the mecca for divers will once again come alive this summer as tubbataha season begins this march. avid divers long to experience tubbataha, whether for the first time or over and over again. i believe one is never truly a diver unless they've gone to tubbataha.
i had my first tubbataha experience last year, during the last transition trip of the oceanic explorer, june 6-13, which sailed from puerto princesa, palawan to 4 days in tubbataha, a day in cuyo islands & a day in apo reef.
6 days. 27 dives. over 2500 pictures and videos from my camera alone. 
the tubba life: wake up. eat. dive. eat. sleep. dive. eat. sleep. dive. eat. sleep. dive. eat. sleep. dive. eat. drink. sleep.
the day starts with a 6am wake up call to a light breakfast and dive briefing. its on to the first dive by 7am, back to the boat by 830am for a heavy breakfast, then take a nap for about an hour before going to the 2nd dive at 10am. after the second dive, its back to the boat for lunch, then squeeze in an hour-long nap and dive again by 2pm. after diving, its eating time again and an opportunity to take a few minutes nap before jumping back into the water by 4pm. back to the boat to eat and sleep and get ready for the night dive by 6pm. after the night dive its time for dinner (and drinking if we still have the energy) and sleep to do this over and over again for 6 days.
i'm proud to say i did not miss any of the 27 dives. but i had to pass on the drinking every night.
tubbataha was amazing. everything super sized, the reef, the fishes and other sea creatures, the corals...schools of fishes came in thousands or more and visibility was great. there were several times i thought i was just 50 or 60 feet but when i checked my dive computer, i was at 130! awesome!
and of course sharks were everywhere! white tip, black tip, gray reef -- contrary to popular belief sharks do not attack people on sight, they're just like regular fishes who swim away when you go near them. during the first two days I was so gung-ho on chasing them sharks but got tired in the next few days. but there was this one time i was chasing a shark to take a picture of it and it was swimming away from me, then suddenly it made a u-turn and swam towards me! scary! i made a full stop and swam backwards. haha, serves me right!
next stop was cuyo island. coming from amazing tubbataha, cuyo seems colorless, bland and unexciting, with not much marine life.
but cuyo had its own delights. the reef was flat and wide with large table corals and upon closer inspection, interesting macro creatures and corals. and the reef was deep! and just to prove me wrong some more, i experienced the strong currents of cuyo and the most intense thermocline i've had in the trip. water temperature dropped from 86 degrees to 81 degrees in a matter of seconds! cuyo was an interesting and fun dive.
after cuyo we sailed to nearby quiminatin island. i had fun above and underwater this time since the island had a small patch of white sand beach where I was able to lounge around in. from the deck of the boat, i jumped and swam to shore!
the 2 dives at quiminatin was fun, although it was sad to see that the corals suffered much damage from dynamite fishing from a few years back, corals are starting to thrive again.
after the dive at quiminatin siland, we once again sailed in the night to the last stop for the transition trip: apo reef.
apo reef was a fitting end to my dive adventure. like a tubbataha redux, i feasted my eyes on giant corals, sharks and excellent visibility. i stretched my 4 dives for as long as i could, diving until I had no more air on my tank because it may take a while before i can once again take on this adventure.
every year i long to be in tubbataha, but i have to give way to new adventures and experiences. maybe sometime soon, i will go back.
a few slots are still open for the 2009 tubbataha season:
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