It’s not all
work for Wallace and I as we recently took a week’s holiday in Bohol, a smaller
island in the south of the Philippines.
Bohol is well
known for its chocolate hills, named due to their brown colouring which occurs
at only one time during the year. We arrived during the wrong season, so just
lots of green hills (and a typhoon somewhere nearby which brought wind and rain
to make the motorcycle ride an adventure) but I guess ‘hump shaped green hills’
isn’t such a tourist grabbing name.
It’s
also equally famous for the native tarsiers, which according to one postcard
are “the smallest monkeys in the world”. Sadly neither these points are true,
being that tarsiers are primates not monkeys (all monkeys are primates but not
vice versa, a sticking point for any biological anthropologist so please excuse
the lecture!). Also I am sure the pygmies marmoset is smaller (please google
image as super cute). However tarsiers are very rare and very cool to see in
nature. Unfortunately due to an
accidental 7 hour motorcycle ride, with multiple wrong turns and Wallace
wanting to take the ‘new and unexplored route’ to the tarsiers, we didn’t get
to see any. So with extremely sore bums
we had only the postcards to see what real life tarsiers looks like. But, our
sadness was not too great as the main reason we came to Bohol was due to first
class dive sites. A perfect setting for our first oceanic diving experience.
In very south of
the island of Bohol, connected by two bridges, is the tiny Panglao Island. This
was our base for 9 days, as it had both a home reef you could freely snorkel on
and lots of dive boats you can travel to Balicasag Island on. This is a marine
reserve, its highlights being loads and loads of fish, eels, turtles and
beautiful undamaged reefs (see pictures!).
We did 5 dives at Balicasag, going
to 21 metres down the sea wall (accidentally of course as our PADI open water
qualification only allows us to go to 18 metres, oh no!). We were a bit nervous at first, being that we
hadn’t dived since October, which was in a murky 8 metre lake near London. The
idea of suddenly diving off the sea wall, with 35 metres between you and the
sea floor is, concerning.
However, the beauty of the drop is astounding, you
dive in the clearest of waters so you can always see the surface sun and the
sealife soon takes all your concerns away.
For our final dive, we had overcome
our fears and did a night dive. It really was like exploring a whole new sea,
all the species change and you really can’t see beyond your flashlight beam
(hence no pictures, sorry). You definitely don’t want to fall too far beyond
your local guide then, just one massive black expanse of nothing! Yet the bioluminescence which occurs at night-time
is wonderful; you just move your hand through the water, with the flashlights
off, and the water is suddenly full of lights, like underwater fireflies.
Overall we saw
loads of crazy animals, like the frog fish (again please google image), moray
eels (see below), fat lipped fish, cornet fish, scorpion fish (no touching as
seriously poisonous and painful) and lots of different (and kind of minging)
types of sea worms! 
The only thing missing were sharks, those who know me know
my love (obsession…) with sharks so I was sad when none appeared during our
dives.
However, I
wasn’t too sad as we had previously, back in our April tour of the Philippines,
snorkelled with a whale shark in Donsol (the very southern tip of Luzon). This was slightly more crazy, and less
relaxed than hanging with turtles in Bohol. Firstly, there are like 100 other
tourists diving into the water at the same time. The water is pretty murky
(which is actually the massive amount of plankton which attracts the whale
sharks to Donsol, whale sharks being of course mainly non-meat eating and
behaving more like, you got it, whales!), and as you put your head into the
water very little is visible but your guide is dragging you along knowing
something you don’t. At this point you are kinda stressed as even if whale
sharks won’t eat you they are massive, some as big as 18 metres and are
officially the largest fish in the sea. And this is a massive thing you can’t
see. Until suddenly you put your head under the water and you do see it, like
RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU.
This was definitely a swearing occasion for me as its
massive mouth, scooping up millions of plankton, was open around 3 metres in
front of me. But after this mild first
panic, suddenly all my love of sharks came back to me and I got to swim along
with it for a good few minutes. It was bliss and wonderful to be alongside such
a beauty of a fish.
This was only ruined
when all the other tourists caught up with us and pushed and kicked to get a
closer view. It’s sad really that’s this
is how we have to witness such a creature, and this is how some people
are. But it’s still worth it when you
have those few minutes along with the ‘gentle giant’, as its referred to in
Donsol.
Finally, in the
theme of sealife, we have just returned from a couple of weeks at a coastal
camp in Palanan. This place is an extremely stereotypical tropical beach. This
got green forests and palm trees, white beach situated on a big lagoon which
acts as a sheltered breeding ground for many baby fish (many, many tiny nemos,
otherwise of course known as clown fish). It is has a large underwater cliffs,
the path the boats follow to come in the bay. Like the Grand Canyon underwater,
it forms a big contrast of shallow and deep water, and is home to some big
fish, including massive moray eels (lucky only witness once already caught as
apparently they have an extremely bad bite).
So while we were not watching
children, taking measurements or asking questions, we had our snorkel gear on
and explored the reef. This place would make a beautiful diving spot, but I
hope it isn’t sold out to tourism because then the Agta would be forced off
their beach homes to be replaced by beach side villas. This is a very real
threat as the politicians here are trying to buy up the beaches, to be ready
for development as soon as the roads are built.
For me, I hope it stays just the way it is.
Love to all,
Wasabi.
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