Category Archives: Philippines

32h of traveling

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27 February 20:04

32h door to door once again, but the opposite direction for all the transportation modes. In total, we’ve been awake for 42h except for the very irregular sleep you get on airplanes.

It was an intense day, and it was very hard to say goodbye to Blue Corals and the amazing staff there. We got a bag of local bananas for the road and said our goodbyes.

The road back to Cebu was so green, there were fields, greenery, goats and houses hidden by the darkness when we arrived two weeks ago.

We were early at the airport, traffic wasn’t so bad. Rather early than late. Managed to squeeze in a group meeting right before boarding, easing a bit into normality before returning to work in two days.

On the first flight, we watched Dune Part I in preparation for Dune Part II on Thursday with mom! It is so good! I then watched several other movies the rest of the way. I barely slept at all and didn’t read much. Also watched the new Super Mario Bros movie. It was funny! In Doha, we somehow managed to get on the First Class bus shuttle to the airplane. So unnecessary to have like 8 leather chairs facing the middle of the bus just for the shuttle, no? But it was fancy at least trying out first class on the bus, haha!

The train ride back home to Gothenburg from Copenhagen Airport was horrible. It was 3C, grey and wet. I have already set my eyes on my next travel destination: Maldives! Maybe as a honeymoon?

We were picked up by Mikael’s mom who borrowed the car this week. She took us grocery shopping. Then we unpacked everything and we are totally ready for bed after 42h “awake”. What a long day. Yet it somehow went very quickly which I’m grateful for.

North Beach

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25 February 21:34

 

The day we have been dreading finally arrived and is now over: our last day on this paradise island. 11 days goes so fast, yet it feels like we did manage to do so much. Tonight at dinner we both felt like our last dive was ages ago (three days ago), yet we still had 14 dives before then. I wish we could have dived more though. Today at Kimud, they spotted rays. I wish I was more interested in the small things underwater, but it’s the big ones that fascinates me and we “only” saw the thresher sharks and both white and black tipped reef sharks. Maybe before next trip I will try to read up on marine life so I can get more excited about the smaller things too. I did appreciate fish during most dives honestly. There are some really nice ones, but I don’t know the names of them all. Whale shark would have been a dream come true, but they don’t stay in one place, they are always on the move, and to spot one where humans are not constantly feeding them, is super rare, although we heard about whale sharks at several times during our stay from people around us.

Low tide deluxe.

Finally nutella pancakes!

The day before flying, you are not allowed to dive. Well, technically it is 24h before flying, but our wetsuits just got dry and to quick dry them in just one day just didn’t seem possible. So we had one last day of relaxing and exploring.

We have been staying at Bounty Beach in the south of the island and have mainly only been here. We’ve been in to the market and “downtown” a few times, but never up north. After breakfast today, we got driven on two mopeds up to North Beach. It took around 10 minutes along the highway which was mostly concrete, but several patches of just sand as well. It was interesting! And I was glad that they were both driving very carefully. We saw many places on the way, like the power plant on the island and the animal shelter where you apparently can live for free if you help out with the animals there. I learned about this on our full moon trip that there’s a website called Workaway where you can live for free at places as long as you volunteer with different things. Often food is included. How great isn’t that? I will definitely remember that for another time.

North Beach had the most amazing sand I’ve ever seen. It was so fine! The beach itself was just a long and wide sandy beach. We started our exploring by sitting down at Avila dive resort for a beer and coconut drink. We then explored to the east where the ruins still stand after the big typhoon in 2013 that destroyed 90% of the whole island. It’s such a shame they never rebuilt. I wonder why. We took a quick dip in the water and then headed back to our hotel where we had leftovers for lunch in the hammocks outside our hotel.

It’s been completely overcast today, which actually made the day perfect. Mikael has a hard time with the heat, so exploring and just hanging out worked out just fine when he wasn’t melting away. We then went to the fancy resort next door, Blanco Beach Resort where they have beach beds and good drinks. We spent the rest of the day there. Cappuccino’s and coconut drinks, some reading, some rain actually. The second time there is a small rainfall going on for around 30 minutes during the whole stay. And the first full day with clouds. If it was cloudy in the morning previously, it was completely blue by lunch.

