From Perth, the flight to Singapore is five and a half hours with a six am arrival for the red eye special, leaving a couple of hours wandering around in the award winning Changi airport. From Singapore to Manila, a further three and a half hours flying time is required giving an arrival in Manila early afternoon. I choose Singapore Airlines for their friendly service, extensive network & reputation, there are many options for flights including the low cost carriers and this can make considerable savings to the whole trip.
The Mercer most liveable city ratings has not been harsh on Manila, it is listed at the bottom of the ratings for very good reasons, poverty, pollution, over-crowding, crime & corruption ensure Manila is a city best avoided at all costs, for reasons I sometimes don’t know, I do catch up with friends living in the metropolis of Manila. For the best part, Manila does not have many attractions so there isn’t much exiting to see there or do apart from catching up with friends. I would avoid Manila altogether if it were not for these social gatherings. The up market area of Makati has the Greenbelt shopping malls giving the traveller the best respite from the poverty of the slum areas so frequently seen in this city. Specialty shops such as Versace, Hugo Boss, Dolce & Gabana, Tiffany, Rolex & Louis Vuitton all trade from the five malls in this five star complex, these up-market goods don’t just cater for the expatriate living in the Philippines and a rapidly developing class of Manila elites is emerging.
The top end restaurants and bars that reside in the Greenbelt complex are tastefully decorated by the green leafy surrounds of the entertainment precinct for their upwardly mobile clientele.
Once out of Manila, the Philippines have much to offer the diver, while the Philippines has been slow to develop its tourism infrastructure, the islands of the Visayas are busting with potential to satisfy both the experienced and novice diver. There are many dive resorts scattered around these under developed islands with many dive sites begging to be discovered.
A number of airlines service the Philippine islands including Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific, Sea Air, & Zest Air there is also the ferries to cater to the diver with a little time to spend and a tighter budget.
Travelling to Leyte requires a short one hour flight from Manila to Tacloban, the small capital city in the centre of the island. The exchange rate at time of writing was approximately 40 peso for 1 Australian dollar. A short jeepney ride from the airport to the bus terminal will set you back about 40 peso ($1.00), the minivan ride to the city of Maasin will cost you 220 peso ($5.50), the ride takes about four hours and is crowded & bumpy ride on their concrete roads. Maasin is a thoroughly forgettable city; a change of transport is required to get to Padre Burgos, another forgettable town located on the entrance of Sogod Bay. A short tricycle ride to the bus station will set you back around 10 peso then a one hour minivan ride to the resort will cost 30 peso (75 cents).
All up, the ride will cost around 300 peso ($7.50) and is a six hour ordeal, you could of course call up the resort and they pick you up from the airport and you can ride in air-conditioned comfort for 4000 peso ($100) and you are there in three hours.
Peter’s Dive Resort is owned and managed by an Australian family originally from Perth who has relocated to the Philippines; the resort has been operating more than 10 years and was the first on this stretch of Sogod Bay.
The resort is located directly on the shore overlooking the passage from Leyte to Panaon Island.
The best dive sites in this area are located on Panaon Island, there are a number of vertical and sloping walls loaded with soft corals and gorgonian fans, the soft corals are in magnificent condition. A non-profit coral conservation organisation studies the coral growth and fish species in the area using volunteers who reside on the island. Most of the volunteers seemed pretty young and all who swam past our boat had British accents, this appears to be the perfect recruitment process for potential marine biologists.
Napantoa is the premium dive on Panaon Island beginning with a sloping wall and the moving to a vertical wall with a 45 metre depth and ending on a sloping wall with the larger pelagic fish patrolling the walls. The smaller bait fish are in abundance in the area bravely venturing out into the current and then darting to the safety of the coral when a pelagic is sighted. The Panaon Island reserve is a marine sanctuary, patrolled by the locals keeping the destructive fishing methods found across the Philippines out of the bay, this community based policing is working well.
