Tag Archives: Moalboal

Dive Lo-ok, Moalboal

Lo-ok is a wall dive that contains some of the most pristine coral gardens in the area. So if you want to experience one of the best wall-dives in Moalboal you should request this site on your next diving vacation with Quo Vadis dive resort. If you stay shallow on this dive you will be rewarded with some of the healthiest reefs in this area. Trust me it’s like being a star in the movie Finding Nemo and who wouldn’t love to experienced that?

The beautiful coral garden of Lo-ok, Moalboal

Witness thousands of small colourful reef fishes dancing around the corals. Here you will set your eyes on a variety of blennies, gobies, clownfishes and damsels. It’s just incredible to stay and watch the movement, shapes and colours of the reef. We often spot turtles resting among the corals, just waiting for you to have a closer look or to take a nice, close photo.

The deeper part on this wall is filled with soft- and hard corals and together with healthy gorgonian sea-fans they are create a colour explosion. Take a closer look and you might get lucky to find a few gorgeous nudibranchs and why not an ugly frogfish? Sometimes we find batfish and trevallies strolling around in the deep. Some small critters also pay our dives a visit like ornate ghost pipefish and different species of crabs and shrimps.

If times and budget allows, try to do two dives at Lo-ok, one to do the shallow part and one for a deeper visit and when doing the deeper part ask for nitrox if you are a nitrox diver or why not do the 1 day nitrox course since this maximise your bottom time at the deep part.

Reached by a 15 min boat ride north direction from Quo Vadis dive Resort.

Conditions: Depending on the wind. Usually flat ocean with a mild current

Depth: 0 to 50 Meters

Visibility: 15 to 30 Meters

Green Turtles

The green turtle “Chelonia mydas” is the only species in the family of Chelonia. They are found trough subtropical and tropical waters around the world. The name itself comes from the green fat that are found underneath their shell. It’s one of the most famous creatures in Philippines and you can find them napping, eating or swimming just offshore Quo Vadis Dive Resort.

Did you know…

The Green turtle can reach a weight up to 300 kilogram.
They can become up to 80 years old.
Female turtles crawls up on the very beach they were born on, to dig their nest. It’s still unknown how they find back to their birthplace.
They will put down an impressive amount of 100 – 200 eggs and two months later the eggs will hatch and the five cm new-born turtles will crawl against the big blue to start their journey.
Even if they look like a very slow-moving creature they can reach a maximum speed of 56 km/h!
They can hold their breath from 4 – 7 hours
Its two divided groups of the green turtle. The pacific green turtle is more black in the colour and the Atlantic has a more green colour.

Do you want to witness this beautiful creatures with you own eyes? Contact pieter@quovadisresort.com or look into our web page www.quovadisresort.com and we will make sure you can meet this fellow in it’s natural habitat.

Facts about frogfish

Frogfish (Antennariidae) is a part of the anglerfish family (Lophiiformes) and you can find a big variety of 45 different spices. They are found around the coast of Africa, Asia, Australia and North America. Normal habitats are at reefs all the way down to the depth of 100 meters. Even though the increasing habitat destruction and pollution, wild population of frogfish are still large and healthy. The shape, colours and abilities that frogfishes has fascinated since I saw it for the first time.

Frogfish hiding at Quo Vadis Dive Resort Housereeef

Crazy facts about frogfish

The frogfish has a modified dorsal fin that looks like a worm or a shrimp that they use for hunting.
When the fish is close enough the frogfish opens the mouth so fast that it creates a suction and the poor little fish is drawn into the teeth lees mouth in one bite. This is the fastest suction among fishes.
They can swallow preys that is 2 times bigger than the fish itself thanks to the ability to expand their mouth 12 times of its normal size.
The frogfish doesn’t have a swim bladder. Therefore the frog feet’s are mostly just for walking around when they move.
The colour of the body depends on the habitat. Frogfishes can be any colours and in very weird colours combinations. It’s able to quickly change colour to blend into the environment.
They do have a social life with each other. Then the smaller frogfishes risking to become lunch for the bigger ones.
In wild the frogfish can reach an age of 20 years.

The frogfish is one of the reasons divers from all over the world they come to Philippines. At Quo Vadis Dive Resort we can find this little critters at most of our dive sites. They camouflage themselves really good trough choosing spots that is similar as them self. Our dive guides will do everything they can to find this special spots where this ugly & amazing creature hides.

Frogfish at the Sardine Run

Giant Frogfish at Pescadoor island

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.