We showered at the hotel and went for dinner. It was hard to decide what to have for our last night, but I don’t regret having the taco pizza. Mikael had the magic noodles. I’m gonna miss that place and their wonderful food.

Back at the hotel again, we packed and now we have set our alarms for 7am so we have plenty of time for breakfast and saying goodbye to the staff, they have truly been incredible and we’ve really felt at home at Blue Corals Beach Resort. I can really recommend this place! And don’t book through hotels.com or booking.com. Contact them directly, much cheaper!

I really feel like we have been away for a long time. Of course, I am missing the cats like crazy, I’m missing my bed and my thick cover (even if it is warm, I don’t really like sleeping under just a sheet, it’s too little material above me). But I like the tempo here. No stress, it’s warm, it’s beautiful, so many colors, everything is done outdoors, the diving. The people. I have never met a more friendly people before. They are all happy and eager to help and they sing. They all just seem to spontaneously burst into singing without even thinking about it. It’s beautiful! Imagine being so happy that you just start singing without even realizing it? And the children, always out and about, always curious and friendly. That one day when Mikael was playing with his drone, he had two very small boys chasing it on the beach. They were so fascinated and had the time of their lives (until one of them followed it so hard that he stumbled on the sand and scraped his knees).

I will miss this place. It was genuine. It was beautiful. It gave us peace and hopefully a calm mindset to bring back home.

Full moon adventure

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24 February 21:02

 

It feels great to be back on solid ground and in an airconditioned hotel room. But doing this small excursion to remote islands was really great!

The whole trip was of course organized but due to low tide and other things, it felt like they were winging most of it, haha. We were delayed from Malapascua for 1,5h but I don’t think that would have made a huge difference with the tides. The tides are honestly not something I understand, I thought I did, but apparently they are not on cycles.

We got the impression that this trip was all about having a nice time, spending the night at the beach, stargazing, watching the full moon, sit by the bonfire, listen to live music and watch fire dancers. But both Mikael and I got a bit wary at the briefing when a few people only had two questions; will there be beer and will it be cold. You see where this is going, right? Basically the whole trip there was people being drunk and loud.

There were drums on the boat which was very cool. They were so good and it was effectful to leave Bounty Beach to the sound of drums.

Before really leaving Malapascua, we stopped at the north end of the island to go snorkeling for a bit. Mikael gave up when his mask kept fogging up. But my mask managed better and I stayed in for a bit. The snorkeling at Lapus Lapus was really great! The bottom was full of mostly soft corals and so many fishes!

Galaxy

The next stop was the very local island of Carnaza where we would spend the night on one of the beaches. Due to the low tide, the big boat couldn’t get all the way in to the shore, so we had dinner on the boat after watching the sunset. It was a bit cloudy so the sunset wasn’t extraordinary. On the complete opposite side of the boat was the full moon already visible. That was kinda cool!

Carneza Island

Dinner was traditional Filipino style, served on big banana leaves and eaten with your hands. Very strange to eat with your hands, I’m sure it takes some technique to get that right also.

The low tide wasn’t going anywhere so eventually we got two local fishing boats acting as taxis for all of us 18 passengers, taking two at a time. These boats are super tiny and only supposed to carry one person. So when me and Mikael both went on, there were very few cm left of the boat above the surface. Scary stuff! Also it was really dark. Exciting! Some people swam to shore.

After all of us came to land, the big boat was light enough to cruise over the corals and dock on the beach so we could get everything on land. We set up tents, started the fire, and the owner of the restaurant who organized this trip gathered everyone who wanted to join for a shaman ceremony on the beach. I joined on the side by meditating/sleeping on the coral-y sand. That calmed everyone down! That took about an hour and after that it was live music and firedancing. Not long after that, these two introverts went to their tiny, tiny tent to sleep. But first we watched some bioluminescense further down on the beach. It was not much but it was there!

Normally, that tent would have been too small for me, I couldn’t lie straight in it. But we both managed to fit somehow. We were not prepared just getting a tent from the organizers, so we had nothing to lie on except two beach towels. The sand was full of corals and very hard, but we still managed to sleep pretty well, even if it was a game of human tetris when we needed to switch.

The full moon was incredible! I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a full moon like this before. It was so bright, we cast very distinct shadows, almost like in daylight. I tried taking pictures but it was hard. Full moon with basically no light pollution was something truly magical.

