The joy of exploring new dive sites

It was rather disappointing that the Davao Reef Divers Club wasn’t able to do the planned dive safari during the last looong weekend (27-30 August). We did still get to dive each day (except Sunday for me), but I felt robbed of the opportunity to dive the other side of Samal Island (the one facing Davao Oriental), which I’ve never done.

But last weekend made up for it big time!

Together with my dive buddy, Christian, and Carabao Dive Center dive master, Richard, and his student for advanced open water, I had four day dives and one night dive — all at locations I’d never dived before. Diving new spots is always thrilling, don’t you think?

On Saturday after the first dive with the Carabao organized dive tour, we had ourselves dropped off at a private resort on Talikud Island. It’s in Barangay Sta. Cruz, a kilometer or so before the Leticia by the Sea beach resort. We were there to do a quick survey of the waters in front for installing artificial reef domes later this month, and for an exploratory night dive.

Here are photos of the two dives we did at the resort:

van der Linden Resort

The dive site (yet to be named) in front of the van der Lindens’ resort has a gentle slope past the end of the jetty to about 40 feet, then drops down to a flat shelf at 60 feet. This area is quite large, spanning the entire front of the resort and beyond.

The shore and the space up to 40 feet below are clearly victims of irresponsible fishing practices. The locals say that the worst offender was the fishnet, which used to be dragged across the bottom, devastating much marine life in the process through the years. It’s not being done in those parts anymore, and new coral are springing to life in patches everywhere — but it will take a very long time before that area recovers.

Beyond that, however, at the 60-foot level, coral heads appear relatively healthy. Small tropical fish are aplenty, but no sign of the larger species. The resort’s caretaker, though, said that there are a species similar to the Napoleon wrasse calling it home in those waters. Sharks, too, he said. Too bad we didn’t see any.

The night dive was pretty exciting for us: it was our first time there, and it was the first night dive for two of the group. The newness of the experience added an element of thrill to the dive.

There is a huge rock at 60 feet, shaped like almost like a man’s head. Looming in the darkness, it looked eerie and foreboding. But upon closer inspection, it was full of life and activity, and that dispelled any irrational fear right away. Beyond that are other coral and stone formations, and to the south lay a wide spread of cabbage coral, glistening sea urchins, and sea cucumbers lazily feeding.

The Davao Reef Divers Club is set to drop the artificial reef domes sometime in the 3rd week of September. This will hopefully encourage the fish stock to eventually return to optimum levels in the near future.

The following day, the Datu Budas dive boat picked us up from the resort and we proceeded to two sites that Christian and I had never dived before: Mushroom Rock and Punk Rock.

The first site is called Mushroom Rock because of this wide underwater mountain that dominates it. Punk Rock, I assume, was named after the first one… just for kicks, most probably!

Mushroom Rock

(Too bad Christian’s underwater strobe conked out, so no photos from this and the next dive.)

3 dive sites

The underwater mountain has a tapering bottom, hence the “mushroom” appellation, and is surrounded by a sloping sandy bottom. I saw heaps upon heaps of soft mushroom coral all abloom — I mean, most of them had their polyps out, probably because of the strong current laden with rich nutrients. The tropical fish there are much larger than in the usual dive sites around Talikud Island: a testament to the fact that, with no or little human intervention, the seas will thrive!

The group I dove with — the guys from the previous day plus one — circled the humongous rock, which is roughly the size of a 4-storey building, and as wide as a basketball court. That’s how it seemed to me anyway. It bottoms out at around 100 or 120 feet (36.5m). I really would’ve preferred staying put in one area rather than race around, because there were so many things to see even in a few square feet of that dive site! The stately angelfish and skittish triggerfish and myriads of other tropical beauties were going about their business as I watched. Then there are the magnificent sea fans of various colors — I could’ve spent the whole dive just scrutinizing each branch for a sighting of pygmy seahorse…

This area of Samal (the southeastern point) is known to be frequented by marine turtles. One group from our boat saw a juvenile pawikan… I keep wondering when it’s going to be my turn to see one in the wild!

Punk Rock

After lunch on board and about a couple of hours’ surface interval, Richard guided us around Punk Rock.

Instead of having one single rock formation, this site has several, although much smaller than Mushroom Rock, and spaced out from each other. The site is dotted with rocky overhangs, shallow caves, large crevices. It was exciting to enter a cave and see saucer-sized cleaner shrimp and other critters. I saw sea krait lurking under stones and snaking through sea grass; always a delight to watch these deadly yet super-shy creatures.

Towards the tail end of our second dive, the current picked up and we enjoyed drifting (and bumping into each other!) with the powerful underwater stream. And since the topology was undulating, it was fun dodging sand dunes and coral heads while we drifted.

These two dive sites are pretty far off from Davao City. From Sta. Ana Wharf, it took Datu Budas more than 2 hours to reach Mushroom Rock (including the docking interval at the private resort). But it was worth the trip, both for the undersea experience and the company on board!