Jenny's Blog: Diving Apo Reef

Monday, November 28, 2011

Diving Apo Reef

So finally onto the good part and the whole reason for the trip....diving! Apo Reef is the top dive site in the Philippines and the world so we were all really excited to visit and we were not disappointed. After a 2 hr boat ride (to the middle of no where) we arrived. The island itself is pretty small and no one lives here except caretakers to ensure there is no fishing. We were the only boat there on the first dive. Within 5 minutes of the first dive we saw many sharks, an eagle ray, BIG fish including sweet lips, barracuda, and lots of turtles. It was totally and utterly amazing. We headed to the second dive site to do our surface interval and along came another boat full of divers from Spain. There was probably about 15 of them and they all jumped off the boat - but not quick enough - and they ended up strewn all over the place with the currents (they were really strong) and they couldn't swim back so out came the rescue boats (little inflatable boats) to go pick up everyone . We watched from our boat for the next 30 minutes as they slowly got everyone back together. It was a total shit show and we were really happy to have only 4 people on our boat. The second dive was more of the same - I couldn't get enough of these dive sites! The currents were really crazy on this dive. We were going at a pretty good clip along a wall, then came up over to another wall and the current was pulling you down and away from the wall - so you had to stay really close to the wall so you didn't get pushed out into the open ocean. All in all it was an amazing day and we all agreed it was the best diving we had done in PH and worth the long trip!