 

The next morning, today, we woke up with the sunlight. Breakfast was served by the water, sandwiches, ginger tea and incredible local fruit such as mango and banana. So good! But best was the homemade peanut butter. The local peanuts are much sweeter than what we are used to.

The tide was super low this morning so the boat had gone out during the night. We spent some time at the beach, I was reading a bit, sitting in the water. Such a nice morning! While Mikael was meditating, he got a local friend in the size of a child with a toy gun who just sat next to him when he was breathing, haha! I have to say (maybe again), but wow, the kids here are adorable! They are so happy to see tourists, so friendly, curious, polite, asking for our names and welcoming us to the island and so on. I love it! When we eventually left, there were so many kids saying bye and waving us off. Just amazing!

The village on Carneza

The beach we slept on.

The next stop of the trip was the extremely small island of Lamanok which apparently doesn’t even exist according to Google Maps. The owner’s friend lives on it. There were some people fishing right outside the island when we arrived, they were surrounding fish and scaring them into the net. It looked very interesting but probably worth it.

We also saw a caravan of small fishing boats on the way and we stopped in the middle of the ocean to buy some extremely local octopus from them. So funny!

The island is basically just two rocks with a coral beach in between. Really beautiful but I really don’t like these beaches that are made up of dead corals. It’s like walking on Lego, but worse. We went into the water quick, took some pictures and then we had a lunch similar to dinner last night on the boat again. It was so good!

Lamanok Island

The trip back to Malapascua took around two hours. Everyone was so tired and most people slept. I read! Mikael slept and had a company in the form of the owner’s big wolf-like dog, Galaxy. It was so cute when they were sitting together.

Back at the hotel, we took a well-needed shower, got dressed and walked over to Tepanee resort to watch the sunset before heading to Villa Potenciana for dinner on the beach. Magical noodles with homemade bread was incredible!

Two very long days and we are so tired now again. Tomorrow is our last full day on the island! I hope we get to max it out before leaving on Monday morning. I am ready to go home, we both miss the cats a lot. But at the same time, I’m so inspired by everyone I’ve talked to on this trip who just travels the world right now. I’m jealous. Our two weeks felt puny compared to their 3, 6, 8 months trips around Asia mostly. Why didn’t I do that when I was younger?

Kimud Shoal and night dive at Evo Reef

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22 February 22:00

Our last dive on Malapascua has come and gone. And what a great day of diving it has been!

The day started with our alarms going off at 4am because the boat to Kimud Shoal left at 5am. It was extremely low tide this morning so we had to walk a fair bit out to reach the small boat that would take us to the bigger one. The night sky was all clear and the stars were on such display. Magical start of the day. It then got better when we sailed into the sunrise and watched a big pod of dolphins jumping. Just magical!

We were first at the divesite, the waters were so calm, the visibility a refresh sight after yesterday’s extremely bad visibility at Deep Rock. Not too many thresher sharks at first, and the same goes for divers. But at the second dive, there were many more of both. I had some sharks swimming real close to me this time. It was incredible and I got it all on video! Unfortunately on my GoPro Hero 4, which is ancient compared to Mikaels’s DJI Osmo Action 4. I’m still excited to see the results when we have time to go through it all (once we get back home).

During this dive, we also saw a swimming moray (they usually only sit in their holes gaping at people) and huge schools of fish out in the blue. I actually kept looking out there to see if there was a whale shark casually swimming by, but no. That would have made a perfect day even perfecterer.

Moray half out of his hole swimming. That’s not something you see every day.

We were done with our two shark dives at 9:15 and headed back to the island. Great, so much more time to chill before the third dive of the day.

During our surface interval, Mikael and I found an Australian girl from Perth who joined us at Blanco Beach Resort where she is staying for some snorkeling. We hung out the full day, had aloe massages together, had lunch, went snorkeling. It was really great. On the southwest point of the island, there is a marine protected area where no boats are allowed, strict rules of not standing, just snorkeling around. And what’s so cool about this place (the corals weren’t that impressive if you compare to what we’ve seen diving) is who you can snorkel with: baby black-tipped reef sharks! We saw so many and at the end of our snorkeling trip, I had four at the same time in front of me. Adorable!

