Almost half way through the holiday, already…

I’ve been thinking that we should be giving credit of our wonderful diving to the team here at Sogod Bay.

Our dive guide is Pedro. He is excellent and together with the rest of the guides, Dave and Iain (Pedro’s cousin) , gets us all organised. By the way, Pedro says hi to Jen and Jo, who he guided when the four of us came out in October 2016.

The boat crew are also excellent. In no particular order we have…

Puloy, always ready to make you a coffee and ply you with biscuits and fresh fruit.

Arnold (Pedro’s nephew), who is normally driving the boat.

Tata, is another essential crew member, very helpful getting us out of the water but also seems paramount in the direction of the boat.

Picture is of Puloy, Pedro and Tata (left to right).

All of the crew help with the ferrying from shore to boat and, of course, back again, in the tea tray (so called by Richard). Nice and easy when the weather is beautiful, like it is today.

Back in the dive centre looking after kit is another helpful guy.

Back at base, we have the ever efficient, Annalyn, and the very helpful, Rai.

There are also people we don’t get to see… The cook, the cleaner and the gardener.

It’s cloudy today but the sea is completely flat. If the sun comes out, it will be perfect.

Heading across the bay to Santa Paz and Napantao. Should be good!

Yesterday, we had 17 guests on the boat.

Today… 3… us and a lovely lady from Germany that we have met here before, Gisela.

The boat is able to take 30 divers, but I feel that would be a little cramped.

Sometime between breakfast and getting on the boat, the clouds disappeared. Brilliant sunshine and no wind.

FANTASTIC!!!

Ahh, change of plan. Diving locally, instead. The deeper parts of Voltaire’s rock and Bunga Bend.

Dive 1 – Voltaire’s rock

Down to about 30 metres on the plateau to see the pretty sea fans and hydrozoas.

Also saw

• Octopus
• Turtle

• Two very large brown frogfish

• On the safety stop, a large amount of very tiny jellyfish

Those jellyfish, boy do they sting. We stink of vinegar now. I know one person that would find us irresistible…

Dive 2 – Bunga Bend

Another deep dive, to the rocky out crop and overhang. Absolutely festooned with soft coral. Richard was a happy bunny.

We also saw

• A couple of seal cub slug (think that might be a local name)

• A very weird pink jellyfish

• Some microscopic slugs, too small even for my camera.

• More stinging jellyfish at the end.

It was a lovely trip back. I took some photos along the way.

The two boats on the left are Kermit and Gamma Kermit (Gamma = baby), washed a shore in the storm on 2nd January this year.

As there were less divers on board we were back at shore by 1pm, in time for lunch. Then a little R&R before heading back out at 3pm for the afternoon five.

The dive was just off from the dive centre, so not far to go.

Dive 3 – Max Climax Wall

Slope down to about 22 metres then a beautiful wall covered in soft corals and hydrozoas.

We saw…

• Lots of jellies as we got in

• A Turtle

• Slugs

• Pink/Grey frogfish – yawning

• Beautiful feather worms

• No jellies as we go up, phew!

We have done a lot of diving and very little surprises us, but the way that Pedro made the boat appear at the end of the dive would have rivalled David Copperfield. It was just there! Brilliant!

I spend a lot of time watching the animals under water and I was wondering…

Do fish chew their food? I swear I saw a fish chewing, swallow and then taking another bite.

Anyway, off to have a pre dinner drink. Ahh, the joys of being on holiday…

Quick round up…

Photos kept from today? Ahh, not up to date, hundreds

Crib? All square!

Cat kicking? Once only.