⌛ Request for Assistance with our Diving Itinerary

Hey people, my wife and I are going to your beautiful Dumaguete for 4 days of "scubadik" diving!

Penge naman ng tips on where to go and what to do for a couple of OWDs with 25+ dives (na natuto sa Balicasag at Alona last 04/2007!) We're arriving on Saturday morning, and leaving on the Wednesday afternoon flight. Wala kaming gear so we'll be renting everything there. We're your average scubarats, emphasis on BARAT! Kahit hindi aircon basta may simoy ng dagat, tsaka walang ipis. Also, saan may katulad ng Larsian?

Temporary sched namin:

Saturday:
From the airport, we go directly to Dauin and search for a place to stay for the next 2 nights.
Kain lunch, 2 dives in the afternoon.
Tulog.

Sunday:
3 dives sa Dauin.
Dumaguete sa gabi para magsimba at manood ng sayawan sa plaza (meron ba nyan? may nakita akong website somewhere kasi na may ganyan daw...)
Balik Dauin. Tulog

Monday:
Punta sa Apo early in the morning. 2 or 3 dives kung kaya.
Alin recommended nyo na hotel doon? What about the dive services?
Where do we eat na masarap, madami, at mura?

Tuesday:
2 Dives ulit, flight is in the afternoon pa naman! (scubadik nga e)
Balik Dumaguete sa hapon.
Lakad sa boulevard, pwede pa ba mag-tour?

Wednesday:
Last minute pasalubong shopping, hanap ng Carcar chicharon, ano ba dapat pang gawin?
Lipad ng hapon.

MAJOR QUESTIONS:
1. Saan masarap/mura/madami ang food na parang Larsian ng Cebu?
2. Ano average cost of rental equipment per day for a full set from mask to fins and everything in between?
3. After a full day of diving, ano magandang puntahan/tingnan/dalawin/gawin?
4. We have 4 nights and 5 days to immerse ourselves in the beauty and culture of Dumaguete/Dauin/Apo. What are the places/events/people that we should absolutely not miss?

Suggestions naman please, and thanks in advance!
You can send your replies to TanJames44@gmail.com if you prefer not to reply to the entire board.

James (scubadik na, scu-barat pa!)

 

Hi James,
welcome to Dumagueteinfo.
try to contact (call/txt/mail) the Adventure-diveshop in Dumaguete.

find the contact details on the link above. I would stay in Dumaguete if you as Dauin is always a long way to go to town (and back at night) if yo don't have own transfer.

Places you should not miss in Dumaguete... hmmm Hayahay with live-music good seafood. Casablanca one of the best Restaurants in town. Italia (authentic Italian food).
There are plenty of options where to stay in nice places in town. Mike from the diveshop can assist you in that as he works together with some hotels and can also arrange Pick-up's at your hotel. Friends of mine stay many times in Hotel Palwa, it is central and everything is in a kind of walking distance...

In your off-gassing time you may wanna make a tour to Forrest camp, or an ATV-tour (4 hours)

hope to help you a it for now. Just drop a line for more information

cheers

Rhoody

 

Hi Rhoody! I made the mistake of reading your dive-monster.com site first before actually checking out your recommended hotel and restos. I've been laughing and smiling and generally enjoying your blogs! That's what you get for being scubaddicted to the Philippine way of life, don't ask why!

BTW, thanks for the tips!

 

James,thank you for the compliment...
the good thing about dive-monster is that I don't need to behave like here and can write what I want.
Anyway, I forgot something. With whoever you dive, make sure they have a reservation for at least one dive at Ducomi, IMHO the best divespot here.

Drop a line when you are here, we can meet for a glas of water... (I guess other members don't believe me that water-thingy)

cheers

Rhoody

 

Diving in Ducomi needs to be reserved? Can the three Ducomi sites be done on a single dive? Looking at Atlantis's description, it looks like we're going to need at least 3 for those! I hope my batteries last that long! Someone said something about a xeno crab down there, but without pics...

Will make sure I bang my tank when we get there

James

 

Ducomi needs special reservation 24 hours in advanced.

I think some Resorts up and down the beach mention 3 Ducomi Divesites, to make their dive-sitelist longer... There is the small and the big Pier, sometimes I did not reach the big pier as there is so much macro stuff to find at ther small one, or even in the area between them, I would ask the diveshop for 2 dives on your last diving day in the morning there...