Something that’s not as adorable was the huge sea snake we also saw. Terrified fascination kept me going closer for that money shot, but shit, I was scared! I know they’re deadly but also have super tiny mouths and teeth so far back that that can’t really bite you. But not having a wetsuit on that would definitely get the best out of a potential bite was scary. We survived though!

Sea snake!

Baby sharks:

At 17:00 we were back at the dive center and geared up for our very first nightdive. We went to Evo Reef, many artificial reefs. There was a thresher shark structure, some other sunken things and sure enough, many things came to life during the night. But since it was our first night dive, we were more focused on doing everything right and not losing each other, rather than looking at macro things. We did however see some cool things like a big crab, lionfish, moray eel, mandarin (not sure exactly but I think I might have seen them while trying to get my head in between the other 5 divers who were also looking at the same time) and many other things like swarming fish, mating fish, sea stars as usual, sea urchins.

We started the dive as the sun was setting so at first, we didn’t use the torches. Eventually though, the sun disappeared and it grew darker and darker. The visibility was okay, but it was hard to keep track of who belonged to our group since there were so many other divers. I think that was great though, because even if it obviously was dark all around, you didn’t feel alone and isolated and closed in. That was what I had been afraid of, feeling claustrophobic. But it was fine. It was a very different experience diving when it was dark, for sure. But not sure if that is something I want to do a lot of in the future. It was cool to have tried and it might get cooler with time and experience, but right now I feel fine with diving during the day with great visibility (I miss Gili T where all the dives had 50+ m visibility, we really took that for granted).

One cool crab, that was completely oval.

These night dive pictures are just to show you how hard it is to take pictures while night diving, haha!

Super tired, but not very hungry, the three of us went to dinner at the next door restaurant, Villa Potenciana. Mikael and I shared the tacco pizza and Emma told us about diving in Western Australia. They have hammerheads there! And sea lions, and a ton of other cool things. Apparently it’s not just the Great Barrier Reef that has nice diving (I’ve also actually heard that the Great Barrier Reef is kinda overrated). One day, I’m gonna dive both coasts! We also heard this morning that you can dive with hammerheads outside of Tokyo.

What a great day! But we are so exhausted now. Diving in itself is not too bad. But all the fuss around it is really hard! But it is so worth it! In total, we did 14 dives each during this stay. I am now up to 31 logged dives, Mikael at 27 and I more than doubled my accumulated divetime. Great job!

Deep Rock

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21 February 20:03

 

I think we have finally come to the vacation mode where we don’t mind spending the morning in the hotel room and on the balcony just relaxing, going through photos and videos. And reading some. Our dive today didn’t start until 14:00. We thought it might be worth seeing a new divesite and not just diving with sharks. It was an okay dive, but we have definitely had better ones. Both here and in Indonesia.

This dive was a soft coral pinnacle, and sure enough, there were so many soft coral on the bottom at 24m. Many cool seastars as usual, we saw a pygmy seahorse, a cow fish which are so cool. I also found a dive writing board that one of the divemasters took since he didn’t have one. I also found a silicone muffin form that I brought up to the surface and threw away. I pick up everything I see and I’m so glad it isn’t too much at these dive sites.

The visibility was really bad, only like 10m. At Kimud Shoal, we had around 40m and on Gili Trawangan it was always 50+, on all dives. So the last three dives have not been optimal. Mikael is consuming much more air than normal probably due to stress of not seeing. What if we missed a whale shark today in the distance because we couldn’t see?

Pygmy seahorses. Somewhere in this picture!

Cow fish

Mikael, I and one of the divemasters ascended earlier due to Mikael running out of air. At the surface there was a pretty strong current and I started drifting away from the boat. But it worked out fine. We circled around for like 10minutes before the other ones surfaced. On the way back, on the waves, we saw lots of fly fish and we decided to skip the night dive today because Mikael has been feeling a bit off the past few nights. I think the divemaster looked a bit disappointed for the last minute cancellation, but not feeling okay while diving is not good. So we signed up for thresher shark dives tomorrow at 5am and a night dive at 17:30. It’s our last day of diving so we will max it! No matter what. The Kimud Shoal dive starts at 5am because they are going to Gato Island also. We thought about signing up for both of those big trips, but 4 dives in one day? On two divesites that are in the opposites directions. We both don’t feel 100% on these boat rides and forcing 4 dives out of our last diving day doesn’t quite feel alluring. Even if we want to give Gato another chance, I just don’t really see it being worth it. So Kimud Shoal and thresher sharks and our first night dive sounds like a good last day of diving.

