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TWENTY FOUR We got back to Dumaguete on April 3. The three weeks away was really great yet, we did miss home. Monday April 10,.... I went diving for the first time since my Heart Attack on June 22, 2005. It was so nice to get back into the water. To be honest I was a litle nervous as I have been having constant breathing problems and didn't know how the dives would go especially under pressure. Turned out to be fine. We went to APO Island which an instructor friend of mine refers to the Disneyland of diving. Apo is a small island about 30 minutes by pump boat from Dauin. It is truly a very beautiful place with great tourquoise blue water. Nevertheless, I hate to be cynical (That would be lying as I actually like being cynical LOL) but, in my honest opinion it is great diving if you are into colorful small tropical "Nemo" fish and bright colored soft and hard corals. However, my thing is big fish and there were none to be found. I guess what it comes down to is a mental gear shifting on my part to this type of diving which dominates the Philipiines. This reason being there are relatively few big fish in shallow waters of the Philippines. The thing I guess I am really pissed about are the extremely ignorant people here who could care less about the reefs, the environment and have successfully fished, dynamited just about every large fish out of existence. They of course will pay for it in the long run as I predict there won't be a single fish left here within 15 - 20 years. What's even worse is the lack of any real interevention by the government. Seems the only thing they care about are the remittances into the country by Filipinos living and working abroad. On a positive note, many municipalities in the Philippines are now waking up and trying to protect the reefs by creating dive sanctuaries. It is probably too little too late. Anyway, access to these sanctuaries is limited to only divers and not fisherpeople. In order to dive these sanctuaries divers must pay a fee ranging from about $3.00 to $6.00 per dive. I think this is very good but who really knows if the money is actually going to promote this type of environmentaliam or into the pockets of corrupt officials. Also I think it sucks that we have to pay for the criminal mistakes of the locals who created this mess to begin with. There should be a fishing fee and that money should go to the sanctuaries. Anyway I am wasting oxygen here. The only way you can still get any large fish is by trolling for them in deeper water. I swear that I wish I could have a long range rifle as I would literally shoot everyone of these idiot Philippine Fisherpeople who can only think about the short term benefit and not the incredible damage and consequences that will come back to haunt them from thier actions. Fortunately, it is illegal to own a gun here for a foreigner and I am not that stupid. June 4, 2006 - Wow it has been almost two months since my last entry. Presently, we are in Cebu staying at our usual hotel, Eddies. On the way to Cebu, we caught up with a Dumaguete friend Barry and his wife Kay who recently purchased a beautiful cliff side property in Oslob located at the southern most part opf Cebu Island.
As
for the lack of activity well that is because for the most part
not much has been going on but here is a numbered synopsis; Lynn just left today to go back to Davao with Joe and after dropping him there, will be off to Siargao to clear the property and the beach. She is bringing one of her brothers with her to oversee the various things that need to be done there. Hopefully, he will like it enough and want to stay in Siargao permanently. I leave tomorrow for Palawan where I will be catching the liveaboard boat for the one week dive trip. We are headed for the Sulu sea which lies between Palawan and Negros and is supposed to have some of the best diving in the Country. I am so excited. I get back to Cebu on the 11th and Lynn the 12th. June 5, 2006 - Left Cebu today on Air Philippines at 10:00am heading to Puerto Princessa where I am to meet Bing and Jun the organizers of the spearfishing trip. On the plane were just about all the divers going on the trip. I was sitting next to Ed Sarmiento whose father used to own a dive business in Cebu but sold out to an American named Brian Giles. We arrived Palawan by 11:00am and were met by June and Bing with two vans to carry us to the dock. You wouldn't believe all the equipment especially the numbers of spear guns and many of them were Riffe's. Very unusual I would think for the Philippines as these guns sell for the high hundreds of dollars. 2005
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