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A day in the life of a dive instructor

7 am: Arriving at work, I start by looking at the board. 8 fun-divers today and an awesome day planned – Umbrella and Tongo is on the schedule! Umbrella is also known as the airplane wreck and is one of my favorite dive sites in Moalboal and although I’ve dived the site numerous times before, the thought of going there always excites me. I start preparing for the day; there is almost 2 hours until the boat leaves and there are still lots of things to be done: set up guests equipment, prepare the boat, count extra-tanks….

Busy day ahead!

9 am: All guests have arrived to the dive-center. Today I’m guiding a lovely couple from Israel who are here on holidays. The best part of my job (except for the obvious – getting to dive in paradise every day) is that I get to meet people from all around the world; hearing their stories and getting to know their cultures. All dive guides and instructors here at Quo Vadis are happy guiding divers of all qualification levels, everything from beginners to professional divers. It turns out that my divers today are very experienced and for that reason, I let them plan their dive entirely, which they seem to be very happy about. All in all we had two wonderful dives with lots of laughter in between.

Exploring Moalboals only wreck at dive site Umbrella

1 pm: As the boat returns back to the dive center I help the divers to rinse their gear and inform them about this afternoons dive. An hour and a half to go before the boat departs so I take a seat in LaPayag seaview bar and restaurant to grab some lunch. As a person of habit, I get the Arista Burger and enjoy a quiet lunch in the shade.

2.30 pm: As I come back from lunch I’m pleased to see that my student for this afternoon’s Discover Scuba diving session has arrived. For those of you who don’t know, the Discover Scuba program is a quick and easy introduction to the underwater world for non-certified divers. My student for the day is a young fella from Canada who tells me he has wanted to dive for quite some time but never got around to it. He also tells me he is somewhat nervous about this afternoon. I tell him that this is a very common feeling as it is a whole new experience to breathe underwater, but that most people can overcome this and quickly learn to relax once in the ocean. In addition, Moalboal is one of the best places to start diving as we have many shallow dive sites that are perfect for new divers.

We take a seat in the outside seating area of the dive center and go through some basic dive theory before we head out to the pool for some skills and in-water practice. Half an hour later we are done and I see a much more confident student in front of me, which makes me even more thrilled for our dive in the ocean. Long story short, an hour later we exit the water from our beautiful house reef, having seen 14 turtles (!!!), a giant frogfish, a nudibranch and a never ending number of beautiful corals. Not bad for a first dive huh?!

Coolest dudes on the reef! We saw not only one but 14 of them!

1 out of the 14 (!!!) turtles seen on one single dive

5 pm: A long work day has come to an end. Around this time I usually meet my coworkers in the Seaview bar for a refreshing beverage and to enjoy the sunset. This also gives our customers the opportunity to come and chat to us and ask us any questions they might have. And as I’m about to take a sip out of my frozen mango shake, I get a pleasant surprise. My student from this afternoon’s discover scuba dive session comes up and tells me that he wants to become a certified diver and so we decide to start his Open Water Course tomorrow. What a fantastic end to a fantastic day!

The perfect ending to a perfect day!

– Sarah, Instructor & Dive Center manager at Quo Vadis Dive Resort

Take only memories, leave only bubbles

As a diver, you have hopefully been told multiple times in the Divemaster’s briefings not to touch, chase or collect any underwater marine life. But maybe not all Divemasters have explained why this is.

The effects of touching marine life are not always so obvious and a lack of knowledge might pursue those who are curious causing further harm. Touching fish, animals or corals can be as damaging in the long run as intentionally killing or catching them.

Many underwater creatures such as turtles, rays and many species of sharks rely on bio-films (protective slime) to keep away infections. By touching, we can damage this film. Even the different bacteria we have on our hands can ‘eat away’ this protective film and can cause the animal to be more susceptible towards infections, which in the worst case may lead to death.

Corals are equally fragile. The slightest contact can damage the coral polyps’ hard exterior. This leaves the polyps with a reduced immunity which in its turn can lead to the polyp to die off completely. Of course the more polyps are damaged, the bigger the effect on the coral colony.

The damage humans can do as divers and snorkelers alike is very evident. Not only through poor buoyancy control or carelessness by stepping on the reef, but also the sunscreen we wear before going in to the water can damage the reef more than most might know. Sunscreen in particular can damage vast amounts of reef in popular dive or snorkel spots, since the sunscreen will wash off and will do exactly the same to the coral as it would to your skin. The difference is that coral needs sunlight to be able to survive and when covered with sunscreen, no light can get to it.

