Boy have I been slack with the blog. Time to make up for some lost time. We finally tore ourselves away from Dumaguete and took a minibus up the coast to grab the pumpboat across to Cebu island. Its so much cheaper than any of the tourist transport they were offering. We arrived at the other end and none of the public buses wanted to pick us up. Annoying. We walked a bit and jumped one to the transit town and took a bus up to Moalboal. Go with the non aircon buses as the aircon ones have a fixed minimum price of 60 pesos. I have no idea why. Damn Ceres. We were off to dive with the sardines in their bait ball or at least we thought we were. We walked the 5km down to the Moalboal dive resorts and settled in to a cheap place. A quick visit to the cheapest dive shop revealed that the sardines had not been to Moalboal for some time now and our main reason for coming all the way here was gone. In fact it seems that tourism in the town is down in general as the local tricycle drivers have that half starved, desperate for tourist money look touts in former boom towns tend to have. Sad really. Also means the liars come out. Anyway no sardines meant no diving as we had a limited budget (on hindsight I really think we should have done one dive and if you get here dive Pescador, but I am not sure its worth heading out of your way for. We decided to snorkel instead. The drop off is literally just offshore and the variety of fish is cool. In about 30 minutes of snorkelling we saw and followed a turtle and I saw a sea snake as well. The only downer was the large number of jellyfish that were in the sea. Painful in a bothersome kind of way. In a break between being stung we got chatting with an English kid. I told him they no longer had sardines here and his quite astute answer was 'well if you want sardines you can go to the market.' Very true, but I think it misses the point lol. There was a weird old German guy in our hotel and we had some good French crepes and Italian food in town. Spurs drew 2-2 with Basel (with Gallas, Bale and Lennon injured). We thought it was the end of the season right there and I am sitting here typing now while I anticipate the last day of the season. Can we pip Arsenal to 4th. We can always hope. Maybe they will eat some shitty lasagna.
We were up early the next day to walk out of Moalboal and get the bus to Oslob for the whale sharks. We were attempting to get there and onwards to Bohol in one day. Ambitious but doable, so we thought. We hadn't factored in the shittiness of the local transport mafia. They waved away the 6am bus when we got there (Cannelle disagrees with me on this) and then tried to sell us transport to Oslob for 400 pesos. Ridiculously expensive. They were chancing it, but we were worried we would miss the whale sharks. Pressure and stress were cranked up. Eventually we got a public bus around 7am after fighting off the parasites for an hour. With the change it cost us less than 100 pesos each, even though they tried to stick us on the aircon bus for 60 pesos to go 15km and we had to leap onto the non aircon for them to stop and let us on properly. We drove to Oslob. About halfway along Cannelle saw loads of signs for watching whale sharks. I figured it was just copycat villages we had read about. I figured wrong. We got to Oslob and had to go back the way we came. Of course they had a helpful tricycle for us. Cebu people are not as nice as those on Negros. We opted for a local bus and they wanted 30 pesos. I laughed until I realised he was serious. We settled on 9. About right. If you come to Oslob be aware that its a different village you have to go to though I've forgotten the exact name. Its 10 pesos maximum from Oslob though and in Oslob they can give you a business card with the village name. They want 500 pesos to watch the sharks, 1000 to snorkel and 3600 to dive. Unlike Donsol (where the sharks have now disappeared) here they are guaranteed (I think these may be Donsol's sharks who now stay here for the free food). Don't go expecting a real wildlife viewing experience, but neither is it totally fake. Its sort of like Bukit Lawang, Semenggoh or Sepilok for orangutans. They are free to come and go as they please, but they hang around for the free food and they don't follow the patterns they would in the wild. They do swim a bit, but they spend most of their time almost upright next to the boats eating. Its a bit weird. Its magnificent to see them, but I definitely wouldn't dive. A Spanish friend of ours did and said it was boring. You have to decide what option you want in advance unless you have your own snorkelling equipment. Then you can choose to pay 500 pesos to watch and if you later decide you want to snorkel you pay the 500 extra. This option is not available if you don't have your own equipment. We opted to watch and were never tempted to snorkel. Due to them being fed they are right under the boat most of the time, near the surface and the water is crystal clear. I didn't see any benefit to getting in the water for the extra money. Not in this controlled environment. If you really must be in the water, just to say you have been in the water with them then do it. If not, then wait for a more real experience or at least give yourself the option to decided once you are on the water. I think my semi zoo experience was really cool, but I will wait to enter the water when its a more genuine experience. We went to Argao by bus to catch the boat to Bohol. Only it goes at 4am. Shit. He offered that we could sleep in the boat house. I was suspicious of the truth, but not suspicious enough to call his bluff. There was the fast boat from Cebu City for 'just' 1000 pesos. Ah how I love the just in the Philippines lol. You can go to Bohol, for just the price of one arm. Everything seems reasonable when you use just. We decided to change plan, load up on cash in Cebu City and take a bus up to Maya for Malapascua. When we arrived in town it was too late for the public boat, though we could cross for 'just' 1600 pesos. Cool. Fuck you. We decided to stay the night in Maya where they told us it was 1600 pesos (It was 600) and they didn't factor in that we would have had to get a place to stay in Malapascua anyway. Idiots.
