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Puerto Galera, Philippines
So its exactly 2 months since i left the UK and thought now im finally back to ciivilisation i'd write one of these new fangled blogs! to say its been a busy 2 months has been an understatement as i shall now explain.......it all started with Typhoon Ondoy hitting Manila 4 days before i was due to arrive this did shed some immediate doubt on whether or not i would be going but it seemed that only parts of Manila got hit. having arrived at the airport we had the usual, airline has overbooked the flight and everyone turned up! result....100 very pissed off people! luckily thoughi managed to get on the flight and here began a 42 hour journey which i wont dwell on. all i shall say is it ended in a little village called Napantao on Panaon Island in the Region of Southern Leyte.
I'll also just state for reference that when i arrived at 7pm it was 30 degrees! it pretty much stayed that temperature 24/7 except for occasionally when it was cloudy and dropped to a balmy 27degrees!!!
Having arrived at Napantao and the Coral Cay base camp a few things were made immediately clear to me. Firstly was that there werent any showers but there was a well close by (100 yd trek into the coconut trees) and secondly that the toilets did flush but this was by means of a bucket full of water taken from the close by ocean! the base camp itself was basic but this was to be expected. after the initial bewilderment wore off we had dinner and crashed out for some sleep.
it was 6am and there was some nutter ringing a bell followed by the first (of many) playing of Morcheeba! this was to become the standard drill for waking up with CC. the next few days progressed with a check dive on the house reef followed by a few days chilling before the other two DT's Nick and lucy did their open water so we could all start advanced together.
having been delayed a few days by the first illness (ear infection) it was on my Advanced open water Nav dive that me and the instructor Tom looked above our heads to see a 6m WHALE SHARK cruise by. one of the best moments EVER!
after finishing my advanced the science began, this was 10 days of learning over a hundred fish, invertebrates, algae and corals so that we would know what the hell we were looking at during surveys. this was very hard and i complained a monumental amount but in the end i was so glad to have done it. i appreciate everything i see now so much more.
after this pretty intense week, Tom (we now shared a unique whale shark sighting invoked bond!) was feeling a bit left out and overwhelmed by all the science so made us do Rescue diver on a sunday with all of us hungover! we survived though and it turned out to be the only fun PADI course i did!
after completing science the surveys began, at this point i fell behind somewhat due to my ears flaring up again! the surveys themselves are very simple with 4 of us each taking fish, invertebrates, coral or running the dive and surverying 10m transects at a time. it was pretty much pot luck as to whether we got a really diverse and interesting reef or just sand as CC was aiming to survey the whole of Sogod Bay.
a few weeks after arriving we got to go accross the bay to Padre Burgos to do few dives and more importantly have some proper food!!! it was awesome (the food i mean) diving was also good with a few turtle sightings.
surveys and further injuries, including a lost toenail continued until the new dive trainees arrived 2 weeks after science ended. it was the day after they arrived on the way back from a town called Pintuyan right on the tip of Panaon Island that our boat Captain Ariel spotted a fin poke out of the water......this fin turned out to be a 6m+ whale shark feeding at the surface. we all piled in and spend the next 10 minutes having one of the best experiences of my life. this was only a baby too, the adults are twice its size. the shark it seemed was more intrigued by us than anything else. in spite of being enormous, whale sharks only eat plankton so the only part of them that is dangerous is the tail fin which could cause a lot of damage if you got too close (its incredibly powerful) even so we were all pretty terrified just by the sheer size of it. the shark swam around us for a while whilst feeding then seemed to disappear, at which point i stuck my head out of the water to ask Ariel if he could see it. i was greeted by a massive shout and after putting my head back in the water saw the same shark cruise underneath me at a distance of about 3 FEET!!! i then got a few minutes of swimming side by side with this amazing fish. i can say without a doubt i cant concieve that there is any other experience that even comes close! by the time i got back on the boat everyone was just in shock, some were close to tears. i dont think i can properly explain how we all felt.
it was around this point that i hard about my brother Josh and his girlfriend Hen getting Malaria whilst in Tanzania. many a day was spent worrying about the pair of them but luckily they both recovered and spend a cushty few weeks in a hotel in Cape Town!
it was after the main group arrived 5 or so after the whale shark day that us students became the teachers!!! we took all the new guys out to do pointy's which was really cool as we only got the chance to dive the house reef on saturdays! the reef right outside base was an amazing reef with a massive wall that we got to dive most saturdays. we got to do these pointy's for a few days then ran the tests for the new guys too! it must also be mentioned now that we were not allowed to drink in excess during the week, only on saturdays. so most of the saturdays since arriving were spent quite drunk just relaxing. one saturday we went up to Napantao villdage to do Videoke which is huge in the Philippines (literally one in every town or village at least!). We were also able to celebrate bonfire night with a big bonfire on the small beach next to bse which was amazing.
after science week was over again we had a few more weeks of surveys interrupted more and more often by the weather (rainy season in Southern Leyte is mid November to January). it was also during these weeks that Kai from head office came out to resolve certain staff issues which were swiftly resolved by Rich the EL leaving. there had been some quite major problems so this it turned out was the only outcome.
it was also at this point that i decided to leave a few weeks early to possibly meet up with Josh and Hen to spend some time with them after they had recovered and were at that point in China. so i had a few more surveys, managed to get my Deep speciality and packed up to leave on the 26th November. i was lucky in that on the day i had planned to leave, Amy the old science officer (taught me everything i know!) was also leaving for home. we had a loooong journey to Tacloban and then a 6 hour wait because it didnt take long enough! after arriving in Manila Amy headed off to Bangkok and i ventured into the completely mental and bloody massive city that is Manila. im not lying when i say it stretched as far as the eye can see in every direction! i had one night in Manila feeling throughly overwhelmed in such a huge place after the total isolation of Napantao. i decided at that point to bail out to Puerto Galera and that takes us to now. i hope that wasnt a completely useless summary of 8 weeks but i shall add more when i've recovered from this posting!!!
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