The trip across the bay is not usually mundane, it pays to keep your eyes open as there is always something moving through or jumping out of the water. On one trip across, a pod of spinner dolphins was sighted ahead, there would easily be 40 dolphins in the pod and they all raced forward to ride the bow wake. We had as many as ten dolphins riding the bow wake; I never fail to get excited about this. Fortunately for us, this style of boat has a narrow beam and pointed bow and it didn’t take much effort video these guys playing. Every trip across Sogod Bay from Leyte to Panaon Island resulted in a sighting of this pod of Spinner dolphins frolicking on the surface.
The local reefs in front of the resort are sloping walls to 50 metres in depth where the whaleshark of the region traverse. Interesting species such as pygmy sea horses, frog fish and & hawksbill turtles are found along these walls and some great macro photographic opportunities present themselves. The whaleshark season runs from December to May although many of the sharks are still sited outside of the season. I back-rolled off the tender on the house reef 150 metres from the resort and much to my surprise was face to face with a whaleshark cruising directly under the boat. I don’t know who was more surprised, me or him, but before I even cleared my mask, I was paddling hard to get out of his way. I always prefer a negative entry from a back-roll so to clear the boat and any other divers rolling off and into the water, today it was my lucky day. This guy was gently moving along and I had no trouble keeping up on scuba, I was at a depth of 14 metres following this big fella along the reef.
We were that close to the resort that the boatman was able to signal to the resort manager and he was able to grab his snorkelling gear and wade out too. This was late July and the whalesharks, while less frequent were still swimming around, today was my lucky day. The day before, a whaleshark swam straight under the moored boat as we were preparing to leave, on this occasion, we were too slow to get in the water but the trail of bubbles was a giveaway of his presence.
The banca (pronounced bunker) is an outrigger style boat used throughout the Philippine Islands and is a perfect diving platform. The boats have a narrow beam ensuring minimal resistance through the water, these boats use old truck engines and power through the water. The banca, Whaleshark II owned by Peter’s Dive Resort is a very powerful outrigger boat giving a fast and comfortable ride across the bay.
Moorings have been sunk along all the dive sites
ensuring no anchoring damage to the reef, the banca drops the divers at the
entry point with the divers drifting along with the current, at the completion
of the dive, the guide deploys a surface marker buoy and the following banca
picks the divers up.
The dive sites on the Leyte side of the bay have sloping reefs that may be accessed as a shore dives, there is no visible dynamite fishing damage to the reefs that I dived, many of the typhoons miss the area resulting in pristine reefs. A small dingy can also whisk the diver to the local reefs and we dived a reef that the guide hadn’t visited for a year, he was overjoyed about the coral regrowth in that patch of reef, a positive outcome for health of Sogod Bay in general.
During my stay, parts of the resort were under refurbishment with the hard working Filipino locals toiling away for long hours, I was impressed with their work ethic. The dining area was close to completion with fantastic views across the bay, I took my meals poolside due to the construction and the views were no less brilliant.
Alan, a Tasmanian, runs the dive operations and is Philippines based, Alan is a commercial diver who is also into the tek scene and fluent in the local dialect. Nitrox fills are available, while I never requested any as I had sufficient bottom times in all of my dives, they were ready to go, I am sure he would be more than happy to offer decompression diving to the suitably qualified. I did show up with a DIN regulator and they easily accommodated me, sometimes not so easy in this part of the world, no request seemed too hard.
The resort staff was very professional and made my stay at their resort memorable; the dive staff were very good at locating the small macro creatures. There were times they were pointing out tiny creatures and I was straining to see what they were actually pointing at, they were all good guys and made the days on the boat fun, and this is what we get into diving for, I couldn’t ask for more.
I would recommend diving Leyte to my friends and Peter’s Dive Resort is an excellent establishment, I thoroughly enjoyed my stay, the diving was superb, the staff professional and the resort was very relaxing.
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