Up early the next day we went for the 6am public boat to Malapascua. They only leave when they have 15 people. Shit. We were in for a long wait. Of course for 'just' 1600 pesos we could have a private boat. Very generous when the public boat is 80. We stood our ground until about 8am. Most tourists in the Philippines (especially divers) have money but no time. We were the exception with the opposite problem. They kept pushing us and pushing us, but eventually a bus load of locals came and we could take the public boat. They claimed no change so I said I wouldn't pay them until we were in Malapascua. That worked out fine. Be aware that you will have to pay another 20 pesos for the privilege of being ferried 20m from the boat to the beach. I love a good scam. We figured Malapascua would be as shitty as Moalbaol for local hustlers but that was the only problem we had. We stayed at Purple Snapper where they wanted us to sign a piece of paper that we would dive exclusively with them. Luckily Cannelle saw it and we refused to sign as they are the most expensive dive shop on the island. We checked dive companies and went for a swim in the sea. Its a really cool, chilled island, though the food is overrated at Purple Snapper and overpriced. Arsenal won and we watched the third Harry Potter. I kind of want to see the ones I have never seen now. A local guy bumped into us on the way and took us to the cheapest restaurant on the island and probably the best as well. We ate there every day. Its in the LP. Next to them is the cheapest local dive centre as well but they needed two divers to do the thresher shark dive and Cannelle had decided that she didn't want to dive with the sharks. We decided to dive with Evolution divers, but more on that tomorrow. Kicking back in the afternoon with a cocktail we had the usual sunset experience of watching a Japanese woman have a heart attack. As she gasped for air, her friend/travel buddies/relatives seemed to look on unconcerned. Naturally we assumed she was handicapped and having a minor fit. Only 10 minutes later did we realise that wasn't the case, when her companions finally decided it might be serious. Christ I hope I never have a heart attack with that group of people. A bunch of useless people came to their aid and luckily some doctors arrived off one of the dive boats, recognised some shallow breathing and took her off to hospital. It took about 40 minutes for a boat to come to take her to Maya. My advice. Don't go to Malapascua if you are feeling sick at all, as 'rescue' is not a great option here. Nice end to the day.
