Diving in Bohol, Philippines

Lange nichts mehr zum Schreiben gehabt, hier in meinem "Logbuch". Heute war noch mal Tauchen angesagt und zwar auf Boracay. Bin für 10 Tage hier und wollte, bevor ich wieder nach Bohol zurück fliege, wenigstens nochmal einen Tauchgang gemacht haben. Tauchplatz war "Santos" und es ging für 47 Minuten auf 25 Meter. Sicht war nicht besonders, vielleicht 5 bis 10 Meter. Außer ein paar Nacktschnecken, gab es nichts besonderes zu sehen. Vielleicht noch den Divemaster, der aus den Blasen der Atemluft, Ringe machen kann. Das Ideal eines Tauchcenters: Direkt am tropischen Stand und der Pool für die Übungen, gleich dahinter.. Es wäre wohl besser gewesen, wie zunächst angekündigt, an "Crocodile Island" or "Laurel" zu tauchen. Aber was soll's. Die Kosten lagen im übrigen bei 1800 Peso für 1 Tauchgang, inklusive komplette Ausrüstung, Tauchbegleitung (Guide) und Bootsfahrt. Ich war übrigens der einzige zahlende Kunde an diesem Nachmittag. E

Starting from here, I will write this blog in German only. Nach 3 Jahren und 8 Monaten Pause habe ich heute mal wieder einen Tauchgang, vorne am Hausriff gemacht. Es ging auf 22 Meter für 34 Minuten . Die Sicht war leider nur mäßig, bei ca. 10 Metern. In der Zwischenzeit, wo ich die ganze Zeit nicht getaucht habe, habe ich zwei Boote gebaut, ein Paraw , ein einheimisches Segelboot (das eigentlich mal ein Kanu war) und ein Motorboot, das als Tauchboot gedacht war. Heute bin ich derweil mit dem Segelboot zum Tauchen raus gefahren, allerdings ohne Segel und nur mit Paddeln. Das Tauchboot liegt zur Zeit noch neben dem Haus an Land, wird aber auch demnächst getestet. Zu sehen gab es heute nichts nennenswerten, eine Menge kleine Fische aber nichts großes. Neulich beim Segeln habe ich in der Nähe mal einen größeren Rochen springen sehen, es wäre toll, wenn man den mal unter Wasser sieht.

Yesterday was so far the last dive for this season. I went by myself to my housereef to a depth of 30 meters for 37 minutes. Visibility was about 15 meters. Hat some trouble to adjust the camera under water because I couldn't get the flash working but finaly made it. The last dive means, that tomorrow our six month caccation to the Philippines is over and we will go back to Germany tomorrow. We might come back here in September or October for the next season and will hopefully malke more dives then. Here are some more pictures from the last dive:

On Feb. 24th, 2009, we made our third dive here. Depth was 30 meters for 40 minutes. Visibility 15 - 20 meters. Finaly I managed to get enough material together for the first video. Unfortunately, youtube srunk the video and now it looks a little blured, while the original is clear. Have to work on that. We saw a Harlekin Sweetlip and a lonly Bat Fish on this dive. For the quality of this video I have to say, that I made it all with my small Digital Camera, a Casio Z85 in an underwater housing. I don't have any artificial light down there so you will see everything in blue colours. When I come back next year I might bring some lights so the colors come out better.

Lion Fish Our second dive was on Feb. 19th, 2009. This time we started our dive to the right side to see what it's like. We reched a depth of 25 meters and dive time was 45 minutes. Visibility was better this time, about 15 meters. That is still not perfect for the Philippines where visibilityunder water can be 30 meters and more. Once again I was surprised how nice and varied the reef is. There are huge fields of antler corals, fan corals and plenty of feather star sitting on them. Fishes in this area are not so big but there is a lot of small swarm fish. The biggest fish I ever saw in the Philippines was a small shark on Cabilao Island a few years ago. The most interesting this time were some Lion Fish, see the photo above. My wife found the one on the picture first and then we discovered some more in the same area of the reef. Here are some more pictures from this dive: Wife behind one of the huge fan corals here! Feather Star sitting on a fan coral Nemo

Our first Dive on the Reefs of Loon , Bohol was on January 19th, 2009. We wanted to dive right in front of our house, where there is a " Fish Sanctuary ". It's an area which is marked with buoys and it's not allowed to fish here. I don't know how ever, how much the local fishermen care about this. Unfortunately, there is a mangrove forest here on the shoreline and the reef itself, where it actually goes down is about 500 metres from shore. Since we dont't have our own boat yet, we had to rent a small Pumb Boat and somebody who would bring us out. The boats here are very small and without engine, so only my wife and the equipment could go in the boat, I had to swim all the way out. But finaly we made it and went to our very first dive in an area, where probably nobody else has ever dived before. Visibility was nbit so good on this day, we had only about 10 metres but we went down to a depth of 25 meters for about 40 minutes and there are some nices corals down