Written by Sammi Mills (on her phone, so please forgive any typos). Not sure who gets photo credits this time.

Philippines 2019 – Dive Day 3

On day three in the Philippines, the dive society headed out to dive three dives. We headed across the water to Zack’s cove, a hard coral garden. Going down on the wall we saw a green frogfish, hiding perched on a piece of coral. A few metres away a large reef octopus was also hiding on the reef. There were lots of different nudibranchs of all different colours and sizes, it really is a nudi lovers dream.

The second dive today was at a gorgeous dive site. Pristine yet ancient hard corals for as far as the eye could see populated the area spanning huge canyons and towering mountains. It was briefed to us as a scene from Jurassic park and it didn’t disappoint.

We ventured down the wall to see an electric clam. Unfortunately the electric clam had closed by the time the group got there.

Whilst on this dive I was taking a photo of a nudi and a turtle headed around the wall and swam straight at me, that was exciting! I quickly signalled to my buddy so he would see it swell. At the same time, I swam backwards and hit the video button.

The third dive of the day was on Heavens Gate. There was a small drift that picked up towards the end of the dive and it felt like you were flying over the reef.

Sadly later that night we were told about how the reefs on Southern Leyte in the Philippines had been devastated by an outbreak of crown of thorns a few years ago. Luckily the dive centres in the area clubbed together and dealt with the outbreak before it encompassed the entire bay.