Last day in the Philippines

We are in Manilla now.  We were lucky enough to get a ride with a fellow diver back to Manilla so we didn't have to ride the crowded bus.  He had a nice big vehicle, which was good since we filled it with our 5 suitcases!  It was a much more comfortable and shorter trip with him.  He was so kind to also take us out to dinner.  He told us there was a great seafood restaurant nearby our hotel and decided we should all go there together.  It's a good thing we went with him because Ryan and I would have been lost without him.  You go to the seafood market and pick out the fish, lobster, crab, etc that you want to have for dinner.  You pay for it there and then you bring it across the street to the restaurant and tell them how you want them to prepare it.  The seafood was very inexpensive.  It was insane how much they had though.  There was booth after booth of people trying to sell us everything you could think of (many of the things we have seen and taken pictures of over the last 2 weeks!). 

Our Mandarin Dive

So we did another "night" dive.  It was called a mandarin dive because it was a little earlier than a night dive and we originally went out looking specifically for a little tiny fish called a mandarin.  It apparently is only found here and in one other location in the world.  There were three that our dive master found hiding in the rubble in front of our dive shop.  They were not easy to spot and liked to stay out of sight.  He had a little flashlight with a red film over it so that he could find the fish but not make it run and hide (like a regular light would make the fish do).  They are very colorful fish, but are only about 1-2 inches big!  I randomly started shooting as many pictures as I could to hopefully get one that worked.  Ryan's camera wasn't able to focus on them in the dark, so he just watched.  While the dive master and I were completely focused on the mandarin, a LARGE boat that was anchored in the bay was trying to get out.  It's anchor was stuck, so they were trying to put the boat in reverse and get the anchor loose.  Well, Ryan watched as they pulled this anchor, along with a LARGE coral head all the way across the bottom, not more than 10 yards from us.  Finally he got the dive master's attention and he swam to the surface to talk to the boat's driver.  We found out later from the people that were in the dive shop that they tied up about 7 boats and drove them all in reverse trying to get this anchor loose.  Good thing it didn't come loose and go flying into us, the inattentive divers below!  :)

Well, we had a great last day of diving today.  We will post pictures and write more tomorrow morning before we leave the island and go back to Manilla.  Tonight, they are grilling for us at the dive shop, so we have to get going.

Our Mandarin Dive

Our first night dive here

We did two dives and a night dive yesterday.  They were very eventful.  We finally got to see the famous mimic octopus.  It wasn't quite what Ryan expected since he didn't realize until we came up from the dive that we had finally seen the mimic octopus (pictured above) that we had been looking for since we got here.  We also saw the ornate ghost pipefish (black spiky thing above).  This had eluded us for the two weeks we've been diving as well.

Since we had the afternoon off before our night dive at 6:30, we went into town and got one hour massages for $10 each!  Ryan has been looking forward to this since he started reading about the Philippines last fall.  It just proves his ultimate cheapness!  He was more excited about the fact that it was $10 each than he was about getting an hour massage!  :)

The last two pictures are from our night dive.  There were two squid that were being playful.  The other thing is a stargazer and it buries itself in the sand.  All you can see are its eyes and mouth.  Our dive master found this and got it to come out of the sand so we could see it.  It is quite an ugly creature!

We had trouble with the internet connection today.  We will post again tomorrow morning and tell you about today's dives (it is 5:30 pm here right now).