The flight times are
Manila 4:50 AM
Legazpi 5:59 AM
The Grab taxi guy was sweet. We made excellent time. Immediately on entering the departure drop off we saw multiple huge lineups outside. Each domestic departure airport door has security screening. I had no time to look ahead and see if the lines are moving fast enough to just bear it. I also did not know how things were going inside. Although we were 2 hours early we might have issues. Upon exiting the taxi, we were immediately approached by a security person offering us an opportunity to jump the line for 400 Pesos. We figured it was wise. He gladly took my 500 and offered no change. Asshole. Soon we were led to another of his buddies at the front of a line pushing the next person in line aside. Our first experience of corruption. How can a people live this way? Enjoy your Karma sandwiches guys. Once at the check in counter we had our next surprise. Somehow we missed (or did we) a weight limit on our checked bags at time of purchase. 10 KG's max. Who has a 10 KG checked bag? Crazy prices for more weight. We each have 20 KG bags. Bummer, it costed like $150 for us. Airplane Robbery. Nice scam Philippines Air. Oh well, from now on, we will check in in advance paying then for extra weight which is often less $ that at the counter.
Security was simple, and soon were were sitting. We met a really nice talkative man from the UN. I needed to think and check emails so I hid somewhere else. Michelle and KT talked with this interesting man until our plane was ready to board. The flight was super quick and soon we were at the really small Legazpi airport. I love small airports. Everything is so simple. Being able to walk off either side of the plane is sweet as well. As we were grabbing out bags I saw sign for Kaitlyn Quinn and Co. Cool our rep was waiting. I forgot his name but it sure is nice to have a person who's got your back after leaving the plane. He led us to a nice taxi and soon were blasting on a 1 hour journey to Elysia Beach Resort http://elysia-donsol.com/. We were greeted warmly, filled out a few forms and soon were on our final part of this journey a bamboo boat taxi. The crew kindly carried our heavy bags (for free PhilippinesAir :-) ) and we enjoyed the hours long sunny wavy ride to Ticao Island Resort. https://www.ticao-island-resort.com/ The staff at Ticao Island treated us like rock stars. Meeting us at the shore, carrying our stuff. Even our Dive Master GL was there to greet us. While our stuff is carried to our awesome Cabana, a little more diving related paperwork is filled out. We had not yet eaten a meal since we left so a late breakfast was a treat. After a short nap we completed our paperwork and were soon sorting out our dive gear with GL. He provided an excellent dive briefing for the famous Manta Bowl. We soon learning this site is host to some scientists doing Manta/Whaleshark research for Lamave (Large Marine Vertebrates Research Institute) https://www.lamave.org/ticao. Kaitlyn was very happy to meet them, hang out and learn of any future volunteering opportunity. I even offer some technical advice for their underwater camera's you will see later.
They have 4 underwater stations located in the Manta bowl area. In each station is a GoPro housed in a waterproof container built. The GoPro's are setup to shoot a shot every second. Even with a battery bank, the GoPro requires a battery change and memory card swap every 3 days. A boat to the site and the diving equipment required is very expensive. I was hoping a member of their universities engineering team could implement custom made 18650 or similar based Lithium based batteries packs offering much more time between camera swaps. A mirrored large capacity SSD would be way better than the GoPro's smaller and low write endurance microSD card. Even building a custom camera with a raspberry or equivalent would be better and may offer much less power consumption. It was nice to have a receptive audience in Josh the lead scientist. Our package included a Firefly tour. A few of the locals threw us each in the front of a small canoe and took us about 1 KM into a small inlet. Fireflies dot a few trees in the area and are easily triggered by a flashlight. It was a nice end to our first day. We were baked and ready for bed
Our Cabana was awesome. 2 nice bigs beds for Michelle and I. KT had a loft all to herself. We slept great and were soon up for a 7 AM breakfast and 8 AM diving departure. GL and the boat staff had everything ready for us. It was wise to not do the hard dive first. This way we could sort out our weights and do a checkout. We cruised along the shoreline towards San Miguel West. Our dive was really nice and simple. Such beautiful corals here. Our next 2 dives were 20 minutes away at the Manta Bowl. The water was 24C and felt kinda cold. Even with a 3mm full suit and 2.5mm shorty, I was shivering. The Manta bowl dives are often with strong currents. Fortunately the tide amplitudes were low for a few days. We dove twice at the bowl on the first day. No Manta's unfortunately. Still it's full of life so not a waste of time. We saw the Lamave camera's, cool. Between Manta Bowl dives we ate our packed lunch. It was great. Lunch is a great time to give the body some surface interval too. On dive day two we first hit GL's favorite spot Shegn's garden. It was sweet. Then again we hit the bowl for two more dives. On this trip we took a few scientists from the Lamave group. They had to do some maintenance on a GPS receiver station. The seas were kinda rough and windy. It was a bit challenging to line them up in position. I have a video of that.
