boracay!

[kimchicowboy]

i came back from a 5-day trip to boracay, philippines last night. it was very nice to head out to someplace tropical for once since i haven't been anyplace like that in three years. stress at work and a strong desire to go scuba diving again led me to go to. if you haven't heard of boracay, it's a small island south of manila. i had to fly into manila, take a charter plane (passengers either take a 2 or 4 engine turboprop plane) to the closest airport (caticlan) and then take a 20 minute boatride to the island. beautiful blue water, super fine white sand beaches. although it was more expensive than i anticipated, i had a great time (although going alone made things a bit lonely at times). unfortunately, weather turned bad, and choppy waves limited me to only dive 6 out of an anticipated 9 times. but the tropical weather seems to have cleared my nose (refer to stuffy nose thread in softer side). but if i want to go diving again, i'd probably head out somewhere else; i heard neighboring palawan is better for diving. hopefully i have enough money to go to palau in late january or early february so i can dive with some sharks and manta rays. :)

here's me and some guys heading out for a dive:

http://www.jameshong.net/uploaded/firstdive.jpg

by the way, the philippine bear "red horse" is pretty dang strong and tastes nasty and the manila international airport (ninoy aquino international) is the biggest dump of an airport i've ever seen. bah.

[ufcrusher]

Why are you in a full suit in that part of the world at this time of the year. The water temp should have been in the mid 70's even at depth (70 ft). Were you doing a shore dive or did they make you wade to the boat?

[kimchicowboy]

actually, the suit i was wearing had short-sleeve arms, but the legs were full-length. i dunno; i just used what the dive center gave me. :)

we had to wade to the boat, but no biggie since we just carried our fins to the boat and put them on there. the diving was less spectacular than what i had hoped for. we saw some lionfish, stone fish, those pufferfish, some pretty large triggerfish. others swam with mantas, but do to weather conditions, i didn't have a chance to hit that particular dive spot. argg. well, hopefully palau next in a few months. :)