Take-Off; November 19 till December 11

It’s November 19, the day my adventure with David heading over to the Philippines is about to start. My last two weeks in Holland were hectic, but very rewarding. I had the chance to meet up with dear friends, spend time with the family, getting organized and finish some longstanding diving courses at de Tuimelaar dive center. I managed to do a regulator specialty, my Emergency First Responder Instructor Course and become a Master Scuba Diver Trainer (MSDT), with the specialties Deep, Enriched Air (Nitrox), Search and Recovery, Digital Underwater Photography and Night Diver. Thanks to all my friends and family who I was able to spend precious time with for making my time in Holland count. Also a special thanks to de Tuimelaar for their flexible planning, enabling me to do so much in such little time!

Today I arrived at noon from visiting Arjan, my little brother, in Munich for a very nice long weekend at Schiphol Airport. Here I was picked up by my mom. We had a very nice last Dutch lunch together with Snert and Dutch bread with beenham. She had to go somewhere and dropped me off again at the airport. David was set to arrive 2 hours later so I had to wait a little bit. When he arrived I met up with him, his mom and her boyfriend and Lianne. We checked in and were helped by a very sweet Dutch lady. Since we went to the Philippines to maybe do some voluntary work, she wanted to check in our extra diving bag for free. Unfortunately did the lady from Korean Air herself not agree and we had to pay anyway, but our 10 kilos overweight was checked in without any problem. We shared a last dinner before departure and made our way to customs.

Take-Off!

Our flight went smooth and arrived as scheduled on Cebu International Airport, not knowing what we had to expect after the typhoon Haiyan raged by closely only 10 days before. We tried to sort out a voluntary job in Holland, but this was not successful so we decided to sort it out on the spot. First we made our way to our pre-booked hotel and had a good night of sleep in a bunker without any windows. 

The next morning I was woken up by Christmas carols played out very loud in the hallway speakers. It seems that they celebrate Christmas here in the Philippines from as early as September till February. I even heard that in some places they don’t even take down the decorations and keep it up for next year. David found out that there are a couple of dive shops close by on Mactan island, which seemed like a good starting spot to take as starting point of our adventure.

Even though it’s the prime spot for diving here in Mactan we had to go over dirt roads to get there. We booked for the night and went straight in the water to make our first dive in the Philippines. We made a boat dive on Kon-Tiki reef. It’s a wall dive where the wall seemed to drop down to around 50 meters. Very diverse reef life and I managed to identify around 30 different species. Last winter in Thailand I started to learn as much as I could from the reef. This I am determined to continue here and came over with my newly bought reef fish and reef creature bible. 

The road to Kontiki

While we were waiting on our guide to arrive, we met up with a Polish girl named Calina and a Norwegian guy named Aaris. They invited us to join them on a boat trip the next day to meet eachother as well to share the costs. We agreed and later that night after the diving we went into town to get some sun cream, food and Philippine sim-cards for our phones. While we were at the phone shop, we were chatted up by a Philippine woman who introduced herself as Mitch. Even though we were wary for this kind of encounters, we took her up on her offer to show us where to buy some goods as well as a good restaurant to eat. The town itself has a very poor feel, where even for a 2 meter tall western guy you rather not wander the streets alone at night. We had dinner and listened to her sad life stories. We gave here 150 peso (around 3 euro) for her help and decided to call it a night. She wanted to walk us all the way to the hotel, but we declined wary of our vulnerable situation. 

The next day we went on a boat trip making three dives with Aaris, Calina and our Philippine guide James. We had a great day and made a nice dive on an airplane wreck and 2 dives in the fish sanctuary of Talima. Being a bit rusty from diving the Mediterranean in the summer, I ,again, had an overload of fish to identify. 

Lunch in a floating restaurant with Aaris and Calina

Fishies, fishies, fishies and more fishies...

Our dive guide James

Back at the hotel we had dinner with Aaris, Calina, James and some Swedish guys Aaris knew. All old guys who spend the winter here, so not all too interesting for us on a personal level. In general we hardly encounter any young Westerners here. Aaris brought a friend to dinner named Ella. She is a Philippine native who is involved in the organization “Volunteers for Cebu.” Later that night she was heading out for a couple of days to hand out relief goods. We discussed the possibilities to help, but it was too short day to hop on the caravan that night. We agreed with Aaris, Calina and James to make another trip the next day and to meet up early.

While we were packing our stuff to go diving that day, someone was knocking loudly on our door. I opened up and to my big unpleasant surprise Mitch was standing there. She told us that she missed us so much and wanted to do something. I was annoyed off my ass tried to make it very clear that I didn’t want her to just show up at our hotel. What especially pissed me off was when she made clear that she wanted some money to fix her roof. This was supposedly blown off by the typhoon; something we didn’t believe to begin with. I blew her off, but gave here another 250 peso to help out with and to ensure that my fittie would run no bad blood. She left and I thought to have done a good job by removing her from our lives.

