May 2008 Boracay News

Hi, everybody, long time no news. Since my last posting, I have been to Tubbataha reef. It's a huge reef southeast of Palawan. It's one of the best diving destinations in the world, however it's less well known than, for example, Great Barrier Reef in Australia, because it can be dived only about 10 weeks a year, and has to be done by liveaboards. I have been going there since 1999, and every year it's better! One can see so many different sharks (white tip, grey reef, nurse, leopard, hammerhead, silver tip, and whale sharks), big rays (manta, eagle, marble, porcupine and fantail), barracudas, turtles, jacks, and big schools of other fishes. It's wonderful to spend one week on a boat, seeing nothing but the sky and the ocean, doing nothing but diving and eating. If you are interested, drop me a line at jungeuny@hotmail.com, not at jungeuny@divegurus.com, unfortunately that address doesn't work any more.

Diving has been exciting also in Boracay. I saw so many fascinating slugs during beach dives, including my old friend, melibe engeli (please read the posting of last year), and Edwin found mandarin fishes at Coral Garden. A mandarin fish is a very colourful and extremely shy fish. They are usually hiding but will come out at dawn and dusk. That's why they are so hard to find. Nobody is diving at dawn, and by dusk, we are either done for the day or having a break before a night dive. One day Edwin's dive ar Coral Garden got delayed, so he left at shortly before 5 o'clock, and bingo, he found mandarin fishes! Since then mandarin fishes were seen 4 times at the same place, same time.

Odessa, secretary, had a church wedding in Kalibo a few days ago. The church was beautiful and Odessa was radiant. So much attention was given to all details, everything went perfectly, except that I was wearing a wrong-coloured dress. So a piece of advice. If you are acting as sponsor at a Filippino wedding, wear whitish clothes, otherwise you will be an eyesore!

This is it for today, till next time, take care, and keep wet.

Carpe Diem

Remember my posting about giant sea hares' mating of last December? I told you that several of them sometimes would form a chain to mate, but that day I saw only two mate. Finally I found them having a group sex! Last night I found a different type of sea hare, found at least 45 of them in a very small (about 4m wide) area, among which two groups of 5 each were found mating. Something provoked their mating frenzy, maybe the length of daylight, maybe water temperature, maybe food (right now there is no more wind, seaweeds and plants are growing fast)? Will they be still doing it tonight or last night was special? After the dive, whole evening, we were singing "tonight was the night"... We also found again 2 melibe engeli (please read the posting of March 2007). Yes, now is the time for beach night dives, hurry up!

Learn at home

Hi, everybody, sorry for a long absence. I have been really busy these past two months, yes, even on a beautiful tropical beach, life can be hectic. So why make it difficult? Go for the easy way!

Did you know that now one can start learning diving on-line? If you go to PADI website www.padi.com, you will see the eLearning option. Just click it, and you can start your Open Water Diver course then and there. Students can finish all the knowledge development part of the course at home at their leisure. No more reading the book and do the knowledge reviews while suffering from the beach party the night before! Honestly who likes to study during a holiday? This way students can do only the fun -wet- part when they arrive in Boracay. Those who sign up for eLearning will be able to choose a dive shop they want to dive with later (of course, Dive Gurus for Boracay), they can write to the shop to get in touch with one of the shop instructors, who will be available for any extra information students may need during the knowledge development. Doesn't it sound cool? So pass the word around, get your friends initiated even at home!

Dive Gurus Boracay: Camia News

www.divegurus.com

Camia News

Hi, everybody, happy new year! We have started a new year with the exciting news of a whale shark showing up at Camia wreck. It was sighted twice in two days, though unfortunately not by Dive Gurus. I have been diving in Boracay for 15 years, and this is my first time to hear about a whale shark here, cool, isn't it? Somebody (we don't know yet who) also put a christmas tree on the wreck. The tree is bare but the fishes more than make up for it.

Want a baby?

Would you like to have a baby white tip shark? How about two? Or five? Right now at Yapak 5 white tip babies are stacked together in a single crack. They are less than 1 meter long. I read on the internet that a female white tip shark might give birth up to 5 pubs, so presumably they are all brothers and sisters. We noticed before that a baby shark would stay at the same shelter till it was more than 1m long, then it would leave, but still come back from time to time for a while. I also read that a baby shark would have to be at least 1.2m long before joining the adult world, otherwise they might get eaten by big bullies. For the moment it's nice and cozy for the babies, hopefully nobody -human or animal- would disturb them!

Season's Greetings 2007

Hello, everybody, merry christmas and happy new year from Dive Gurus! Wish you another year of happiness, professional successes and personal fulfillment!

We are all well here, the island is as beautiful as ever, weather has been gorgeous this year except three weeks last September. Boats are not allowed to come to beach between Station 1 and Station 3, which makes the beach so much prettier. Boats from or to Caticlan come only to the jetty at Cagban, so visitors don't get their feet wet while alighting.

George is still working as PADI examiner, managed to come to Boracay twice this year, Ga won a TV show quiz, Edwin has become an instructor and second time father, Odessa just gave birth to a baby boy. As for me, nothing special, but no news is good news. AJ left the island, is now in Iloilo studying and working as instructor, Jojo, Ga's husband, has also become an instructor. Hermodith is back, renamed as Dive Gurus, boasts a white manta instead of a black one. After the typhoon last yeat, Pahar restaurant was closed for several months, is now reopened with a new menu.

2007 was definitely a year of eagle rays. Where as we used to see one, maximum two eagle rays from time to time, we lately have been seeing regularly big schools (5 to 10 of them). On the other hand there have been very few frog fish sightings since last May. As I wrote several times, we discovered a fantastic mini reef right in front of the shop, the latest news - a giant sea hare mating!!!!! (read my previous posting).

I apologize about our website, it's still not functioning. I'd like to extend a sincere thank you to those friends who found us again through this blog. We can now at least receive mails again at info@divegurus.com, so please write to us, give us your news, visit the blog, and even better, come back to dive with us again!