Coron

My first stop this year has been Coron in the Palawan region of the Philippines. Wreck diving here has been fantastic - probably some of the best I've done since Truk Lagoon in 2014. Sadly, much like Subic Bay on the last trip, the visibility has been pretty bad. Combined with the depth of the wrecks that has made photography difficult, although I did manage to come up with a few photos that I like though.

And speaking of Subic Bay that's my next stop. I'm headed up there tomorrow for more wreck diving.

And now for something (not quite) completely different.

I've been meaning to upgrade the way I store and share photos on this blog for ages. I think I've finally settled on using Flickr and embedding an album for each post here. So without further ado, let's see how this works using some photos from my Porpoise Bay trip in February 2017...

Another trip complete.

I took very very few pictures my last two weeks in Indonesia and, while I have a few decent ones, nothing really stands out as worthy of posting. So that's pretty much it for this year. I do have another few days of diving in Cozumel with my Dad but I tend to doubt I'll post anything from that. You never know though,

Komodo 2016

I have a few minutes before the Ombak Biru leaves for my second trip so here's a quick dump of pictures from Komodo. Unfortunately I didn't manage to take very many good (or even acceptable) ones this year but here are a few.

Overall, Castle Rock was disappointing compared to my 2014 trip. Although it was still good there just wasn't the sheer mayhem I had on every dive there last time. Luckily Crystal Rock picked up some of the slack. And that said, my favorite picture from Komodo this year was taken at Castle (it's the one of the Trevally in the school of Surgeon fish).

The first set of pictures above were all from the local dives I did out of Labuan Bajo while the ones below are from the first trip on the Aggressor.

Note my first foray into black and white photography. This wasn't really intentional - I liked the composition of that picture but the colors weren't working out due to the poor quality of the original. So I switched it to B&W and liked the results a whole lot better.

Anyway, I'm off in a bit. Hopefully I will have enough worthwhile pictures from Taka Bone Rate so I can get one more post up before this trip is finished.

Amed

I've been in Komodo for about a week now. Diving has been typically great but I've been having trouble getting motivated to go through any of the pictures I've taken recently. I did manage to work on a couple (as in exactly two) from the last of my three days in Amed though. Of course technically this dive site was in Tulamben so these aren't really even from Amed but here goes...

On Saturday I'm off on Komodo Dancer Indo Aggressor for my first of two back-to-back ten day trips. So expect posts at about the same rate they've been coming lately. At best. I do have a 3 day break back on Labuan Bajo between trips so hopefully I'll get another post with some shots from Komodo then. Expect mantas because there are a ton of them around this year.

I'm back in Bali now and decided to come up to Amed for a few days.

Although Amed is still a bit remote (for Bali at least), this is civilization compared to Belongas Bay so I can finally post a few pictures from last week. The Hammerheads never did show up so these are mostly pictures of various pelagic rays I saw while I was there. The quality of the second manta picture is pretty terrible but I wanted to post it because I have seen very very few Oceanic mantas and have never managed to take a picture at all before this.

The hilight of Belongas for me was the school of Mobula rays at Gili Sarang. Although I've encountered them several times before this was the largest school I've seen. This is one of those blue water shots that is probably way over processed but I kind of like how it came out.

Tomorrow is my first day of diving in Amed. Hopefully I'll have at least a few pictures to post from the 3 days I have here.

Nothing to see here.

I've been diving Belongas Bay in southern Lombok for the past 5 days. This is my first tine here and diving has been pretty good even though the hammerheads I came here to see haven't shown up. Unfortunately the internet connection here is terrible so no pictures yet. I do have a few pictures to post when I get to my next destination in a few days. Still waffling on where exactly that's going to be (somewhere back in Bali most likely) but after that I'm finally heading to Komodo. Hooray!

Nusa Lembongan It Is

So, I decided to head back to Nusa Lembonan rather than going up to Amed and I'm very glad I did. Diving has been far more satisfying than back in June and we've already been to every one of my requested sites that the other dive shop was unwilling to dive. Several of the dives have been exactly the fun fast drifts I was looking for and I even spotted a Mola Mola today.

Also, dolphins...

Lazy Blogger is Lazy

At long last, here are a few more pictures I wanted to post from Malapascua. I'd hoped to come up with more but these are pretty much the only ones worth posting. I'm still not sure why I had so much trouble getting pictures I was happy with considering the quality of the diving there.

As for my second visit to Subic, diving has been good although there was far less of it than hoped. The weather got even worse and we were unable to dive for about half the time so I only fit in 9 dives over the 10 days. Oh well, I did manage to return to most of the wrecks I'd wanted to dive again, including a rather challenging 180 foot technical dive on the Banshu Maru yesterday. And I even managed to get a couple of (barely) acceptable pictures out of it too so I might as well post them while I'm at it.