If you’re not able to get a hold of coral safe sunscreen, the best thing to do is to put sunscreen on one hour before you enter the water. This way most of the sunscreen is soaked into your skin and does not wash off when swimming. Or better yet, prepare for your diving/snorkeling holiday by ordering some coral safe sunscreen beforehand.

As divers and snorkelers, we are able to make a difference. Through our explorations under water, we can raise awareness about the marine environment. We are all fighting to protect our dive and snorkel sites. By telling people what you know after reading this blog post, our impact can continue to be a positive one. Take only memories; leave only bubbles!!!

More information about coral safe sunscreen www.stream2sea.com

A Christmas reef clean up – making a difference

Here at Quo Vadis Dive Resort, we think that being a diver carries more responsibilities than just diving and looking at fish. As soon as you get certified as a diver, you don’t just learn about safe diving practices, but your instructor should also have taught you about the importance of being a responsible diver in regards to the environment.

The surface of the world as we know it right now consists of 71% water, and the oceans hold about 96.5% of all Earth’s water. Rain forests are responsible for roughly one-third of the Earth’s oxygen, but most of the oxygen in the atmosphere is produced by marine plants. The production of oxygen in the ocean is created by plants (phytoplankton, kelp and algal plankton) that live in the ocean. Same as plants on land, the marine plants produce oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis. This process converts carbon dioxide and sunlight into sugars that the organisms use for energy. One specific type of phytoplankton (Prochlorococcus) releases vast amounts of oxygen into the Earth’s atmosphere. It is the most abundant photosynthetic organism on our planet.

Phytoplankton creates the base of the marine food chain. The health of all organisms in the ocean is directly related to the health of phytoplankton.

So how can we help to save our oxygen?

Save the phytoplankton!

How do we do this?

Decrease you impact on pollution by using less energy (go to work via public transportation or your old school bicycle), help protect habitats on land and in the ocean (donate to organizations that can make a difference or volunteer on land or in the ocean by doing clean ups), encourage others to stop over-harvesting ocean wildlife (talk about the negative effects in the ocean of consuming predatory fish and also the consistency of mercury in bigger predatory fish and personal health risks that are related to the consumption of a lot of fish).

Since you see what is going on as a snorkeler or a diver below the surface, you can personally help out by not only telling how amazing the marine life is, but also the changes that you might have seen already over the last few decades. Your pictures and stories can help others care as much as you about the ocean and their habitants, and hopefully through your stories you can educate others about the importance of protecting our oceans. You are a diver, snorkeler, and with it you are the most important ambassadors to help protect our oceans and oxygen.

Want to make a difference soon?

Come and join us on our Christmas reef clean up and by diving against debris we will donate 500 Php of the money you paid for the dive to PROJECT AWARE to help save our oceans. Find us on Facebook or simply e-mail and sign up! See you on the 22^nd of December!

Christmas Reef Clean up - 22qnd of December 2017

Christmas Reef Clean up – 22nd of December 2017

Written by Inge Leys – Quo Vadis Dive Center Manager

“The Best House Reef in Moalboal”

So many people that come into our dive center have some form of prejudice towards the notion of diving our “house reef,” but actually the house reef we have in front of our resort is one of my personal favourite dive sites in Moalboal. Those snorkelers and divers willing to experience it for themselves will generally agree. One of the biggest appeals it has is that a lot of the time it is just your group there creating a rather unique experience; truly a gem “hidden in plain view” as the expression goes.

Being guided out to the reef wall by mooring lines in the shallows, you end up reaching the drop off for our incredible reef. The reef itself is packed with some of the most beautiful, healthy hard corals and anemones the area has to offer. Though through descending deeper you can see a vast array of colorful soft coral, big barrel sponges and gorgonian sea fans that are potentially home to some very special creatures such as: hairy squat lobsters, ornate ghost pipefish, robust ghost pipefish, giant frogfish, painted frogfish, sexy squat shrimps, peacock mantis shrimp, candy crabs, orangutan crabs and so on…

Ornate Ghost Pipefish

Sexy Squat Shrimp

Blue-ringed Octopus

Orangutan Crab

Hairy Squat Lobster

During the dive, you will likely be greeted by sea turtles which can be either green turtles or hawksbill turtles. Keep your eyes peeled as you’re surfacing or even if you’re already on the surface, during the day time when there is sargassum seaweed or coconut shells floating around, you might be able to spot the amazing sargassum frogfish looking for shelter near the surface.

