By Lorenz S. Marasigan / Photos by Dave Haas
THE sun has just touched the line separating the sky and ocean when we boarded the boat. The horizon was showing off with a majestic mix of orange, pink, violet and blue. It was almost dark when we descended with only torches as our source of light.
I took a deep breath from my regulator and pressed deflate, and slowly, I was down to about 8 meters below, seeing only a wreckage of hard corals. It was not how I expected it to be but I still tried to enjoy the dive.
Two minutes passed and our dive guide signaled for us to stay in a portion of the reef, about 10 meters below the surface. He ordered us to dim our torches, and wait for the magic to begin. In just a few seconds, two small creatures —vivid with colors of turquoise, purple moss green, electric blue and mandarin—fluttered up from the dead corals, mating.
Their eyes were perpetually squinted—reminding me of a lady being playfully naughty and demure at the same time—as they ascended by about a foot from their nests. Their pectoral fins fluttered like a humming bird’s wings, dancing to a cadence almost as fast as drum rolls.
In just a few seconds, they disengaged, quickly hiding into their dens, as if they are ashamed for being viewed during a tryst.
A mandarin fish, which looks like an offspring of a magnificent spiny dragon with the body of a tiny frog, is amazing by itself. It is part of the family of literally “beautiful name” (callionymidae) tropical sea creatures in the western Indo-Pacific.
We stayed there for more than 45 minutes, and watched countless of other mandarin fishes play, swim, hide, flirt and make love.
And in that full time frame, my heart fluttered with excitement, my voice was frail from the regulator, and I can only shout words of amusement that were incomprehensible to my two Chinese mates, and my Filipino dive guide.
That was the finale of my four-day holiday in Dauin, Negros Oriental, last November, when I returned to the sleepy town to cap my year off with another dive trip.
For my second visit, I stayed, dined and dived in one of the more well-known and luxurious resorts in Dauin—Atlantis Dive Resorts and Liveaboards, a lovely escape from all the buzz and stress in the capital city of the Philippines.
Tucked in a small unnoticeable green and brown spot along the highway of Lipayo, the resort is known to locals and visitors as a humble but upscale home to travelers. Coconut trees, different species of orchids, ferns and vines fence in the whole resort, where rooms are mostly brown and beige that exude the unique Southeast Asian architectural design.
Spires, spikes, and symbols on the roof and the wall speak of Balinese and indigenous Filipino. The resort offers a wide range of room types, depending on the view that appeal to the visitors. I opted for the garden view as I like to be with the sea for the whole duration of my stay.
The suite was luxuriously huge. The focal point of the suite, of course, is the very comfortable king-sized bed with four marshmallow-soft down pillows and a duvet, which was just perfect for a good night sleep after three to four dives a day. The room also has a large ensuite bathroom equipped with a lovely hot and cold shower, and towels for the beach and for the room.
Inside, the room has touches of Filipino interior design: a big ceiling fan, rattan drawers and vases with bamboos. The garden view room was both modern and traditional, with a powerful air-conditioning unit, a sofa for guests and a big television (which, frankly, I did not bother turning on during my stay).
The porch, a perfect spot to read a book or the morning paper, has a table and two chairs, where I enjoyed my early-morning coffee made from my ensuite coffee maker. With birds chirping gleeful melodies, and the ocean slowly calling on me to have a quick, satisfying dip, it felt like I was in paradise.
After coffee, I would usually go to the restaurant to have my breakfast. It has a wide array of choices, but my go-to menu was omelette with different kinds of cheese, a side of crispy bacon and freshly baked bread (which was too delectable that I had to stop my ketogenic diet during my stay).
But what made me more in love with the restaurant, named Toko’s after the Asian lizard, is the wine and spirit bar. Toko’s offer glasses (and bottles) of different scotch, brandy, whiskey, red and white wines from all over the world.
Toko’s is right beside the beach, perfect for moon watching and stargazing, while the ocean sings the guests to comfort—each wave kissing the shoreline soothing and calming guests who just had a merry night of wine and dine.
Atlantis also has a spa that offers up to six hours of pure relaxation, and a pool that is used for both recreational swimming and diving classes. Beware, though, as the pool is too inviting that you might spend a lot of time there because it was so relaxing to float with eyes wide open, seeing birds fly from one tree to another, creating a dancing shadow of leaves and branches among the trees.
During my four-day stay in Dauin, I was able to dive seven times in two days. The first diving day was my Apo Island trip. I joined a group of foreigners in diving three sites in the area. The first one was at Chapel Point, popular for its turtles and magnificent walls, and the second one was in Rock Point West, which, maybe, is my most favorite site for coral viewing.
The third dive was at Coconuts, a new diving spot for me. We jumped right off the large boat that can carry more than 15 divers and a couple of snorkelers at a time to tempestuous waves.
Descending, I felt the current forcing its strength on my body. In just a matter of minutes, we saw a family of jacks swimming. My estimate was they were about 20 in total.
But after a few seconds, I couldn’t believe what my eyes just saw: they were not just a family—they were a huge school! I screamed and screamed in awe, my heart pounding wildly at the magnificent view right in front of me.
The school surrounded us, with scales glimmering and shimmering silver against small rays of light that pass through the surface.
The following day, we went into four different sites in Dauin, where we found critters hiding and camouflaging within corals.
Combined with Apo Island, there are about 30 dive sites near Atlantis, according to its resident marine biologist Marco Inocencio.
“The Dauin coast is popular because of muck diving. There are uncommon fish, such as ghost pipe fish, seahorse, frog fish and different kinds of octopus that can be seen regularly in the area,” he said over a cup of coffee.
Dauin is a gold mine for photographers and enthusiasts, as the creatures that live in its many reefs are somehow used to posing for pictures.
And because of this, Atlantis created a dedicated camera room for photographers. It can house up to 15 big camera setups.
But what made me more satisfied during my stay was how the dive masters shared their knowledge about marine life before, during and after the dive.
“Most of the time, dive masters will just point you to a fish, but the guest doesn’t know what kind of fish that is. So, we trained our dive masters to identify marine life,” Inocencio explained.
Image credits: Dave Haas