Night dive at Babusanta

I had done one night dive sometime before (at the Leticia by the Sea resort), and it gave me such an entirely new and exciting experience. So as a belated birthday celebration, my friends and I spent the night at Babusanta Beach to see its seascape after sunset.

We went diving with the Carabao Dive Center organized dive tour on Saturday, 30 July 2011, and had ourselves dropped off at Babusanta afterwards. The beach has been around since I was a kid and it looks pretty much the same now: wood-and-thatch open huts which can double as rudimentary quarters, and not much else. There’s a store for your basic needs — bottled water, softdrinks, canned goods, junk food — but they close at around dinner time. You can bring your own food or order from the caretakers (limited to a few basic Filipino dishes). There’s a grill that you can use or you can have the caretakers cook your food for you.

Babusanta and Dayang dive sites

At around 6:20pm when the sun had finally set, Rodney and I, together with our dive guide, Niño, plunged into the surprisingly warm sea (about 80°F/27°C). The weather wasn’t quite cooperating, however, and we found ourselves buffeted by strong currents right after beach entry. After only a few minutes underwater, Niño aborted the dive when he saw Rodney and I were struggling. The current running parallel to the shore was way too strong. We surfaced, went back to our hut and decided to wait it out.

There’s another beach beside Babusanta, called Dayang, and its shore doesn’t run parallel to Babusanta’s. Thinking that the underwater current might be behaving differently there, we trekked a good 200 meters (with our gear on) to Dayang, but were quickly disappointed. The waves looked even more threatening there. Niño didn’t even let us descend.

Dejected, we made our way back to Babusanta. But halfway, the waters suddenly calmed down. We wasted no time getting back in the water! We had a bottom time of 75 minutes, having stayed at an average of only 15 feet or so; the deepest we went to was less than 30 feet.

Babusanta is generally a muck-diving site. Since it’s a very popular beach on Talikud Island, with countless boats anchoring there every weekend, the area’s coral reefs have long wasted away. What’s left now looks like an underwater wasteland: sand, fragments of dead coral, sea grass. But to the experienced night diver, as our dive guide showed us, the dive site is a wonderland.

We saw critters that we had not seen before — creatures that probably don’t go out while the sun is up. We spotted a fish that at first looked like a frogfish, but I think it was a stargazer. There were eels, sleeping lionfish, sea snails out and about, and quite a few hermit crab wearing sea anemones on their backs.

Cleaner crab that were bigger than usual were everywhere to be seen. Stonefish, too, were out in plain sight.

My favorite part was when I spotted a tube anemone with lots of shrimp living on and around it. According to literature, this type of anemone is the favorite host of squat shrimp, and they were there indeed — maybe about a dozen. But there was also a few graceful anemone shrimp (transparent body, with white spots), and another type that I have yet to identify.

Sole (similar to flounder, but more oblong-shaped) were in abundance, and I had actually wanted to catch one for dinner. But I realized it was already late and we hadn’t brought any charcoal for cooking.

Despite the seeming bleakness of Babusanta’s sea floor, coral are struggling to come back. There are clumps of coral heads here and there, from 30 to 10 feet below sea level. These clusters are amazingly full of life, with fish and sea snails and sea urchins.

The problem is, boatloads of people keep coming here, quashing young marine life and smothering them with garbage. Everywhere during our night dive we saw foil wrappers, discarded plates, plastic sheets, bottles….

I wish beach-goers would be more respectful of nature, especially of life in the sea. I don’t think we can stop people from going to beaches, but there should be a way to get them to stop littering at the very least.

The following day, we had another dive, this time entering via Dayang. It was supposed to be a dawn dive, but the habagat winds (southwest monsoon) were in full rage. Thankfully, the winds let up at around 8:25am. After lunch, we rode with the Carabao divers again for yet another dive in the afternoon. That’s five dives in all for that weekend!

During the Dayang dive, we saw juvenile sole everywhere! Probably not very good at camouflaging themselves yet. It was fun watching them scurry off just below the sand. I also saw my first cowfish — it stood its ground when we approached and wasn’t intimidated by us at all. Most fascinating find that day was this white eel-looking fish about a foot long. Niño touched it lightly and in two blinks it had backed itself into the sand tail first! (Update: It was a crocodile snake eel.)

Total spend for the five dives: ₱1,850 (5 tanks, boat transfers, dive guide fee). Overnight fee (use of the hut) at Babusanta: ₱300. Cooking charge: ₱100 (for everything we asked them to cook!). Not bad, no?

Babusanta Beach is on Talikud Island, Samal. Pictures courtesy of Rodney Jao.