Our two manta bowl dives were fun but no manta's. Oh well. We were soon back and enjoying the evening. We had originally planned to leave the next day but this place is too nice. We decided to extend for 2 more nights. We had to push forward a Whale shark tour at our next destination, Elysia Beach Resort. Luckily both resorts are owned bu the same company so sorting that out was easy. The Ticao Island Resort manager Vicky was very helpful and understanding. She suggested with our new extended stay we could consider a local island tour by motorcycle. 700 Peso's each with 3 destinations. Matang Tubig Cold Spring, the local village and a local waterfall. Sure we said. The first part of our tour is dirt roads offering beautiful landscapes of this untouched area. Soon a recently build concrete road leads everywhere. The spring was very important as it's water is directed to many rice fields. The trip to town was nice. We were the only tourists I saw. Smiles, stares and waves were popular. I foolishly had very little cash on me. We stopped at three "ATM's" in town. None of them were banks but rather money exchange places. None of them recognized my cards. Oh well. I had just enough to provide a few generous tips. Vicky later confirmed I could use online payments to make tips, whew. Our last stop was a locally known waterfall. It was cool. The guys let us swim and goof off for a bit. It was a fun little tour. 200 each as a tip is great for these guys. They were awesome.
Once back home we met some travelers from France. They invited us to join them to visit the local village school, Tacdugan Elementary. They had gone earlier bringing a massive amount of candy and treats to share with the kids and they all participated in a garbage pickup. I told him I like the idea of meeting and helping but candy and crap is the last thing these kids need. We decided instead to join and give out some Canadian pins we had plenty of. The pins were seriously popular. We walked to the school and the closer we got the more crowd control became a need. Luckily our visit is at the end of the school day because the kids went nuts. Once on the school grounds, the teachers and parents swarmed us taking selfies. It was wild. We mingled, talked shared stories, played. I found myself talking with the teachers about the importance of diet and taking care of teeth. Undernourishment, and cheap garbage food is a problem here. Without access to affordable dentistry, these kids are already behind the health 8 ball. I let the teachers know modern electric toothbrushes, although expensive and not commonly available, they could be sourced and really be a solution. They seemed to be really inspired by this information. Cool. After our little gathering we had made the kids 30 minutes late for their walks home and parent pickups. It was time to walk back picking garbage as we went. I hope the packaging from the garbage food they were given does not become tomorrows garbage.
So we had a few more days here. We decided what the hell, we came all this way to dive, let's do another day. We told Vicky and GL the plan. Vicky suggested visiting two other places on this dive. Once is the Catandayagan Falls, the other some formation rocks where snorkeling is great. From door to door the boat ride is 1.5 hours and thus 1500 Peso's more for fuel. That's fair. Knowing we were booked, I shared our ride information with our new friends Al and Tanya from the UK. We had met them on our second dive day. They were excited they could hitch a ride with us and only pay for their equipment use. We had already paid for the boat and fuel. We were pumped to see some Manta's and figured the early bird is best. We shot for a 6:00 AM departure. Breakfast and lunch were to be packed. We learned some young French girls were coming for the ride, sweet. Bed early and up early
We blasted to the Manta bowl on time, donned our gear and saw no Manta's, bummer. Oh well, we cruised over to another of favorite GL's spots a national park. Breakfast enroute was nice. We all first snorkelled the waters of the park. It was wicked. Then we dooned out gear to dive what GL now calls GL's garden. It was crazy nice. After jumping back on board, we cruised over to Catandayagan Falls. We then booted over to some formation rocks ate lunch and chilled. It was seriously hot so we snorkeled to cool off. Our last dive of the day wa the Great Wall of Ticao. Wall dives are a great way to test your buoyancy. It's pretty incredible how deep the water is there. Don't drop anything.
