almost tubba, but not quite

when you've been planning for a trip for almost a year already - money, time, equipment, & mind set - only to be told by the boat manager that there's a problem in the boat's bearing after only about 6hrs into the open sea and can't possibly proceed to sail to Apo / Tubbataha, you'd challenge Murphy's Law and push your way to salvage the trip.

saturday morning, when we're supposed to have finished our 1st Apo dive, we learned that Borneo Explorer is on its way to Mamburao waters (where we were stranded) so we can transfer and continue the trip. oblivious of what to be announced that night, we opted to maximize the day by doing an exploratory dive around the area. the dive spot being too close to a fishing village, and not protected under Marine Park jurisdiction, there was literally no life at all, or was there? i can't actually remember. the 50min dive was longer than i can recall. i was sooo bored that i chose to skip the second dive. it didn't help to think that around that time we should already be in Apo Reef and frolicking on the beauty of the splendid marine biodiversity of the atoll.

8ish that night, as BE gets closer to us, our hopes were high that we'd sail in a few hours and would miss only about 2 dives in Cuyo Island. but another bomb was dropped when we were told by G, the boat manager, that the owner, Mr. Wee, wanted both boats back in Anilao and will just cancel the trip. Mr. Wee sent BE to tow PE2 and not to actually pick us up to sail forward to Apo/ Tubba. with 24 fully paid divers, and very eager not to waste the week trip, despite the frustration, came to a compromise to agree to be towed back on the premise that as soon as the boats reached Anilao, will board BE and head to Apo/ Tubba immediately. we all understood that we lost 2 diving days already, but who the hell cares? we wanted the trip sooo bad, and we're all willing to bend our backs. we thought we'd deal with the owner, once the trip is over.

Sunday morning bout 7ish, when we're supposed to have finished our 1st dive in Cuyo, we were again hit by another devastating news, Mr. Wee wanted us to disembark and just refund the money we paid for the trip, just that! no discussion, no negotiation! As if money was the only concern of the divers who have planned this trip and redesigned their schedules so as to be able to have an 8-day dive trip.

everyone was so furious, as we, the clients, felt we have been bending our backs when there was no effort on the other side of the table at all. he didn't even try to call any of us to hear our compromise just to proceed the Apo/ Tubba trip.

it was a perfect example of bad business practice - not delivering to your clients what has been agreed and not knowing how to handle crisis properly. arrrrrg!!! it boils down to the fact too that Cruise Island Adventure (more known as Scuba World) has the monopoly of the Tubbataha route, thus the less care for clients so much so of their safety.

as we were left without a choice, we disembarked the boat and trusted that they will keep their word of a full refund the next day (monday). we were though offered a free overnight stay at Outrigger Resort (owned by Mr. Wee too), and do dives for free for that day.

of the 24 divers, 18 stayed overnight and enjoyed the day whilst planning for the next best alternative for the failed tubba trip. within few hours, 13 divers were booked for a flight to Busuanga and do ship wrecked dives instead.

sunday, 10ish evening, abs-cbn batangas went to the resort to interview our group. we wanted to make sure that CIA owner understands the gravity of the situation - safety & bad business practice.

PE2 is solely dedicated for tubba trips with March to June season only. they had july to feb to ensure that their boats are fit to sail to commence new tubba season. how on earth can a bearing be overlooked (when it's actually a wear and tear part of the engine) and be the source of failure? 24 divers along with at least a 10-member boat crew's safety were put to risk, by letting an unfit boat sail to open seas. something worse could have happened if it wasn't discovered right away.

next morning, Monday, we were driven back to Manila at the resort's expense, and headed straight to CIA/ Scuba World's office. we were actually prepared for a long and unpleasant argument with the owner, but we were surprised that the discussion went like a breeze - full refund, including booked flights to Palawan. he was apologetic and looked like he didn't know any better when he made the decision to tow us back. he even said he didn't know we were ready to make a compromises and cut the tubba dive days. we don't actually know who was telling the truth -the boat manager or the owner. was he really unaware of the compromises willing to take just to proceed the trip which we have clearly expressed to G, or was he just trying to cover his @$$e from embarassment?

