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CORALREPUBLIC Philippines
February 2004
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Trip
dates: |
21 -29February
2004 |
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Boat
/ resort: |
El Dorado Beach
Resort, Dauin (Dumaguete), Negros
Oriental. |
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Dive
centre: |
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Photo-friendly?: |
Yes. Very. |
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Number
of dives: |
14 over 5 days of
diving. |
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Diving
conditions: |
Clear most of the
time, calm seas. No strong currents, but some in the dive sites around Apo
Island. Water temperature 27 °C. Good visibility in Apo, even a decen 10 to 15m in shallow muck dives around Dauin. |
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Comments: |
This was a
memorable trip, since it had to be rearranged on the go. A group of 5 of us
had planned on a trip to stay on Bunaken island in
Indonesia. A month before departure, Indonesia started applying a restriction
for visas on arrival when our flights had long been booked and issued. We
were accepted at check-in in Brussels without anybody asking whether we had
pre-issued visas. After a long flight via Singapore, four of us (2 Irish, one
Belgian and my Spanish self) were refused entry on arrival to Manado and only
our French travel mate was allowed to purchase a visa on arrival. She had to
stay in Bunaken, alone, while the rest of us were
sent packing on the same plane back to Singapore. Cries and exhaustion tears
did not move the Indonesian immigration officers at all. We had originally
planned a two-night Singapore stopover on our way back, so all that was left
for us to do was to spend that time at the beginning of the trip and use it
to find an alternative arrangement while visiting the Singapore highlights.
We really did not want to go back home. Since I had stayed with Sea Explorers
just 4 weeks before, I gave them a call. They found rooms for us right away
in their Dumaguete centre. We booked ourselves on a
flight from Singapore to Cebu and off we went. At the end of the week, we
reunited with poor Isabelle in Singapore for the last stopover night there.
She had had a good time, but asked please to ensure that, the next holidays,
we’d spend them “together”. After no matter
how many travels, no-one is safe from incidents like this, particularly in
transitional periods. Indonesia extended the visa on arrival facility to all
EU countries just a few weeks after our trip. I will never again leave
without double checking that all the formalities have been taken care of. It
is really not nice when you are refused entry after such a long journey and
we ere lucky that Sea Explorers were able to sort
us out on the go. We were also very lucky that the Bunaken
Resort had actually not asked for a deposit for our room bookings (which is
rare) and did not lose more of our money than was needed for the
Singapore-Cebu extra flight. The stay in Dumaguete was great, the diving excellent. The DUCOMI
Pier (that stands for DUmaguete COconut
MIlling, a pier where large boats load and unload
copra cargo) has to be one of the best sites I have ever dived. I just heard
they were going to renovate the place and that’s bad news if they disrupt the
pillars with their incredible coral growth.
Note also that Sea Explorers moved out of El Dorado to the Pura Vida Resort close by, the dive sites remain largely
the same. Incredible macro life, especially flatworms, which I really love.
The dark sands make for muck dive sites comparable to Lembeh
Strait sites in variety and abundance of rare critters. The Reefs at Apo are
great for big schools, turtles, pelagics and sea
snakes. This was the
first time I used an external strobe with my Olympus C-5050Z, namely an Inon D-2000 with a fibre optic synch cable. |
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