Rhoody

 

the bags are packed, we're booked at the hotel, we're booked for apo, been breathing thru my mouth since yesterday... i'm sure i'm going to find it hard to get any work done today! hope the weather holds out till next week

 

Im holding my breath here for an update...

How was the trip?

 

You dive Ducomi in the easy way and not rush rush, you can stay one dive at one pile and you did not see everything.
At the other hand there is a time limit for diving resorts to stay at the pier, cos after you there are others who will also dive over there and there is a limitation of divers ath the pier.

But one thing is for shure Ducomi is special and the strange thing is that some divers see anything over there but i see everything.
It is my favorite divespot and did not see anything like this spot over the world .
And I tell you i have seen a lot all over the world.

Greetings J.Diver

 

Thank you Dumaguete for a wonderful vacation!



We were supposed to meet up with Mike Feeney at the airport at 8:30am and then proceed directly to Apo Island, he was nice enough to offer that extra bit of service so we could get the most out of our vacation. Because of a delayed Cebu Pacific flight from Manila, he had to proceed to Apo Island but without us. We arrived at Dumaguete 2 hours later, checked in at the hotel and got connected with Dive Works instead.
It was already 2pm and we really wanted to get wet so we went to Ducomi's Pier. Wonderful dive site! We parked right beside the beach, got dressed there, dragged our tanks out and at 3pm we made a shore entry. It was initially sandy/mucky and basically barren unless you knew where to look, until we got a little deeper and things started becomming more interesting. When we got to the pier, it was almost surreal! Every pillar is encrusted with soft corals and stuff. There was a sea fan that grew wide enough to reach from one pillar to the other, probably two meters, underneath the pier. We were dragging our tanks out to the water again by 5pm. We were told there are plenty of frogfish down there but we didn't see any on our two afternoon dives. But we did see so much more that we haven't seen anywhere else that we forgot about the frogfish. Click here for pictures of our dive. Everyone has seen corals and coral beds and reef fish and all that, but not everyone has been underneath a pier, and Ducomi's Pier is one dive you need to do when you're in Dumaguete!

We stayed at Hotel Palwa, thanks to Rhoody for the recommendation, and we weren't disappointed. It's clean, well staffed, has amenities, and is in the middle of the city. Wifi speed is decent, and the food is good. We'd stay there again when we come back (note that I used "when" and not "if".)

We went diving at Apo Island on Sunday and Monday. I have to say it is the biggest concentration of corals I've ever been to. They were in every place of every dive we did out there. We went to a coral garden, we went to a coral wall, we went to a coral canyon (yes it looked like a mini canyon with cliffs and a valleys and it's huge), I think we even got lost! We chased a couple of turtles who were trying to get cleaned (but they were not harmed in any way), we pulled at the tail of a banded sea snake, we watched fish swimming in schools and other fish just playing hokey. (This isn't enough to describe the beauty that we saw out there. Maybe a couple more pages for a full blown magazine article... Links to pictures to follow...)

Our last dive on Monday afternoon was a sanctuary at Dauin where we saw a bed of garden snakes, various mantas and other bottom crawling critters, surprisingly diverse anemone, and got chased by a pair of trigger fish. All that and more from another shore entry dive where the farthest we got from the beach was maybe 30 meters out and 15 meters down! (Link to pictures will follow...)

We rented a scooter for cheap and just drove around the city on Tuesday. We ate at San Rival Bakeshop and ended up taking home 10 boxes of their SansRival cakes back to Manila. Once in Manila, we realized we should have packed much more! We also went up to Valencia and walked around Forest Camp, a beautiful place stradling a fast flowing fresh-water stream.

We met up with friends whom we haven't seen in years, and basically fell in love with Dumaguete and the lifestyle and the people and their pace that we started asking for prices on housing and possible business opportunities!

It's been 20 days since we arrived, 15 days since we left, we haven't paid off all the creditcard bills that we accumulated but we're already planning for our return trip, hopefully that happens this December. I'd like to see how Christmas is like in that gentle city.

I am 42, with minimal savings, a wife, 20 years of programming experience, some of those as UNIX and NT administrator, bare minimum diving certification, and I would like to move to Dumaguete. Anyone out there willing to help me make this a reality?

James Tan

Click here for some more pictures we took from Dumaguete