4.30am and the alarm goes off. Fuck it. Why did I decide to do the thresher shark dive at 5am. Sod it. Off we went. I was worried as this was my first dive without Cannelle as my buddy. I was paired up with an English family and a Swiss guy who was to be my buddy. In the end I didn't really look out for him, so it was me who was the shit buddy. I knew my belt clasp was loose but I said nothing. Rookie error. We all jumped in at the only site where thresher sharks are almost guaranteed and I can't descend. Why? What the fuck. The divemaster comes. Where's your weight belt. Ah bollocks. The clasp had broken and sunk down. I had to get a new one and then swim down. I was sure I had fucked up everyone's dive. Not the calm diving environment you want and awful for the breathing. This is not a dive site if you like corals or fish. It is just for the sharks. Everyone was looking one way and someone pointed past me. I spun around and a a thresher shark was coming right at me. Cool, but intimidating. My oxygen was going quick and we watched the shark circle and circle. The Swiss guy said it looked like a moron. Quite true. We were back up on the surface after 36 minutes. Shitty. I don't normally go through oxygen that fast. The Swiss guy was ok with it. The dickish English family were pissed. I figured it was the panicking from the lost weight belt. Oh well. They wanted me to pay extra for a larger tank on the afternoon dive, but I didn't see the point as there was one left and Cannelle ate oxygen at the same rate as me. Weird. It left me feeling low for the afternoon dives at Gato Island. The afternoon we went out with some Americans and a dickhead English guy. He thought he was God's gift to diving. Newbie with super professional equipment. You know the type. Overall Gato Island was disappointing. The coral was fantastic but we saw almost no fish. Really none. Just some squid, a few seahorses and a large white tip reef shark. The first dive they had fixed my tank wrong and it came off mid dive. They readjusted and they must have hit a valve as my oxygen dropped really fast. I went from 120 to 60 in 10 minutes and I signalled to surface and was at 20 on the safety stop and surfaced with no oxygen left to inflate the BCD. It was only on the third dive that I realised my regulator was leaking as well. Not massively, but enough to explain why my underwater time was so short. On the second dive we came up round the wrong side of the island and floated in the water for about 20 minutes with no explanation of what was happening. Poor. The dive master didn't seem to give a shit on the second dive either and the Americans said the same thing. Three expensive dives for not much, though the local dive masters were better than the Scandinavian guy. Overall I wouldn't recommend them as they are overpriced, we had our dive instructor not giving a shit, a weight belt clasp break, a leaking regulator and a poorly fastened tank. Sad. Spurs drew 2-2 that evening and Arsenal were gaining on us.
The next day we went to the North of the island to go snorkelling. Its stunning up there. Superb white sand beach and so much better than the tourist end of the island. We had wanted to go snorkelling, but instead we met some teachers from Bohol and invited us to lunch. We had sea urchin and a local dish like ceviche. Delicious. Such nice people. We had a great afternoon just hanging out with them and then we went for a sunset dive with Sunsplash divers to see the Mandarin fish mating dance. Such a contrast to the day before. Much cheaper, great equipment and a great dive master. We watched the mandarin fish, which are stunning and smaller than I expected. Then we saw seahorses, frogfish and many types of crab. Its so much fun to search for stuff with your own spotlight. Wonderful experience. I would definitely night dive again. The only down side was that they had asked us if we wanted to take a dive boat back to Cebu and we had asked for the price. They hadn't told us before we left and seemed to presume we would just go. When they got back and told us the price we knew it would be too expensive. They seemed annoyed at us for that. Damn dive companies. Still much better than Evolution. After here and Bohol, we decided we would only dive with local dive companies now as they are cheaper and their divers always know the reef better as they spend all their life there. In the afternoon we had also hung out with an Aussie guy in the pool of our hotel. He seemed a total waster but a nice guy. He told us working in the mines was the best way to get cash, but that if we didn't drink and smoke we would make a lot of cash in Australia.
We grabbed breakfast early and took the return boat to Maya. No hassles this was round. We also chatted with an Israeli diver and the most exciting thing he had seen was a turtle. I don't think we missed out on much. I am a bit worried that we are being spoilt by our first real diving being only in top class sites. We took the bus to Cebu City and decided to stay the night. 600 pesos for the room, but no interesting films on at the cinema. We visited the basilica, the cathedral, Magellan's cross and the cute little fort. I think Cebu is a pretty little city at its core, surrounded by some crap. Cannelle remains unconvinced. She still believed that Dumaguete is the only city that's not too shitty. We managed to find a boat to Bohol for just 100 pesos to Tubigon. You have the option. 480 pesos or so to go to Tagbilaran direct or 100 to Tubigon and then a bus for 50. No brainer. Some tourists really do get fucked up the arse for convenience. Onwards to Bohol.
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