Dumaguete

Clown Fish

The diving in the Philippines is amazing.  It's not like diving in the Caribbean where you have walls and walls of vibrant coral.  It's more about spotting the creatures you never get to see elsewhere.  We're seeing (and diving) so much, we're having trouble keeping track after our dives. 

We're having underwater camera troubles, so we're not going to have as many pictures as usual.  The older elph's battery won't hold a charge, plus the flash isn't working. Since the strobe  mounting bracket is configured for this elph and not the newer elph, the strobe was out of commission too.  Good news is that we were able to find someone with a dive tool -- next time, we're bringing all our dive tools.  

Diving itself isn't as easy for me: 

• There's no dock, so it's a bit of a challenge to get onto the boat.  
• It also took me some time to get used to a weight belt, rented BCD.  Weight belt kept sliding down my hips which dragged my feet down.
• I hate my 5 mm wetsuit - it's ripping the skin off my knuckles when I pull it on.  It's the only wetsuit I brought, and I can't use the rental suits since I'm still cold in a 5 mm.  Poor Pete, I was pretty miserable imagining pulling on the wetsuit another 20 times.  I finally figured out that I should just keep the thing on all day.

They're feeding us 3 massive meals a day, but I'm still starving after dives and in the middle of  the night.  I miss my constant snacks throughout the day.

Cuttlefish 

Turtle