We took our diving stuff and went to Kon-Tiki restaurant to have breakfast and to meet up with the rest. Aaris was late, so I wanted to call him since I had his number. I didn’t bring my phone and I went back to the room to get it. I couldn’t find it, so I brought Calina’s phone to call and find it. When I rung a Philippine woman’s voice picked up. I was startled. Mitch, the skanky bitch, had stolen my phone right from under my nose! She probably took it when she found out there was nothing more to get out of us. So far for being mister nice guy again. 

I tried to swallow it and we went diving again 3 dives, 2 in Nalusoan fish sanctuary and 1 dive Kon-Tiki reef. James told us to expect some coral rubble, because of the previous dynamite fishing there, but that stopped a couple of years ago. Not even 5 minutes under, we heard and felt an enormous explosion. It was so strong that I felt the energy waves going through my body. Very unpleasant!  James didn’t seem too much bothered about it, which calmed me down slightly to not abort the dive immediately. The dive site indeed was full with rubble from the dynamite fishing, and after 30 minutes in the dive again an explosion. This time it was not as strong and loud, but frightening nevertheless. The second dive was better and we made a shallow dive in a stunning coral garden. The last dive we made close to Kon-Tiki and saw a massive strange jellyfish. The diving cleansed my mind and feelings from my stolen phone and we came back refreshed into the marina.
 

That night we planned to go out for dinner with James and Calina, because it was her last night. We went to the town center to a place called BFK. It’s basically a tacky restaurant downstairs where they play live music upstairs so loud that death people could hear it. The whole center is not much and besides the dirty older Western men there are no Westerners to be found. After drinking a couple of liters of San Miguel we went home around 2 o’clock. 

Aaris couldn’t make it to BFK, but we planned to make a dive the following day. We were late and quite hung-over in Kon-Tiki restaurant. When Aaris arrived I went with him to arrange the diving. Not even 30 meters out of the restaurant we met a Korean instructor Aaris knew. They were about to head out and decided to join them. Aaris thought he would get a very friendly price. First we went again to the airplane wreck in Tambuli and we would make a cave dive in the afternoon at Marigondon Cave. The cave entrance is at around 28 meters and doing this dive as the second of the day was horrible planning by our guide. He only gave a short and shitty briefing and we went in quite quick after the first dive. This in turn gave us very little bottom time. Because I didn’t trust the Korean’s expertise too much, I decided to lead the dive for the three of us. We followed the Korean to the cave, who went looking for it by swimming around 5! minutes against a mild current at 30 meters deep. Shortly before arriving at the cave I decided to abort the cave. But then right after we saw it. Coming all this way we decided to go in a little bit, but I didn’t want to push it, so quite quick we came out again.

After the dive on the way back they wanted to charge us 3000 peso each. This was ridiculous and luckily Aaris managed to bring this down to 1500 peso per head. Still this was way too expensive to keep on doing this on a regular basis. Back at the restaurant Aaris came up with the idea to buy a boat ourselves instead. He thought he could get one for around 50000 peso. For multiple reasons this was an idea worth exploring. Economically it would be feasible in the longer term, maybe even start an own dive operation, and it would open a way to a proper adventure. We could make trips around the islands close so we gave it some time for the idea to grow. That night Calina left late in the evening to catch her flight back to Poland.

The following week we spend time getting our visas extended, finding a cheaper place to live, discuss terms about buying a boat and of course diving. At Kon-Tiki they have an entry to their house reef for 100 peso per day. Again it’s a wall dive which drops down to circa 50 meters. A perfect place to identify more fish. The variety here in the Philippines as well as the state of the corals is amazing. We found loads of new Nudibranchs, crabs, shrimps and of course fish. I’m learning every dive and am starting to find my way through the large variety of different wrasses, damsels, snappers, groupers and so on. Every dive is a deep dive which works out very nice by dropping deep and making your way up slowly along the wall. Aaris arranged a place where we can rent a tank for only the price of filling of 100 peso per tank. So diving became an affordable endeavor. 

Our high-tech filling station and the lovely old man operating it

We found a place near to Kon-Tiki to live for a reasonable and affordable monthly rate. Here we have air-conditioning and internet and are close to the marina. We had a crazy American living next to us. This guy was literally out of his mind. An old US Marine with the brains of an empty refrigerator. A couple of days ago he had to flee, because he had a fight with the local guys who run the neighborhood. He was jumped by four guys with pipes. Can’t blame them. He was very rude, especially when he was drunk. Whenever he tried to make conversation, I bailed out, cause he had nothing normal to say. Good for us that he left. His room freed up and we could take it. The trait is that this room has internet reception inside the room as well. This we didn’t have in our original room.

Our place

The hood

We went into Mandaue City, Cebu, only a couple of times on the back of our motor mice James and Bert. We had to extend our visas and buy some stuff. A very big city with big contrasts. For our Go-Pro camera we had to go to Ayala shopping center. This part of town is super high-tech. Before arriving there we saw the rest of town which mostly consists of slums. It reminds a bit of Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Seeing the city made it clear that our decision to make base on Mactan was a good one.  