Quo Vadis Dive Clean-Up 2016

What a success our Dive Cleanup turned out to be! Quo Vadis Dive Resort manage to raise 1204 USD to Project Aware and with help of other passionate divers we also removed 118 kg of trash from the ocean bed during our Dive Cleanup at the 11th of October this year. We were 23 divers doing 2 dives and let me just say, our bags was overfilled. It’s such a good feeling picking plastic after plastic, fishing lines, cans and bottles from the reef knowing we are doing this for our ocean, together.

Together with PADI, Project aware and all happy volunteer divers we made this happen and we are more than proud. The theme word of this day is just that: together, because we could never have done it alone. To talk, clean and share all this with people that is just as dedicated as we are is inspiring.

The sardines was the first dive site we cleaned up and the site was overfilled with fishing lines, hooks, lines and ropes. While collecting the trash we were monitored by the enormous school of millions sardines, hovering over our heads making the day turn dark as they covered the sun. Not a bad clean-up dive.

The second dive was just by White beach where the white sand slopes down in the ocean turning into a colourful reef. Between sea anemones, hard- and soft corals we could find everything from diapers, plastic and tires, to clothes, cans and bottles which all followed us up to White Beach to get weighted.

At White beach we all enjoyed a nice BBQ together followed by some volleyball and the competition was fierce. There was also a trash competition and the winner got a nice price, but even more important, he alone removed over 39 kg of trash from the ocean.

Picture from Edgar Alan Zeta-Yap

Due to the big success we decided to make this a annual event. There is plenty of garbage in the ocean waiting to get picked up and more money to be dedicated into project gaining our ocean, our planet. Go into http://www.projectaware.org to learn more about what you can do to help and also to read about their projects.

Over and out and see you next year!

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.

How to get from Cebu city to Moalboal

The Philippines has through the years been a very hard place to get around, but since tourism has exploded the last few year’s this has started to change. But we still have to remember that the Philippines is a archipelago with over 7000 islands so you need to plan your traveling well not to waste your time. Cebu is one of the biggest tourist destinations with tons of ways to spend your valuable time.

Now let’s talk about how to get from Cebu city to the waterfront of Moalboal and its pristine coral reefs.

Backpacker Option
From the airport you can take a comfortable taxi with a meter to the south bus terminal. When you arrive in the bus terminal just ask for Moalboal and people will point you to the right bus. Put your own bag in the bus and carry your own luggage if you don’t want to pay for the service.

You can choose between air-con bus and non-air con bus the price difference is almost none existing so I would go with the air-con one if the wait is not to long. The price is approximately; non air-con – Php107 and air-con – Php137 . To avoid traffic congestion the best time to go is weekdays before 4pm.

Ask the bus driver to stop in Moalboal 360 Pharmacy because there are not really any bus stops. When at last in Moalboal you might think; is this it? No this isn’t it! This is where you do your shopping, where you have the pharmacy and where you can find really cheap restaurants, but Panagsama is the place you want to go if you can’t wait to splash down in the colorful water.

Now it’s time to find a tricycle (or they will find you.) A tricycle is a motorbike with a side carriage and a very local way of traveling. A tricycle should not cost you more than PHP100 – 200 depending how many people there are in your group, now it’s only a ten minute ride down to our five-star PADI Dive center. From Quo Vadis Dive Resort there is just a few steps down to our colorful house reef and all the amazing creatures living there.

Comfortable Option
If you don’t mind paying a little bit more you can get a taxi direct from the Mactan airport to Moalboal. The drive takes you around 3 hour without traffic , but the total travel time will be much less than taking a bus since you don’t have to wait in line for buses and tricycles. Are you staying with us? Quo Vadis Dive Resort can provide you with a comfortable and safe transportation with our new resort car with air-con and WiFi together with our very friendly driver Loyd who can tell you almost everything worth knowing about this country. Price is Php2900. If you are staying with us, email pieter@quovadisresort.com to arrange your transportation with Loyd.

Welcome to Quo Vadis Dive Resort!

/Caroline and Charlie

Sustainable Fishing

How does your Facebook feed look like?

If your Facebook feed is covered in posts telling you about our ocean being covered in tons of plastic, what we can do about it, asking you to help saving our oceans, sharing posts from Project Aware, Sea Shepherd and PADI, informing you when our oceans will be empty from fish, letting you know how many sharks are killed by humans every year instead of the other way around, how turtles suffocate on plastic bags, how many marine spices gone extinct the last few years (and the list goes on and on.) These posts are most likely coming from that friend with the underwater profile picture. Your fellow diver.