To top it all off… As the sun sets over the horizon our house reef inhabits some of the famous mandarin fish that come and display the spectacle of their mating ritual for us, there really aren’t much better ways to start a night dive. Even blue-ringed octopus, and leafy scorpion fish tend to surprise us on night dives pretty regularly in addition to many other marine species that come alive after dusk.

So, let’s be rid of this negative connotation when you hear ‘house reef’… Quo Vadis House reef… Snorkel it, dive it, and be amazed!

Written by, Inge

Instructor and Dive Center Manager

Quo Vadis Dive Resort

Pictures: Inge Leys & Pernilla Sjöö

What about corals?

As you duck beneath the surface, your senses triggers. To your right, a bright orange clown fish defending its anemone home while a moray eel retreats into its cave. As you float in the other direction, you spot giant sea fans coloring the underwater landscape and branching corals beckoning to you. You are scuba diving along one of the many coral reefs scattered throughout the equatorial seas, glimpsing the multitude of life that this largest of living structures supports.

Some of the corals on Quo Vadis Dive Resort s house reef

Your underwater view, however, might not be long lasting if we don’t take care of it better. Seventy percent of coral reefs may be gone in less than 40 years if the present rate of destruction continues. Coral reefs are made predominantly of stony corals and supported by the limestone skeleton they excrete. The rain forest of the sea are home to a quarter of all marine fish species. In addition to the variety of marine life they support, coral reefs are also immensely beneficial to humans, buffeting coastal regions from strong waves and storms, providing millions of people with food and jobs and prompting advances in modern medicine.

How are these incredible structures created? How can a single coral that is only 3 millimeters long (about the size of the word “is” on this page) become a reef that may stretch for miles and weigh hundreds of tons? In our next blog post you’ll learn how coral reefs form, what kind of life they harbor and why scientists say they may largely disappear in the coming century.

Dive the airplane in Moalboal

Some dive center call this dive site Airplane or Airport, we choose the name Umbrella for this particular dive site. If you take a look at the shore line before entering the water you might spot the reason behind the name of this dive site. It’s due to some very interesting rock formations which have a similar shape to that of an umbrella.

The airplane wreck in all it’s glory. Photo credit Tanakit YamMo Suwanyangyaun

Around 22 meter below the surface you will find a propeller airplane on the sandy bottom, just before the wall drops down to 50 meters. It was donated from around 16 years ago to fill the purpose as a artificial reef and a pretty awesome dive site. They drove the airplane from Cebu city to Moalboal, it was to large to transport so they had to cut of the wings for the journey.

After a lot of hard work it was time for the ceremony to sink the plane to the bottom of the sea. But an unexpected problem occurred. The plane didn’t sink. So they placed concrete in the wings before putting them back and if you take a look inside the plane you will find a few old diving tanks at the front used in order to weigh the plane down.

Our own Captain Sunny can tell you all about how he and several others helped to take the plane to its final resting place.

Dive description:

The dive site has a shallow, pretty reef starting at three meters reaching down to ten meters. The reef then transitions into a sandy slope that stretches all the way down to twenty-two meters. At this depth you can find a wall that creeps well beyond most divers certifications, though it still hosts a variety of marine life open to those of adequate qualification.

What to find?

If you want to find weird creatures and tiny critters this is one of our best sites. Here we can find: Ornate ghost pipe fish, Robust ghost pipe fish, garden eels, snake eels, nudibranch, shrimps, crabs, frog fish, devil- & bearded scorpion fish, sea moth and with luck, even weirder creatures! Once we even saw a whale shark cruising just above the airplane, but that was a very rare sighting.

peacock mantis shrimp

How to enjoy this dive at the most?

If you don’t have it already we recommend you take your Nitrox licence in order to spend most of this dive at the deeper and more beautiful wall where you can look for the array of small critters.

Pegasus sea moth

To be able to properly enjoy the airplane you will need to take either your PADI Advanced Open Water or do a Deep Adventure dive, which you easily can do at Quo Vadis Dive Resort.

