days 3 nights stay, except on the very last day at Cebeh the drizzle started to get heavier by noon and DM decided to call it a day then. On our way back, EVERYONE on our boat was jolted by a pleasant surprise. We were surrounded by school of DOLPHINS!!! I lost count on the number but OMG they were so cute, two of these grey sweet creatures were swimming right beside our boat. That sight was surreal…   

When I’m not diving, then it’s sun bathing time

 

watching sunset with Raegge music in the background & Corona the mexican way... ahhh :)

people were ordering pizzas from Nazri’s Bar non-stop. From observation this looked like the most happening bar in ABC Village

We stayed at Nazri’s Chalets in their spacious air-conditioned deluxe room. Clean and nice place, the only thing I regretted not bringing was mossies repellant

The cozy night bar at Ray’s Dive Centre

beautiful sunset

Happy 2012!

Hello people! It’s been a while.

Life has been treating me pretty good. They say time flies when you are having fun, indeed! There has been so much happenings in the past months I do not even know where to start. It’s just really hard to keep up with a blog when social media never stop mushrooming new ways (mostly simpler and easier) of sharing life’s tit bits with your network. 

I don't have any grand plans for 2012. i just want to continue staying healthy and happy and hopefully with God's blessing I can give more . It's a wake up call after dad succumbed to cancer, a good friend who's barely recovering from a freak accident and a classmate who recently lost his wife to depression. I've come to realize life is no longer just about bonus and how skinny you can be...

Diving in Bidong Island

My last dive trip in 2011 was made to the forgotten island of Mini Saigon called Pulau Bidong.

Before embarking on the journey, I was quite apprehensive about the trip after having done some search about this little deserted island. Pulau Bidong used to be a UNHCR refugee camp post Vietnam war in the 1970s for about 20 years before it was declared as a restricted zone and closed from the public in 1991 ever since.

 

 

The small stretch of  beach on the island was in pristine condition, sea water was amazingly blue and crystal clear. But the 3 nights stay wasn't easy for most of us, certainly not yours truly. Amenities on the island were bare and rustic with limited food, electricity and water supply. But the divers say we’ll do whatever it takes to grab hold of this rare opportunity to get access into this new dive site.

One day we took a tour to check out the poignant remains of the once bustling refugee camp at the other side of the island, and I think all of us were quite mortified by the sight of it.

 

It looked like a badly rotten shack with no maintenance, there was a what it seemed like a temple and a church that has been destroyed and vandalised but some of relics still remain standing.

 

 

There was also a mass grave near the jetty commemorating those Vietnamese boat people who were drowned in the sea, and I also sighted some rusty kitchen utensils among the wild bush. Imagine that. It was beyond our imagination to think how on earth could this place used to house 40,000 refugees at one point.

 

As for marine life, some of the dive sites were quite pretty but we weren't blessed with good vis unfortunately. Well it's the end season afterall. The underwater gallery (first in Malaysia!) was pretty cool and so was the bus and excavator wreck. I'm happy to say that I'm now a ADD! (almost advance diver :P)

 

If you have not heard of Pulau Bidong, here's a little read.
http://www.terengganutourism.com/pulau_bidong.htm