Dinner once again at our new favorite restaurant, Villa Potenciana with leftovers for tomorrow’s breakfast. I can’t believe our alarms will go off at 4am, haha! And we’re on vacation, crazy people.

Today’s sunset looked like Mordor.

 

 

Relaxing

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20 February 20:42

 

Today was a really pleasant day. No more burns, only relaxation, no diving. We had signed up for a soft coral dive at 14:00, but we decided this morning that we wanted a full day of recovery.

Slept in a bit, had breakfast, then Mikael played with the drone for a bit while I was in a hammock on the beach reading. Then it was time for lunch and we went back to Villa Potenciana where we had dinner yesterday. It was so good! Today I had the Indian Pie and wow. They looked like pierogi and had both savory things inside but also mango and raisins. Really good and so pricey! 50 SEK (250 PHP) for a main course. We talked to the owner for a bit and he told us that he liked our vibe and asked if we wanted to join a full moon excursion this Friday. It would include two islands that are not on Google Maps, overnight stay on one of them, lots of snorkeling, good food, good vibes, bonfires, fire dancers, stargazing. For only 3000 PHP (560 SEK). Yes, of course! That will be epic!

Indian pie

After lunch we relaxed a bit on the hotel room. It was midday and the sun was so strong anyway. And then we took a trip to the local market, bought some bread at the bakery, some drinks and then went to Tepanee Beach Resort that is super close to our hotel. Mikael had seen massage beds there and we asked if non-guests could get massages as well. They could so we booked for half an hour later, they called in two massage therapists and we had a drink in the beach bar while waiting. We booked 1h massage with aloe and it costs us 1000 php each (186 kr). Like how is that even possible?! They even make a profit with that. Crazy!

They really took care of us and my face. Unfortunately, I had a big band-aid on my left hand so they didn’t massage aloe into it. But my face already looked so much healthier after that hour.

We then signed up for dives tomorrow and headed to dinner at Villa Potenciana. The tacco pizza was incredible!

Gato Island

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19 February 23:46

 

My hands this morning were almost miraculously healed! Aloe Vera is the shit for real! They were still red of course, but I could move them and touch them without them hurting or stretching the skin. My face is still a tomato, but definitely doesn’t hurt.

We got to sleep in a bit today, the boat to Gato Island didn’t leave until 11am. I had such high expectations of Gato, and they weren’t quite really met to be honest.

The boat ride was 40 minutes and before even getting on the boat, I was feeling a little bit off. Probably exhaustion. Three dives yesterday probably did that. Feeling off is fine, because that is gone once you’re in the water. But scuba diving is tough. Putting on a super tight wetsuit is not easy, it’s squeezing everything. Gearing up, putting on the weight belt which then pushes on your stomach. Making sure everything is in order, being a little bit anxious before jumping in. Everything around scuba diving is hard. Even the boat ride can be bad, even in perfect conditions as we’ve had this whole week so far. But once you descend, everything is fine. There is nothing else then what’s in front of you.

The hype around Gato Island was of course concerning the tunnel/cave diving and the reef sharks. We weren’t allowed to go inside the cave since we didn’t have 50 logged dives yet (as a safety measurement from the dive center which I totally respect) and that was disappointing. The second disappointing thing was the visibility. It was so bad. We couldn’t see the bottom and not even the instructor who went first. Eventually we found the bottom and down there the visibility was much better, but still so much worse than all the previous dives. Outside the cave, was all about the macro diving. And we did see some really cool stuff honestly. On the first dive, the coolest thing we saw was definitely the sleeping white tipped reef sharks. And they were big, like 2m? Lying on the bottom of a cave, opening and closing their mouths to breathe. There were two caves and like 2-3 in each. The first cave was under a rock formation that I had to swim through, it was scary but I saw the sharks and it was so cool. Mikael actually swam around the formation on the other side and unfortunately missed the sharks. But, lucky us, there was another cave right on the other side where more sharks slept. I got really close and it was so incredible.

