Where I Dive: Puerto Galera, Philippines

Puerto Galera is located south of Manila on Mindoro Island, a friend of mine organised the trip. We have everything in package from pick up at the airport to the drop off. It will take us 2-3 hours van ride to the private pier where the private chartered bangka transfer us to Puerto Galera. The weather was bad, we were told that there was a forecast typhoon coming. :-( On the way to the pier, the driver told us that the bangka ride across is not possible due to the rough sea, the only option we have is to take the car ferry across. By taking the car ferry we won't be landing at Sabang Beach where our resort is, we will need to take the 4WD from the car ferry pier to the resort. The resort help to organised our transfer. By the time we reach the resort, it was midnight, we already spent more than 12 hours travelling since we left Singapore. Arrive late but safe!

Equipment room

The Atlantis Resort is right in the middle of Sabang beach, we checked into a very cute room. A bit like in the Flintstones cartoon. Stone built from bed frame to cabinet, table and chairs. All in white! The equipment room is huge! We were allocated a rack each to hang and store our stuff. There is a huge dive shop, swimming pool, restaurant and a spacious camera room. Wow! Felt like a king!

Dive boat

9 of us was allocated with 2 Dive Masters and a private speedboat. We first did a check up dive in the house reef. Uuhh! It was cold! The bad weather and cloudy days has decreased the water temperature. Luckily I have my hood and 5mm. The visibility was not good with the rain and cloudy sky. We resorted into shooting macro. In Sabang Wreck, we saw a gigantic frog fish that swims around. :-) You see a huge ball floating around with 2 small fins at the bottom. I never thought a frog fish could swim around until now.

The group

There were lots of macro here in Puerto, sea horse, mantis, nudibranches, flounder, pigmy seahorse, jaw fish, eel, pipefish, frogfish every dives. For pelagic, we went to the famous Canyon, strong current almost blown us away. We hooked ourselves at the corner and watched the jacks hover in the current.

At Sabang Bay, it was a cramp little village, no space for beach or space to chill. There were hotels, restaurants, bars and shops all line up. We went to check out the night scene on the last night, it was eye opening for me. Lots of gals pole dancing on the bar top with as little as they could wear.

For the entire week we were here, we didn't see the sunlight but we managed to enjoy our trip with loads of macro sighting. Probably at other time of the year, this place will offer much better dives. We were lucky we didn't need to take the car ferry to go back, the bangka ride was just a short 30 mins over to Luzon.

Bangka transfer

Travel date : 6-11 Aug 2005
Travel route : SG -F-> Manila -> B -> Mindoro

Accommodation and diving : Atlantis Dive Resort (http://www.atlantishotel.com/)

Type of diving : Muck, reef
Water temperature : 25-32°C
Best time to dive : Dive-able all year round. July-November is the southwest monsoon. It is wet and rainy but the water is warm. Best diving season is between November and May.

-F-> Flight -B-> Boat