Fantasy Island

This past weekend was a long weekend here in the Philippines to honor All Saints and All Souls Day. The tradition here is that everyone gathers in a family reunion in the cemetaries - they bring a picnic and make a day of it. Since we had no one to visit, we were treated to a trip to Danjugan Island, a protected marine and wildlife sanctuary. Our ABV coordinator, Waya also brought some of her family along and the 16 of us had the run of our own private island for the weekend. AMAZING. The island is only 500 meters wide so you can easily hike to either side to watch both the sunrise and the sunset.

I took the opportunity to get in a few more dives. First we went down to about 24 meters along Manta Reef. We didn't spot the manta ray but I did see a big lobster tucked into a crevasse. It was hard to tell how long it was but the antennae from it's head were at least 15 inches long. We also saw lots of fish and a few sea cucumbers. On the second dive we passed a field of giant clams which has been planted a decade ago to help rebuild the reef. They muscles inside were bright purple and spectacular. It was really nice to see the conservation efforts at work and impressive to see how much to reef had rebuilt after years of overfishing and destruction.



For some people this was their first experience 'roughing it' but it was quite reasonable to me. We slepted in open air cabana huts under mosquito nets. There is no fresh water on the island so must be brought in daily from the mainland. The power is a few solar panels charging car batteries which means showers were limited and cold. I really could have stayed there a lot longer, there was so much to explore. All in all, a once in a lifetime experience!