whilst others opted to refund the money - our foreign friends who can't possibly stay longer in MNL for a rebooked trip - majority chose to rebook a later date.

have to mention though how accommodating and extra apologetic the crew members were when we're still on the boat. even when we were already at the resort, they took care of us unconditionally. Mr.Wee is lucky to have very good employees like them.

we dashed to the airport to catch a 1PM flight. lo & behold!!! just after we've haggled (but failed) to give us a free kg for each head as we checked-in our baggage (with already prepaid addl 5kg each), we heard the PA of our flight's cancellation due to bush fire at the Busuanga Airport!!!

i never felt Murphy's law as i did that day. we were so bummed we were stripped off with emotions. we thought if the world was indeed conspiring against us, why were we spared in the open seas? how did we manage to get a booking to Coron in a snap? obviously our unbreakable spirits are in the works.

we managed to get a rebooking on the next earliest flight the next day. i said though to Z, if after tomorrow's attempt, we'd again fail, i'd accept defeat, let go of the week-long holiday and head home.

determined not to miss our early morning flight the next day, we decided to spend overnight at K's place at Magallanes and relaxed the night away. we called masseuse to come over her place and had an awesome an hour and a half massage :-)

7ish of Tuesday morning, it felt like deja vu to be back at the airport and queue for our baggages to be checked-in. we lack the strength already to negotiate for the baggage allowance so we just paid whatever the officer charged us. it's past the baording time already when we heard another announcement - "Flight 5J5298 bound to Busuanga is temporarily on-hold due to low visibility around the area. please wait for further announcement in the next 15minutes."

for people who had mishaps after mishaps for the past 4 days, 15minutes mean an eternity of waiting! there wasn't a word uttered, wasn't a complaint vented. silence was the prevailing element.

until a real upper was announced. flight pushed thru and in a little over an hour, we have landed the busuanga airport!!!

we were quick to let go of a guffaw and articulated - "F-I-N-A-L-L-Y!!!!!"

what we went through the past days was unimaginable. and to finally set foot again in Coron was an effin relief!!! i whispered to myself, 'thank God we're safe'

we may have failed to conquer Apo Reef / Tubbataha Reef, but we're blessed a hundred fold over to gain new dive buddies!!! amidst all that went on in the past days, we were actually still having fun.

we may have been deprived to experience Tubbataha's beauty that time, but we have experienced real & beautiful friendship!!! how can i complain?

***

- Coron adventure on my next post :-)

- photos from indayguapa, jayvzter, bembong, boni & suzette


- cross-posted to wandersoles

tubbataha: the pilgrimage begins

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:

From tubba

reservations can also be made as early as now for 2010: www.expeditionfleet.com

Colorful Characters (And I Don't Mean the Fishes)

Photo credit: Junjie Kho

1. I once found myself diving with a yoga instructor who wore white like a trademark and who, it was whispered around the deck, tutored presidents and CEOs. I wondered then why this supposed master at breathing was exhaling bubbles at shallow intervals, consuming air faster than the rest of us.

She was excitable, barreling through other divers for a closer look at say, a pawikan (sea turtle) or marble ray, disturbing it away to the group’s exasperation. For a practitioner of body awareness, I noted with some fascination, this woman did not seem to know how to position herself unobtrusively around marine life.

2. I also ended up diving with a deaf-mute underwater photographer who initially had trouble connecting with people (most shied away from the perceived extra effort of trying to make sense of his gesticulations). Underwater, however, where everyone was muted anyway, he was a master at the hand signals, truly in his element, the most animated and “talkative” in the group.

Dangling the promise of an underwater photo-souvenir, he confidently herded (with energetic wrist flicks) divers this way and that for the best backdrop of schooling barracudas—although I noticed, he didn’t always press the camera button!