If you’re bringing a camera make sure to make a plan for both macro and wide angle pictures in addition to good buoyancy.

Entrance: Reached by a 20 minute boat ride in a northly direction from Quo Vadis Dive Resort. We enter via a giant stride entry from the bow of the boat.

Conditions: Dependent on the strength/direction of the wind, potentially flat to moderate waves. Medium to strong current depending on the tides.

Depth: 0 to 50 Meters.

Visibility: approximately 10 to 25 Meters.

Cool facts about the Nudibranch

Being part of the rich Coral Triangle is what makes the Philippines an excellent, world-class diving destination. Philippines is famous for its never ending variety of the little beautiful nudibranch. Working for Quo Vadis Dive Resort we see these wonders of the ocean every day.

Did you know…

Nudibranchs, once like snails lost their shells over countless years of evolution. Today you can find many different chemical defenses among them; some can store cells within their body capable of stinging. Others can secrete acid which they release when danger presents itself. Though there is currently only one known species of nudibranch that can be harmful to humans as it eats the infamous “Portuguese man-of-war” jellyfish.
Chromodoris annea. Photo Credit: Yannick Van Meirhaege. Moalboal
Nudibranchs are commonly referred to as sea slugs. Although this is true, not all sea slugs are nudibranchs.
Nudibranchs obtain their stunning colors as a result of the colorful food they eat. Due to each species being extremely picky eaters they will generally only consume one type of food leading to a plethora of color variations over the 3000+ species.
Some nudibranchs such as the “blue dragon” are capable of creating their own food through photosynthesis.
Following the Darwinian principle of natural selection or “survival of the fittest” some nudibranchs are known to be cannibalistic, generally eating the smaller of its species.
Chromodoris Willani. Moalboal
Generally they have very short life spans. Some may live up to a year, other merely a few weeks.
Nudibranchs are hermaphrodites meaning they are both male and female simultaneously, possessing sexual organs of each gender.

If you want to take a closer look at nudibranchs check out our Instagram @Quovadisdiveresort.

Photo credit Yannick Van Meirhaghe. Phyllidia Ocellata. Moalboal

Pescador island

Pescador Island is a small uninhabited island set in the Tanon Strait. The whole island above and below water is riddled with caverns and caves providing homes and cover for a wide variety of creatures like lion fish, octopus, sweet lips and moray eels. Spear fishing and all other illegal fishing methods are prohibited, so the inhabitants below and above water have some peace. The shelf, surrounding the island, 5 to 20 meters wide, can be seen from a boat and on calm days the scene is tantalizing.

A sea turtle slowly passing

In the blue water surrounding Pescador you can sometimes spot turtles, trevally, small barracudas, mackerel and tuna that sometimes dart in like rockets to get some dinner, this is a very impressive sight! Pescador Island translate to Fishermen Island. The reason behind is due to the massive sardine school that before were surrounding the Island and all the small fishing boats they attracted. A couple of years ago a typhoon hit the island and the sardines decided to move and today you can find them at Panagsama reef. Pescador is only one island but offers three very different dive sites

Entrance: Reached by a 15 min boat ride in a south-westerly direction. Boat entry.
Conditions: Depending on the wind, flat to strong waves. Often a medium to strong current in a south-north direction.
Depth: 0 to 50 Meters
Visibility: 15 to 40 Meters

Pescador Cathedral

Cathedral at Pescador Island

The largest cave is “The Cathedral and starts at 18 meters and goes down to 40 meters. The scenery is breathtaking. There is a buttress at the top of the cave creating the impression of a church spire. Inside the cave we can spot nudibranchs, lion fish and sometimes scorpion fish. After the Cathedral the wall is not as colourful as the east and west side but its full of inverted walls and smaller caves to check out, where we can spot octopus and moray eels hiding in their holes.The wall contains scorpionfish, banded seakrait, sweetlips and you can also spot a frogfish or two hiding around the sponge corals.

Pescador East

A yawning frogfish is showing his good side

Pescador East is just as beautiful dive site as the west side but very different. The wall dropping to 50 meters, and the sloping wall is dressed in big hard corals, here you can often see schools of inquisitive violet fusiliers and many other colourful reef fishes. You will start the dive at the south end where the famous coral garden is located. The dive will continue north and here we can see camouflaged giant frogfish pressing against a sponge coral. If you are even luckier you can catch them yawning. Devil-, leaf & bearded scorpionfish are also found at the wall. You can also find a lot of other life like sea moths, clown trigger fish, reef octopus, nudibranches and lots more. Don’t forget to take a look out in the blue and you might spot schools of big eye trevally’s, sardines, butterfly fish and red tooth triggerfish.