Huge nudibranch

White tipped reef sharks sleeping in a cave

Shark sighting

Other things we saw was electric clam, huge nudibranchs, lots of soft corals, a fish with a big horn, clownfish of course. The electric clam was really amazing. It sat inside a crevice and there were literally visible pulsing lights coming off of it, like how?! Nature is amazing!

We had our safety stop in the middle of the turbid water which was a new experience for me I think. Probably not, but so far on this trip we haven’t really done the safety stop in mid water. But it was fine.

The surface interval was great. The BBQ was incredible like yesterday, but I still felt a little bit off and wasn’t too excited about jumping in again due to the low visibility. It was an okay dive and we did see cool stuff, but both of us had troubles with our buoyancy and I think Mikael was very nervous about the visibility because he consumed a lot of air and both dives were really short, only 44 and 36 minutes. That was fine by me though. I agree that it was not perfect diving conditions, at least when we have been spoiled with much better conditions on all of our dives together.

The second dive was really scary going down. We saw nothing and our divemaster disappeared in front of us. So they had to shine their lights up towards us so we could see where they were. But like before, the bottom was much better. As soon we reached the bottom, our divemaster showed us a coral on which so many pygmy horses lived. I can’t believe they are that tiny! Holy cow! So cute!

The rest of the dive we actually didn’t see anything too exciting. Just the normal Filippino things.

Boat ride back, cleaning equipment, writing logbook and then dinner with a German guy at the only vegetarian place on the island where they also had live music and fire show. Definitely the most popular restaurant close by. Also super good food! And cheap. For all three of us (including 5 deserts and four main courses) the total ended up being 410 SEK. Crazy!

We signed up for a dive tomorrow at a new dive site at 14:00. But we’ll see how we feel. I was feeling better after the two dives, but that’s when Mikael caught whatever I had had. 5 dives on 3 days is intense so a day of resting tomorrow might not be too bad, but one dive close by could be fine. We’ll see.

Time to hit the bed with my aloe vera socks hands again. Goodnight

Monad and Kimud Shoal

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18 February 18:23

A day of rest did wonders, because three dives today was no biggie at all! The boat left at 6am today, we got assigned a Divemaster who led us through one dive at Monad Shoal and two at Kimud Shoal. The focus of today was sharks! At Monad, it is possible to see tiger sharks, which apparently is the most aggressive of all sharks (I thought it was bull, but no). Unfortunately, we finished that dive only having seen a white tipped reef shark. We saw a shark at three separate times but I’m pretty sure it was the same. One scary thing that happened was that my air valve was not open fully, so halfway into the dive, I actually couldn’t get enough air, but the divemaster helped me in one second and just like that, my 20 bar turned to 110. That was a bit scary! Seeing the shark, not at all! It was only like 1,5m maybe? But it was swimming around very fast.

Other than the shark, we didn’t get to see so much there. Monad Shoal is basically a big sunken island and it’s mostly sand bottom. Of course, there are a bunch of beautiful fish, starfish but it’s the big things that are really cool. We sat down on the bottom every now and then and looked out towards the blue at 22m or something, but the tiger never came. Such shame! But we have a week left, we will have more chances of seeing it!

Our next stop was Kimud Shaol. The thresher shark haven! No stress getting in, which was nice for once. The first dive, we saw a lot of sharks. Maybe not as many as two days ago and the visibility was slightly worse. But it is still so cool seeing them swimming around with their long tails. They truly are something to see! The second dive was only 48 minutes long, compared to the first one of 55 and when Mikael and I were the first two of our group of six to ascend to the surface, the crew on the closest boat looked at me and asked if I was okay. Yes, of course, why wouldn’t I be? Then they told me I was bleeding. And I really was, like a lot! I’m not sure what happened, but it must have been something with my sinuses. And the more I thought about it, I realized that it might have been something with the long stride off the boat, I think my mask went up hard on my nose when I jumped in. So for the next dive at Kimud, the third of the day, I was told to do a spin jump, it was much better and not as hard on the mask. No blood! Good thing there are only thresher sharks at Kimud, hehe!