3. While on our knees and lined up in a row on Monad Shoal in Malapascua (waiting, waiting for a manta to glide in), we were semi-aware of one local divemaster swimming to and fro from behind our backs—methodically picking up one octopus (back-up regulator) after another, seemingly examining it, test-breathing from it, even hand-signaling O.K.

Later, he confessed that he was already about to backroll when he discovered that his tank had only 1,500 psi. This being the second dive, and with all the other tanks awarded to guests, he decided to just go with it and, when he already needed to, just start “testing” other divers’ air. Ingenious.

4. On a dive in Apo Reef, three divers, including our most regular divemaster, brought down one newly bought underwater camera housing each to TEST against possible leaking-under-pressure.

Midway into the dive, what else would choose to reveal itself but a magnificent hammerhead shark!

No one in the group had ever seen one before. Tanks were banged like crazy. Arms punched overhead. Muffled screams. And they could've kicked themselves over the fact that all three camera housings contained only…drumroll please…paper.

5. We were doing Tubbataha out on the Sulu Seas for the entire last week of May when blue skies turned grey. With the onslaught of wind and rain, our charter boat pitched and rolled. I chose to stay up on deck because I figured looking out on the horizon helped with possible dizziness better than being cooped up in my cabin.

Soon enough however, one guy couldn’t help but hurl his lunch over the rail (look out down below!). Then, like a wave, up to four people followed suit with their own gagging-and-heaving. It was not a pretty sight.

So, with all that going on, no one noticed early enough that one of the chase boats tethered to the side of our “mother boat” was being tossed by swells—hard enough for it to slip under and then turn over! Unfortunately, in that very chase boat were the BCs, regs, and other gear of a group of divers supposedly scheduled to head out (before the weather turned).

Everyone was suddenly on one side of our boat, watching the submerged chase boat as it further receded under. At least two guys hurriedly suited up in a valiant effort to rescue the gear but by then these were sunk to impossible depths.

The pity for this group who lost their gear (and consequently, the chance to go out on the last few precious dives of the trip) was quite palpable.

Then came the announcement: the company’s dive shop back in Manila will outfit these guys with top-of-the-line replacements for everything they lost—down to every reel, slate or whatever equipment declared hooked to their BCs when these went down.

Human nature being what it is, pity quickly turned to envy, and there was actual talk of maybe tossing one’s own battered gear (include the rusty dive knife! and the flooded torch!) overboard “in sympathy” too.

6. In Ticao Bowl, Masbate while diving for mantas, we noticed that this outrigger boat seemed to be shadowing us. The fisherman looked like he was just going about his usual business. Most of the time, he lay on his boat, probably waiting for a tug on his lines or movement in his net.

As we chatted in between dives, one of the crew noticed activity, just beneath the water's surface, at a short distance. The local divemaster excitedly said that it could be a manta.

The fisherman and his banca suddenly leapt to life, quickly motoring off to that area. We actually saw him threw a harpoon into the water. We screamed. One of the divers, shouting obscenities throughout, pulled out a gun and fired shots in the air (which was scary in itself; he turned out to be a local law enforcer). We were relieved to see the fisherman pull the harpoon out of the water with nothing stuck at the end.

That this fisherman (from another town, the local DM was sure) trailed us knowing that we were here for the mantas (that divers unwittingly bring danger to what we love) was a sobering realization!

7. Finally, imagine us, four females just surfaced from Monad Shoal, waiting by the side of the outrigger boat for our turn to climb up the ladder. Every now and then, we'd plant our masked faces back into the water to locate just where a jellyfish was in reference to us. We were of course convinced that it kept getting nearer. There were screams. Fins were getting to ssed back into the boat. There was a mad scramble up.

Non-divers still rib us on the idea that on that very trip, we "bravely" sought out

and found our toothy thresher sharks but went jelly on the knees and girly-girly over this small creature that really, was at the mercy of where the currents took it.

But then again, someone who I thought was my friend had to point out (a parallel contradiction): they already know that I don't mind, say, rapelling over the side of a ship (an adventure race dare) but I have to be escorted across Manila's streets!