Soon we were back on board and blasting back home. The seas were a bit rough so our little bamboo boat got knocked a bit. They are tough little craft with interestingly designed stabilizers. We disembarked and switched to a new Cabana as our earlier one had been booked previously. It was newer and pretty sweet. It was time to pack and get ready for our next home, Elysia Beach Resort. As I had very little cash, I tried to pay our bills and tips online with Vicky. Once again the crummy internet prevented it. Luckily the next morning things went through. The rumor of my nice tip spread to many of the staff and they were very appreciative. Our boat was going to be a little late so Michelle and KT had time to take rides on some little horses. That was cute. The entire staff team helped us load our stuff and were soon waving us goodbye from the beach. What a completely different place Ticao Island is. Our boat ride was great and soon we were on the shores of Elysia Beach Resort. http://elysia-donsol.com/
Elysia was really nice. The staff knew we need good internet to plan our Korea trip. Their WiFi was terrible but at least we could use our cells. We had 3 days to rest up, plan, blog a bit and check out the famous Whale Sharks. It was great. The Whale Shark tour is well controlled. Each boat has a GPS tracker and the sharks are respected here. Visitors are controlled, and cautioned to position themselves so as to not upset the sharks. Our boat was staffed with 4. One scouts from high above. Another jumps in with us and instructs when to jump in. If you are heady and fast, he puts you into perfect positions for a view. Even though it's low season, it was still quite busy. We jimped in about 8 times to see 2 whales multiple times. It was great. After our tour, I had no cash left for a tip. Our return trip motorcycle taxi driver mentioned he could drive me to the local ATM. Yay and it worked. I had enough cash for tips and our last few meals. We flew in a few days so just enough time left to fix up some images with Dive+ and blog some more. Our flight is a bit long and crazy again so time to eat well and rest up.
See ya Manila
Hello Legazpi
A little nicer than Manila
Forms and paperwork
Our last transport for a while
A bamboo/wooden boat
You will see many other shots of these
A room with a view
Yay, time to chill
Relaxing finally
Our bamboo diving boat
KT once again in her element
Less splashy and windy down below
Packed lunch
That's my name on the tag
Huge binoculars recovered from a ship
The view is impressive
Another diving day
Lot's of people this time
A image of the Manta bowl used for training and briefings
The Manta bowl dive instructions
The currents can be quite strong
Motorcycle tour time
Our friendly local drivers
The horses run free here.
Only a few are tame enough to ride
The others are a little nervous
Walking with the kids to school
This concrete pathway was put together by a previous volunteer group
Its quite steep. During the rainy season it was muddy walk for the kids
Now it's so much safer for them
The school
Parents and teachers excited to see us
The principle handing out Canadian pins
Homemade tops many of the kids had
I'm talking with the teaching staff about our travels and health stuff
KT played with the kids
Heading back cleaning along the way
Yay another dive
Al and Tanya, super nice people
The Catandayagan Falls
One of the crew likes to hang in that little cave
Stopping for lunch
It was crazy hot
New camera, yet to learn how to hold it
Note finger in the way
Michelle Al and Tanya escaping the sun
Friendly one eyed dog
Farewell waves from ashore
Our new homes first new day
Heading out to see some whale sharks
I barely fit
Whale shark paperwork
Whale shark training
Whale shark boat crew
Looking for shadows
New camera Pano
Moving on to Dive plus photo's now
Sorry but Dive plus editing process stomps on the dates
The order is thus messed up
Let's jump in
Splash
Quick switch to the local falls
Our scientist friends preparing to jump in
Quick switch to the Catandayagan Falls
Love it down here
Whale Sharks
Down the wall dive we go
A bug family of urchins
GL practicing buoyancy
Homemade rudder on our cool boat
Lotsa Movie Links
Ticao Island Remote villages 1
Ticao Island Remote villages 2
Manta Bowl Drift Dive 1
Manta Bowl Drift Dive 2
Manta Bowl Drift Dive 3
Manta Bowl Manta Camera Checkout
Tacao Island Park Nemo
Tacao Island Park Cruising
Tacao Island Park Jelly
Wall Dive
DSMB Rocketship
Ticao Island School Candy Crazyness
Ticao Island School photo
Ticao Island School Singing
Ticao Island School Top Challenge
Ticao Island School Skipping
Ticao Island School Garbage Picking
Catandayagan Falls Steve's Asus
Catandayagan Falls Kaitlyn's Asus
Crusing to the Catandayagan Falls
Bino Dolphins
Ticao Island Last Breakfast
Tacao Island Happy Dog
Oleb and Juan Horse Ride
Ticao Island Final Goodbye
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