The story so far: it’s bright outside, little or no wind, sea is as flat as a Flat thing, coffee/lift has been consumed and it’s almost time to descend to breakfast!
Yesterday we met George and Katrina from Germany (I have assumed!) and they are joining us on the boat this morning. They seem (like most others here) to have gone to a lot of the places that we have but end up coming back here. We also met Michael J Fox (the real one, not the actor) from Pittsburg. He has a fireworks business in the states. I’m not sure how big it is but on July 4th they run about 1000 displays!
He seems to spend a lot of time here and in Indonesia, we also met his partner Fay who is from Minado. In conversation it turns out that the locals crave a white skin whilst those with white skin crave a tan. “Half the world wants what the other half has!”
After a breakfast of spicy pork bits and eggs we head out for the first dive.
Dive #37 Koala
We went north this time instead of South. Had a bit of a current for about 10 minutes then it vanished.
Mostly nudi action on this dive ending up with what I am calling the “life” nudi (see the scifi film ‘Life’ and you will know why).
Back on board for coffee, Oreos and bananas all served with plenty of after dive chat. As we make our way over to where the second dive will be after 60 minutes on the surface.
Dive #38 Mainit Corner
Another awesome dive on this amazing site with plenty of nudi action where a sea snake and turtle joined in the fun.
Note to self, set camera ISO up two stops to ease burden on strobe battery.
Today for lunch we had B.L.T. And Kinilaw na Tanigue. The fish was amazing and I’m reliably informed that the B.L.T. was pretty good too!
Oh, now we need to choose dinner, an easy one today, Baby Back Ribs, Coleslaw and fries, one of our newly adopted combo meals (also an exercise in ordering less food!)
Dive #39 Elmers Point
This was a great dive on a hard sandy bottom with many coral outcrops hiding all sorts of Nudi’s including some bright pink ones with yellow gills.
We are mostly through the dive when Nanie (our guide) beats his cylinder enthusiasticly and with much repetition whilst pointing in a most asserted manner out in to the blue and swimming in the same direction with much viggor.
We follow suit and then we see it, the mother of all mantas cruising along in almost slow motion, awesome!
Well, we didn’t expect that!
No sooner had we clapt eyes on the thing, it was gone, out into the blue yonder.
We make our way back to the reef to complete our dive, after that, the small stuff seemed a little less significant, for a short while at least.
Dive #40 Mainit School
Another fab night dive on this site with wall to wall nudi action with a little shrimp on whip coral action thrown into the mix, absolutely lovely dive. I made the most of my 200 bar on this one.
Back on dry land, following a quick rinse it’s off to the bar for prinks.
I was happy with the one Red Horse that was served nICE and cold but then I spotted Long Island Iced Tea was on the happy hour list and I could not resist, despite being in fear of losing the entire evening.
As it turned out, all was good, a dinner of baby back ribs, coleslaw and fries was enjoyed very much and I was able to contrubute to at least the first round of photo culling from the afternoons dives.
.. And so ends another fabulous day of diving in Anilao.