After a long dry day travelling from Puerto Galera to Dumaguete we were ready for more time underwater! Our morning started with a good healthy breakfast and a quick diving paperwork check. The Atlantis Resorts are very efficient at transferring the diver data from one dive shop to another, so you don’t have to waste any time with formalities. When we arrived at the dive shop our weight and equipment requirements were already set up in our cubby holes as well as a nice clean beach towel that gets replaced daily.
Day 7 was a busy one with 4 dives on offer in the local area including a night dive for those that wanted to partake. Once the briefing was completed and the tanks were analysed we took off for the first 2 dives of the day at Masaplod North and Talisay where we explored the reef in search of all sorts of critters including a variety of frogfish, shrimps, nudibranch, soft coral crabs, ornate ghost pipefish as well as a beautiful selection of soft and hard corals where turtles and yellow snappers also made an appearance.
After lunch, which was served back at the resort, we analysed the afternoon tanks and made our way to the 3rd dive site of the day, Dauin South. This dive site starts on a rich sandy slope and ends in a beautiful reef where you can see the occasional giant grouper, green turtles, different types of pipefish, lobsters, nudibranchs and an uncountable number of garden eels living in the sand at the base of the reef. We were also pleasantly surprised with the massive barracuda swimming over the reef.
A fourth local dive was offered in the evening, but I opted to go and relax in the Spa and had a Swedish massage instead, offered by the professional resort masseurs.
Day 8 was one of my favourite diving days as I got my very first encounter with harlequin shrimps on the 2nd dive of the day at Thalatta.
The day started as usual with a healthy breakfast and the tank analysing before we headed out for our 2 morning dives. The first dive was at Dauin North, one of the most popular dive sites in the area home to ghost pipefish, frogfish, different species of shrimps and crabs, nudibranchs on a healthy reef that hosts lots of different reef fish and invertebrates.
Our 2nd dive was at Thalatta, a dive site offering great macro encounters, teaming with life and patches of corals here and there where we found a variety of nudibranchs and flatworms, robust and ornate ghost pipefish, painted frogfish, harlequin shrimps and many more.
After lunch back at the resort we analysed the afternoon tanks and headed for Sahara, another great muck diving site offering a great variety of critters. Oh, what a day to remember and full of beautiful emotions!