After a couple of days discussing the boat project, David and I were about to drop it. It seemed to be more expensive than expected and with what Aaris came up with had to be fixed so much that it didn’t seem like a solid investment. Until one morning we received a call from Aaris to come over to Kon-Tiki because a boat was coming from the opposite Island Olango which we could buy. The boat was quite big and could easily take 10 persons, including the captain. The hull looked very good and was enforced with fiberglass. The motor was noisy, but well taken care of. We made a test drive and it seemed very solid. We went to the house of the owner on Olango. Beautiful island with a poor but very well functioning local community. No garbage anywhere and everything was clearly cared for. We all had a coconut and got back on the boat.

After getting back we discussed terms over a coffee. The boat was priced within our line of expectation and only small things had to be fixed. Excited by the potential of this boat, we agreed to go with it. Of course not before letting Aaris doing some bargaining on the price. He, very handy, managed to bargain down the price of the boat including repairs. Also we agreed to hire a local boy from Olango; Enoy, as our captain for the boat. The next day we went to Olango to help out repairing the boat. The carpenter that we hired, was very crafty with some multiplex, copper nails and a handsaw. We removed the old wood which had to be replaced, after which we went back to Mactan. They needed 2 more days to complete the work. 

 On Monday the boat was about to arrive. We went to Kon-Tiki and saw it just coming in. An absolute beauty on first sight. It was newly painted in traditional Greek white and blue and the woodwork was mostly renewed. They painted the boat's name big on the sides. It was Aaris’ wish to call it Going Nuts and we went for it. It certainly accentuated our adventurous plan. We got on the boat and we saw that from up close it wasn’t quite finished. Especially Aaris was displeased and he sent them back to add the bamboo sides, then the rest we would take care of ourselves. 

This we did on Wednesday. Enoy came in early and we put the boat closest to the shore, so it would be on dry land at low-tide to work on it. The bottom was soft dirty mud and stank like crazy. Aaris clearly didn’t like to get dirty, so David, Enoy and I took care of painting the boat on the outside. This meant being in the mud up to my knees and even have to kneel down in it to get to all the places. We worked the whole day painting and filling some parts with epoxy after which we called it a day. The outside was more or less ready. 

Instead of finishing the boat on the inside on Thursday, we took it for a first trip. We took one tank each and made a dive in Talima. David and I bought some construction workers ear guards, which made the boat ride a whole lot more pleasant. It’s not ideal, but certainly gives you a nice moment for yourself to reflect on things. The ocean was quite choppy, but our boat rode it like a champ. The first steps were taken and our boat was ready to go nuts!

So far we have made four trips on it. Highlight was the diving on Giluntungan fish sanctuary. It costs 300 peso per diver to enter, but for good reason. It’s a relatively gradual sloping wall with an incredible abundance of reef life. When we jumped in we landed in the middle of the biggest school of Trevallies I’ve ever seen. It mostly consisted of Big-Eye Trevallies, which were joined by a couple of really big Giant Trevallies. We saw a 1,5 meter long Great Barracuda getting cleaned, that suddenly got chased away by the whole flock of Trevally. Loads of new fishes and shrimps were found. This dive certainly qualifies as a world class dive and made me come out of the water lyrical. Next time we come back early and loaded with three tanks each. This way we spend only 100 peso per dive entry which is acceptable. Having our own boat definitely started to show its potential.

One badass Great Barracuda getting himself cleaned in Gilutungan

A Big-Eye Trevally shows up and checks him out

Then he went to get some reinforcements

Job done; Barracuda gone

Batfish

On Tuesday, December 10, we planned another trip. We loaded the trike as usual with our gear and the tanks. When we started loading the boat, Aaris was taken aside by 2 ladies of Kon-Tiki. At first I thought it was a move by him to dodge some physical work. However it was much more serious. It was a warning on his address that they think he’s making money on the boat and they threatened to call in immigration. Even though we do not commercialize our trips, we have thought and spoken about it, which might have set them off. In any case, we have been drawing too much attention and people start to get jealous, or annoyed that they don’t make any money on us. Since the boat is not registered with the port authorities we have some patching to do, to make sure they don’t have anything over us. We went out to make one dive only, cause Aaris wanted to go back as soon as possible to work on a fix. We made a nice dive at Kauswagan, where again I identified loads of new fish. Highlights were a Peacock Mantis Shrimp out of his hole, 2 new Triggerfish, 2 new Filefish and a beautiful never seen before Ribbon Sweetlips at 45 meters.  

Back in the harbor it became clear that some people hold a grudge against us. Quickly the gates were closed so we could not unload the boat at the usual place, but had to go to the public beach. Also Enoy told us that they want to terrorize our boat. Quite frightening in a country as this. We unloaded the boat as soon as we could. Back at our place I started rinsing our gear, whilst Aaris and David went around to get insight in the situation as well as do the first fixes. We have a new place to load and unload the boat, which is protected by our neighborhood locals.

Today on Wednesday, December 11, Aaris went to the notary to put the boat on Ella’s name and to the port authorities to get it registered. David dealt with Enoy, who very stupidly, docked again at Kontiki. I stayed in and decided to finally get this blog of mine off the ground. Now we have to wait till our boat gets legal before drawing anymore heat. Enoy will fix some things for the boat in this time and if still possible, we are going to dive a very big Ferry Wreck at San Juan. Exciting times; in all kind of ways….