Pescador West

Beautiful soft corals decorating the wall at the west side of Pescador Island

When you do Pescador west, you will jump at the south coral garden and after that you will continue north direction with the reef on your right side. At 15 meters and deeper you find colonies of soft corals in all different colours on the steep wall and if you shallow up you can see large hard corals, surrounded by reef dwellers attract an incredible variety of marine life. The wall is filled with spectacular crevasses, over hangs and caves, inside them we can find sweetlips and groupers. Quite simply it is a paradise for divers. You can set your eyes on creatures like frog fish, clown trigger fish, stone fish, devil scorpion fish and a different nudibranchs and in the end of the dive you might get a glimpse of the cathedral.

Dive Clean Up 11th of October 2016 – Moalboal

Quo Vadis Dive Resort is arranging a dive clean-up in Moalboal, White Beach the 11th of October.

There are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the ocean. Of all that mass 269,000 billion tons are floating on the surface while other sinks deeper down. Depressing right?

The good thing is that there is hope. Fishing vessels gets converted to floating recycling factories collecting a lot of man made debris from our ocean. More and more money get dedicated to the plastic problems and slowly we are finding a solution of this dirty problem.

Here is the schedule for our clean-up.

Meet up at Quo Vadis Dive centre: 9.00
The boat with leave at 09:30
Cost: Pay what you want, all money goes to Project Aware.
First dive: Panagsama reef, where you can witness one of the biggest schools of sardines in the world.
Second dive: White beach.
After our last dive we go to White beach for lunch at around 13.00.
Join us at the Garbage station to weight your garbage to join our trash competition.
After enjoying white beach with volleyball and cold beverage the boat leaves at 15.30 back to Quo Vadis Dive centre.
On the boat we will announce the winner of the Trash competition. If anyone want to make a night dive this is possible just let us know before you leave the boat

I know a lot of you who instantly would pick up piece of plastic coming your way during a dive. Divers and snorkelers are cleaning up the ocean floor all over the world as we are enjoying our activities. Together we can choose to speak for the ocean and the creatures living within and that way raise a awareness for the ocean. Together we as divers has even manage to get international protection laws of rays and sharks and together we have collected thousands of kilos of trash from our ocean. Together we did this, how incredible is that? This shows that what we do matters!

On this event we can not clean up the whole earth but we will clean up our local dive sites and its where everything begins.

Meet Caroline

My name is Caroline Sandstedt and I will also be blogging here together with Charlie, so I want to give you a chance to get to know me a little. So who am I? I’m the girl who got addicted to scuba diving, I’m always the one with the loudest laugh and the largest suit case. I grew up in Sweden but since I have been old enough to travel I have not stayed put since. I have tried a lot of different jobs in my 26 years; I’ve been working as a waitress, barista, copywriter, art hostess, nanny, telemarketer and saleswomen. But it turned out all I ever wanted to do was to work with scuba diving.

I started diving 11 years ago but it took a little bit longer for me to fall in love with this world and lifestyle. When I was 22 I travelled to Thailand and there the underwater beauty got to me and I quickly worked my way up from Open Water diver to Advanced Open Water then to Rescue Diver and then I was stuck. Like really, really stuck. Have you ever heard about the dive virus? Whatever it is, I caught it and now I work as an instructor and dive center manager at Quo Vadis Dive Resort and my life is complete.

I always tell my friends: if you want to be really good at something you have to truly love what you do. And I live as I learn. Going from an office job in Sweden to practice my passion in the warm tropics was a life changer and a life saver.

I’m in love with the ocean and being an Dive Instructor was the most obvious choice, giving me the chance to spend countless hours in the place I love the most, teaching people how to enjoy the colourful life under water and to show them how to take care of it so we can enjoy it’s magnificent beauty in the future.

So if you want to learn how to dive and if you want to be inspired, I’m definitely up for the task. Make you holiday stand out and I can promise you an experience you will always remember. I’m hoping to see you underwater soon!

Blog Quo Vadis Dive Resort Moalboal, Cebu, Philippines

Living and Diving in Paradise