That's it for now. I start making my way back to Indonesia tomorrow morning so I wouldn't expect any more posts for about a week. I'm not even completely sure where I'm going first - most likely Amed in northern Bali since I haven't been there since 2009. I may head back to Nusa Lenbongan though. Anyway, the Philippines has been great and I'm already eagerly anticipating returning in 2018. I am quite looking forward to my final two months in Indonesia though - particularly my first trip to Belongas bay and my return to Komodo.

Plan B

The ferries from Batangas to Puerto Galera weren't running for a few days due to weather so I decided to return to Subic Bay instead of waiting around Manila hoping for conditions to improve. I could have tried to make my way to Puerto Galera the long way around but decided it wasn't worth it, especially since I have no idea what effect that weather would have had on my ability to dive the somewhat exposed sites around Sabang. Weather here in Subic is pretty miserable too but at least the bay is somewhat protected and it's not like the visibility can get much worse than it was before.

If my last trip here is anything to go by I wouldn't expect much in the way of pictures but you never know. I do still plan on one more Malapascua picture dump but I haven't even looked at pictures since I left there a week ago so don't have anything more to post yet.

Malapascua Part One

I'd planned to get this post up a day or so ago but the wifi connection at my resort has been extraordinarily flaky the last few days.

I have managed to see Thresher sharks every time I've gone to Monad Shoal to see them although I'm only posting one Thresher picture for now. My pictures of them need lots of work because of low light due both to depth and the time of morning when we do those dives - most of them seem to come out looking almost like paintings rather than photos by the time I'm done with them. Overall I seem I've been having trouble getting many good pictures of anything here though the diving has been quite good. Here are a few anyway...

Tomorrow is my last day diving in Malapascua before I head back north for a few days diving back in Puerto Galera. I should have another post with a few more pictures from Malapascua in a few days though.

Too Many Sardine Pictures

This is probably way more pictures of Moalboal's blob-o-sardines that is strictly necessary, but I like the variety to convey the scope. Movies would really be better but I'm still no good at video editing so you're stuck with pictures as usual.

I left Moalboal yesterday and am now in Malapascua off the north end of Cebu. This is one of the few places in the world to see Thresher sharks at sport diving depths so it's been on my list of places to visit for quite a while. It looks like there are plenty of other things to here though including lots of macro to keep me entertained between the 5 AM Thresher dives too.

Moalboal Miscellany

While Moalboal doesn't have Cabilao's quantity of corals or Dauin's variety of macro subjects I'm enjoying the diving here very very much.

What it does have is fish. Lots and lots of fish. Many of the species that like to swim in polarized schools which is something I've always loved. The school of sardines on the wall right off shore in particular is something to behold. It's one of those sights that will never get old and will bring me back someday. And the walls at nearby Pescador island are covered in schools of fusiliers and also host a resident school of jacks that I've spotted in a few times (sadly it's a very shy school of jacks so I have no good pictures).

Anyway, on to the pictures. I'm saving the Sardines for their own post so in the meantime here are some of the other things I've seen this week.

Pygmy Seahorses. Finally!

Ever since I saw my first Pygmy Seahorses on the Liberty wreck in Tulamben back in 2009 this little critter has been my underwater nemesis. I've probably taken more than 500 pictures of them over the years but have had terrible luck getting any acceptable shots. My bad run finally seems to have been interrupted in Cabilao where I finally got decent pictures of both Denise's and Bargibanti species. On the first day there no less - subsequent encounters resulted in more typical results.

While I'm at it here are some additional pictures I liked from Cabilao. I figured I needed to post at least one picture of the amazing coral reefs there even if the picture itself is only so-so. And this (fairly heavily processed) picture of a Porcelain crab is by far my favorite of the many many pictures I've taken of these photogenic little critters this year.

I'm currently in Moalboal on Cebu island. The main draw for me is the giant school of Sardines which lives right off shore from my dive resort. Other diving on nearby Pescador Island has also been great and I already have a surprising number of pictures that I'm happy with.

Cabilao

Diving in Cabilao has been very good. It's mostly wall diving featuring amazing hard and soft corals though, so not my forte for photography but I do have a few shots worth posting.

Tomorrow is my last day diving in Cabilao then I head to Moalboal in Cebu for 10 days or so. I'll definitely have another post from Cabilao though.

One More From Dauin

I'm leaving for Cabilao tomorrow so here's one more post with some of my favorite pictures from Dauin (and one more, much better, Whale Shark silhouette from my second trip to Oslob). I didn't actually intend to to end up with mostly crab pictures but that's the way things worked out this time.

I may have one more post with some pictures of the ridiculous number of Frogfish I saw here if I ever get around to going through all of them. Otherwise I'm sure Dauin will be (yet another) regular stop on these excursions so I'll be back.