And it’s true. We do care more about the ocean than most because we breath in it every day, right? We see what massive negative effects humans have on our water planet and we understand how important it is for us and our life on land.

One thing Quo Vadis Dive Resort care about a little bit extra about today (and all other days) is how the increasing global demand for fish has pushed the oceans to its limits. For hundreds of years the fishermen have respected the ocean, only taking what he need. Today he don’t respect the ocean anymore and without any fundamental restructuring of the fishing industry the ocean will soon be empty.

One billion people (yes, you read it right) rely on fish as their biggest source for food. So you can just imagine the size of this issue we are facing. As consumers we need to stay informed on which fisheries are sustainable and which are not. We need to know which fish to buy and what progress is being made globally.

All life on our earth is linked to the ocean and its inhabitants. The more you know about it the more dedicated you will be to help out. Read, talk and thirst for more knowledge.

Here is some links to help you get started. Read about what fish is on the menu and what fish better not be. http://www.goodfishguide.org/
http://wwf.panda.org/how_you_can_help/live_green/out_shopping/seafood_guides/

/Caroline and Charlie

Why I became a Scuba Diving Instructor

Just next to our house is the ocean. This never ending deep blue that used to give me the shills now makes me feel like nothing else. To submerge myself in this salty home of a thousand of marine creatures makes my heart beat. When I was six years old all I wanted to be was a dentist (for some unfamiliar reason,) then when I was older I wanted to save the orangutans (I still want to save them,) I wanted to be a dolphin trainer (before I discovered all cruelty that comes with it,) built a shelter for rescue dogs (and someday I will,) I wanted to travel the world and I wanted to be a dive instructor. The dreams I had always differed a lot from my friends but my parents have always encourage me telling me it’s all possible. They believed in me and let me tell you, that means the world for a little girl. I will always love them for that.

To do something out of the ordinary
As long as I remembered I wanted to do a difference, I wanted to do something I believed to be important. To share the oceans with others, to tell my students why not to eat shark fin soup, where all our plastic ends up, why not to eat certain fish and why not to pay to see animal in prisons. I feel like I can do a difference, how small it might be I’m making an effort. I try with all of my heart.

Respect
I’m very lucky to be able to do just that. Every time I take people diving that never before have seen the underwater world I feel good about myself. If you thought it was hard to show expression behind a dive mask on your face and a regulator in your mouth, think twice. I can hear them laugh, “wow” and “aaah” of excitement. Sometimes people smile so much they constantly have to clear their mask from water and it makes me do the same.

Every time I tell my students not to touch, not to collect, not to harass the marine creatures and I tell them why, I always get surprised by the respect they show. How people barely in controlled of themselves trying with all they have not to get to close to the reef not to kick anything. When we are back up again some of you thank me for showing you something you didn’t known to exist and telling me how much you tried not to hurt any corals while under water and I can tell that you will dive for the rest of your life and that you will be bloody good at it as well.

We are so scared of the unknown
I have to explain to some of the people why the sharks will not attack them, that the poisonous fish will not come after them and the ocean is not some black hole that just swallows people. It fascinates me how many people that are scared of the ocean before the actually splash in. Into the unknown. And how easy it is to take this fear away. We humans will always fear the unknown, but it will always be something stronger than fear and that is curiosity. What we don’t know so much about scares us but it also fascinates us. That is how we work and that is why I’m so happy to do what I do. To enlighten people, to show them the magnificent about the ocean and to be able to replace what before was scary with something exciting and warm.

/Caroline #353983

Souvenirs of the ocean

Think twice when you buy souvenirs on you holiday to bring home to friends and family.

That dried sea horse you are holding in your hand once had a life on the reef, was a part of a perfect functional Eco system and now it’s an endangered species. It is as well one of the most beautiful creatures we as dive guides can show our guest here at Quo Vadis.

The colourful cone shell you are thinking of buying to your mum once had tenant, someone living in there and now we barely ever see them while diving. The sea star they sell in the souvenirs shop next to your hotel once was a part of the ocean floor and a highlight for snorkelers in the shallow waters. It can even be someones lunch.

When buying these products you create a demand for them. Don’t buy products that exploit unsustainable marine creatures. Corals may look beautiful on a piece of jewellery but take my word for it, they look more stunning where they belong on the reef and they play an important role in the Eco system.

What should we bring?

We should bring pictures & stories up from the ocean. Then we can share it and show what other people are missing out on when they are spending all that precious time up at the surface.

You can start by sharing this post about where all the marine creatures belongs!

Blog Quo Vadis Dive Resort Moalboal, Cebu, Philippines

Living and Diving in Paradise