Apo Island's underwater treasures and Dumaguete city life

Apo was on my travel list first. Then I took it off. But then I decided to put it back on again. So indecisive. Why Apo? Because of diving and snorkelling, naturally. It’s one of the top places in the whole Philippines for those particular things.

But what put me off were the contradicting and pretty ghastly reviews of the place (meaning accommodation, dive centers and food). People were said to be unfriendly, food expensive and poor, service nonexistent, rooms not worth it and dive centers messy and offering bad quality stuff. But hey, you never know, so we decided to check it ourselves. Part of the complaints we found to be true, others not so much. But there’s no question about it, the underwater world was truly spectacular.

Tricycle for 4 people and big backpacks is challenge

Catching that boat to Apo

We stayed at Mario’s Scuba homestay which offered a spacious double room with a seaview and even solar powered lamp and fan (there’s generally electricity only in the evenings) for 1000 php (~20 euros). No complaints, it was a decent room. And the view was unbeatable. The food at their restaurant on the other hand was overpriced and not quite as delicious as we’d expected. Brekkie was more reasonably priced. Diving equipment were not too bad and the dives, when doing three of them, were 1200 php each instead of 1350(?). Our divemaster wasn’t my favorite - not the least because he was poking a scorpion fish to make it move. But again: diving with them was ok on average.

Chris couldn’t dive because of the painful ear but he did do snorkel. Just before sunset we went out to snorkel by the shore and saw a million turtles! Almost at least. Huge ones also, right there, again minding their own business, munching on seaweed. They are quite something.

Next day I did three dives of which the first one was at Rock west, only a few minute boat ride away. There I saw some humongous stuff like a huuuge almost shark resembling spanish mackerel, some massive trigger fish, a big pipefish, the largest porcupine fish so far and to balance all this vastness: a miniature sized baby lionfish and a very normal sized scorpion fish. Chris joined us snorkeling and it was pretty good, he told me.

Second dive at Coconut was my favourite! There was a very strong current taking us along a huge wall. We really had to fight it sometimes, especially when we stopped to watch those big schools of jacks swimming against the current too. They did a lot better job than we, for sure. We also saw the biggest sea snake ever!! Sorry, a banded sea krait I mean. Other cool things included some spanish mackerel, tiny nudibranch looking yellow sea cucumbers (very cute), as well as a big cuttlefish. I was also impressed to see some big groupers hunting and a silly trigger fish eating coral with its bunnylike teeth. A very nice dive indeed! Chris was a bit annoyed with the snorkelling though: the spot was not meant for that, it was way too deep. But I was psyched to hear that also he had seen that monstrous sea snake krait thingy!!!

The third dive on Apo happened at the Chapel which also had a great wall and a cave. It was somehow very chapel like. I saw a beautiful school of black and silver fish bustling on top of white tipped coral, it somehow amazed me, so pretty it was. I also spotted a scorpion fish that was so well camouflaged that I lost it twice when trying to point it out to others :’D Apo in general had many many turtles, beautiful coral gardens, multiple pipe and lionfish, some big fish like banner, mackerel and trigger fish as well as huge schools of different colorful fishes around. Excellent.

This one wanted to get up

But got tired of trying :(

Chris the puppy whisperer

Getting ready for those dives

This way!

Oh the DWS possibilities!

Snorkeler and some pretty blue water

Chris was pretty pissed off. After the first snorkelling our divemaster suddenly told him that “btw, the boatrides cost 300 php per day and the fins were 200 pesos extra”. None of this was mentioned beforehand and, on the contrary, everything was offered kind of as a goodwill. Goodwill my ass. The average just went down from ok to not cool. The last nail in the coffin of Marios’ was the billing in the end: the lady there was trying to charge us 3 x normal dive instead of the discounted price. When Chris told her, she acted all surprised and as if she didn’t know about this discount. That’s okay, can happen right? Unless it happens three times in a row the same day. On the boat back we heard that the lady had tried to pull the same trick on the other guests as well, always with the same sheepish “oh reallyyyy, there’s a discount for three dives?” answer. Argh, sooo unnecessary!!! Average fell to p*ss off, Mario.

We didn’t really find any restaurant that would’ve served quality food and indeed service was pretty horrible sometimes. Except for the cutest little shake bar with fresh mango/banana/pineapple shakes and coladas. It was perfect. We also met nice travellers and a Swiss divemaster who told us that in Dumaguete city (where we were heading next) there was a Swiss restaurant and deli with some proper Swiss cheese! Oh man. So not all was bad, no no. And the underwater adventures. All worth it in the end.

Chris' left his plate unattended

And this is what happens

Balcony with a view

Sunset times

The best shake bar ever

Happy mango addict

Chris and Sebastien

The endless Christmas songs

and the training

Evening and morning

Views on top

A bay on the other side of the island

But so, after two nights on Apo, with Gruyere signs in our eyes, we left back to mainland and towards Dumaguete. We had a few missions: 1) immigration office for extending our 30 day visa 2) checking out the local climbing gym 3) finding that Swiss cheese 4) blogblogblogging and 5) enjoying the doing nothing.

Check on all, we completed all the missions and even more. Dumaguete was a really fresh surprise after Cebu: it was a decent city but a safe one and it answered to all our needs. 1) visa extension was easy to get but expensive 2) Climbing gym was cute! Located in a sports court of a university, it was free of charge, and had nice local climbers showing us around. It was way too hot to climb though and we were really suffering :) 3) oh yes. We found the Swiss restaurant and its huge breakfast buffet with a cheese selection 4) yesyesyes, finally posted Burma and 5) we did a lot of nothing and also participated in a Filipino teenage simulator: hanging out at the mall, eating pizza at the mall and going to the movies. At the mall. We enjoyed every moment. Next up was the exotic island of Bohol. More about that later.

Dumaguete climbs

Christmas deco everywhere

Pizza at the mall!