On the third dive we didn’t see as many sharks at all. Maybe only like 10? So we focused on the small critters. The fish are so colorful and if you look closely at the soft corals, there can be so many tiny fishes there. We saw a baby moray, some nudibranchs, stonefish, pufferfish, some really cool anemones. In general, a really cool dive as well. But we were a bit disappointed that the whale shark from yesterday was nowhere to be seen today. That would have been epic!

We did see some other cool stuff on the surface though. Get ready for this: how about a big flock of dolphins jumping straight towards our boat while we were going to the first dive site? Or a blue marlin casually hanging out by the surface when we were chilling and waiting for a proper surface interval before doing our first dive at the second dive site? Or jumping thresher sharks while waiting for our third dive while having an amazing bbq onboard? Or flyfish while going back to the island? So many jumping animals, haha! And then there was the jumping eagle ray two days ago.

One, not so awesome thing, is that the sunburn from yesterday, is infinitely worse today. My face is almost purple and my hands are completely destroyed. They are swollen, they burn intensely and as soon as I move them, it feels like my skin is on fire and about to crack. The hotel receptionist and her Swedish boyfriend who lives here permanently and works from home, are so kind though, helping me mix fresh aloe to heal and trying to find out what we can do about it. The service here at Blue Coral is truly amazing! Let’s hope it is true that the second day of a sunburn is the worst and that tomorrow will be better, otherwise I’m not sure I really look forward to spending a day on the boat, diving at Gato Island but not being able to use my hands. Like just imagine squeezing them through that tight wetsuit? Or handling your gear? Or gearing up? It stings just thinking about it. Mikael also burned his hands, but not as bad as me fortunately. We will see how it goes. With a burn this bad, I’m not sure the second day is the worst…

Exploring on land

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17 February 21:21

 

We felt so well-rested when we woke up this morning. Slept in until 8 (after 10h of sleep), had a slow breakfast and packed for the day. We were going on an adventure!

On the most beautiful day so far.

And on the most sweaty day so far.

I don’t know if it was the new reef friendly sunscreen we bought, but wow, we both were dripping with sweat after slowly strolling along the sandy roads. We reached the end of “our” beach, where we live and then we had to dive in. It was refreshing, but probably because it was 30 degrees. Bounty Beach, the beach in the south, is just one long beach and the main beach of the island. There are so many dive centers along this road, which is just sand lined with a small stonewall basically. At least on Gili Trawangan, the road was laid with stones. This is just sand. When we reached a third of the island we turned west and walked through the local areas. Wow. I don’t know if it made me appreciate my 82sqm big apartment full of stuff, but this was definitely something else. Just below the row of dive centers and small resorts, there truly lives the locals. So very friendly, kids saying hello, asking for our names and what we are doing and so on. So many kids running around playing.

Theser are all along Bounty Beach, the beach in the south:

After buying some water, we thought we should go up north, but with our Birkenstocks, and the extreme heat, we only reached halfway up the island (about 1km north from where we live) before we turned back. It was time for lunch anyway. North Beach can wait for another day.

Downtown:

We were very thorough with sunscreen today, yet we both burned really bad. Both of our hands are scorched, his neck is dead (even after wearing a hat all day). We both also have Birkenstock burn. I wonder how these marks will feel tomorrow when we are trying to get our wetsuits on, haha! The sun is strong here. Good thing we are diving most days!

The highway

Lunch at Angelina’s again, the imagination is running strong here, haha! And then signed up for tomorrow’s dives and then some hanging out at the hotel room trying to pack and get everything in order for tomorrow’s dives. Won’t spoil it, but it will be epic! I hope.

We spent a little while on the beach by the dive center where me, Mikael and Tina got congratulatory shots from our instructor for passing our courses. Tina only got one, but Mikael and I got two each for advanced and Nitrox. They were good and not very strong.

For dinner we went to Amihan, a Mediterranean restaurant next door to Angelina’s but up on the cliff. It was not too special and a bit pricey, but kinda fancy and nice looking.

THRESHER SHARKS / Day two of AOW

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16 February 20:22

These past four days have been so intense that I can barely keep my eyes open at 19:00. Being tired has never meant anything before today, haha. I don’t recognize myself. But what four days it has been! First traveling to the other side of the world. Then two dives yesterday and three today, might have been a bit too much.

Our alarms went off at 5am this morning, we got takeaway breakfast at 5:30 and were at the dive center not more than five minutes later. The boats left at 6am, two going to Kimod Shoal, the feeding stations of the thresher sharks. The boat ride took about 45 minutes. I was a bit tired, but couldn’t manage to eat any breakfast. But it was all fine. It was still early. We geared up on the boat when we neared and when it was our turn to long stride in from the boat, I realized that my BCD was too big, the crew had accidently given me a M instead of XS, which was of course my responsibility to check right when we boarded. Oh well.

The first dive was our deep dive, we were going down to 30m and would do a couple of exercises down there. We hadn’t been down in the water before long before our instructor showed us the sign for shark. The first thresher shark was clearly visible, maybe 15-20m away. Can’t really say how big it was, but like all the other ones, probably a grown up one, 3-4m perhaps? It was so cool! And not scary at all. It looked so cute! Unfortunately, since this was a course dive, we weren’t allowed to bring any cameras so we have no photos from this dive. So if you can’t wait to see our photos, google it for now, they look funny and majestic at the same time with their long fins. Their eyes are so big and cartoon-y, they always swim with their mouths open.

The first exercise was to write on the board what color we saw on a scale, just so we would be aware of color distortions at that depth. Then we pointed at the board and right number sequence and touched our nose to show that we didn’t have oxygen narcosis. While we were down there, a couple of sharks passively swam past and it was just so cool! We had dived off a reef wall and had a 200 m drop below us. It was definitely dark, even in 40+m visibility. Light disappears fast. I thought it was a little bit harder to breathe down there, but it felt normal fairly fast. Being down at that depth was more scary than seeing the sharks, for sure!

The rest of the dive was just cruising around until we “ran out” of air. At 70 bar, we started swimming towards the mooring line to make our 5m 3min stop and by the time we got there, I had only 50 bar, which is the reserve. I actually got a little bit panicked, even if I knew it was only 3 minutes until I could surface, I felt like the air was running out. But of course, that was only my brain playing tricks on me. But scary nonetheless. And it didn’t help that we were so many divers at the same time on that mooring line making our safety stop in quite the current.

We surfaced and swam to our boat and when I came aboard, I was so exhausted and didn’t feel like diving any more. And we had two more! But that feeling changed after the second dive!

During the surface interval, some people saw a thresher shark jumping. Apparently they do that and can jump pretty high! I missed it and only saw the splash afterward. BUT, right before we got back to Malapascua, I saw an eagle ray jumping out of the water. That was so cool!

The second dive was a “drift dive” so we practiced the negative descent, when you enter the water without air in your BCD so you sink directly to get away from the current on the surface. The current wasn’t so bad today, but we still did everything like it was. Compared to our first dive on Gili Trawangan (Halik’s Reef), this was like a fun dive. Halik’s reef was STRONG current where you just drifted with the current.

A course dive among thresher sharks at 20m was incredible! It might have been the best dive we’ve ever done! I think I lost count of the sharks after around 6. And that was early into the dive. Many were probably the same ones, but still. They just casually swam around all of us divers, looking goofy and cute. I had one fairly big one swimming straight towards me but steering off course quickly like 3-4m in front of me. It’s incredible how fast they are and how clumsy we are underwater. SO WOW! After forty-something minutes of a very pleasant dive and countless thresher sharks, it was time to end the dive. WOW!

I felt better on the boat but still not in the mood to eat. Although the third dive didn’t feel like an impossibility. We had time to eat lunch at Angelina’s again. After not feeling like eating anything at all, that tagliatelle ragu did seem rather alluring.

At 13:30, we met up at the dive center for a briefing of the last dive of this advanced open water certification: the underwater navigational dive. I was dreading this the most. Navigating underwater with a compass. I failed to understand on land (although I completely understand how a compass works and how to think when swimming a square). But it turned out to be easy underwater. I did surprisingly well and almost made a perfect square (if only my visual reference navigation was a little bit better and I didn’t swim towards the wrong rock formation to end the square, haha).

A bit of chilling at the hotel, taking pictures of the sunset from our balcony and then went to Kokay Maldites Beach Resort for dinner. Same beach as our other favorite restaurant. It seems like that’s where most restaurants are.