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I booked the trip through Across Pacific Dive Tours. However, it seems like their website no longer exists. We stayed at La Laguna Beach Club in Puerto Galera. Rene with Across Pacific Dive Tours was very helpful and professional. He travels to the Philippines for diving often and knows the area well. Puerto Galera diving was awesome and the La Laguna Beach Club was great! The weather during our dive days remained pretty good so the visibility was about 60 feet. We did 10 dives in three days including a night dive. We saw turtles, frogfish, triggerfish, a shark, a big cuttle fish, some wrecks, eels, puffers, and I saw my first octopus!
The southwest monsoons bring rain from June to October with August being the wettest month. This affects underwater visibility. However, Puerto Galera is one of the few locations that boast good year-round diving conditions.
La Laguna Beach Club and Dive Resort
La Laguna Beach Club and Dive Resort. The staff at the LLBC was friendly and our dive master Leo was safe and helped to make our diving a blast! While preparing for my first dive I discovered my primary second stage was leaking. LLBC lent me a regulator setup while they repaired mine on-site and then returned it before my third dive.
Banca boat: our hotel taxi and dive boat
The first dive
Our dive groups were always around 2-4 divers plus our dive master Leo. This was my first time using my new digital camera housing and I learned the hard way the many things that can go wrong. Among the most frustrating were fogged lens and dead (brand new) batteries. Each dive required 4 new AA batteries to power the LCD panel of the camera. In the learning process I missed a number of good shots. My solution is to book another dive trip ASAP and try again!
Anenomy fish (left) and a frogfish (right)
The anenomy fish are shy and difficult to photograph. They never stop moving and dart back into the anenomy plant if threatened.
Hard and soft corals
Philippines have a huge variety of soft corals and plants in every color.
Two of the many eels we saw
Incredible but difficult colors to capture in a photo
Crab (left) and a puffer fish (right)
I saw a puffer fish as large as 2 feet during this dive.
Because cockfighting is such a big part of Philippine culture I decided to experience it first hand. This sport is not for the squimish or animal-right's activists.
Cockfight at the Manila City Cockpit
The two trainers bring their fighting rosters into the ring at the center of the pit. Each roster has a single 2-inch blade attached to the back of one of its feet. This remains covered with a sheath until the actual fight begins. The trainer brings another roster into the ring and it is used to condition (piss-off) the fighting roster for the fight. Based on this exercise that lasts a few minutes spectators place their bets. The basic bet is a bet for the winning roster; either Meron or Wala. The agents are spread out throughout the crowd and use hand signals when they are accepting bets. The min. bet is 100 pesos (approx. $2). The crowd also uses hand signals to indicate that they want to place a bet. Each finger represents a 100-peso bet. This may or may not be accepted and they may be requested to increase the best based on the current odds. Only hand signals and eye contact are used to bet since all the betting occurs within a few minutes. No money is exchanged.
The conditioning rosters are removed and so is the sheath from the blade of each roster. The rosters are let go and the fight begins. The fight is a fight to the death with a 3-minute time limit. If both rosters are still alive after 3 minutes the match is a draw. I saw about 20 fights and bet on 3. The fights ranged from 5 seconds to the 3-minute limit, which occurred once. If the match ends in a draw all bets are off and no money is exchanged. However, in the match I saw both rosters were nearly dead and probably died soon after the match ended. The rosters fight by jumping on top of their opponent, which usually results in a cut by the blade. In some cases a single cut to the throat or heart can end the match in a matter of seconds.
When a roster become tired or injured it begins to fight only by pecking, which does not seen very effective. Sometimes the blade gets stuck in the opponent and the rosters become entangled. Sometimes the rosters get tired and stop fighting the way boxers rest in a hold when they are tired. When either happens the referee picks up the rosters and puts their heads together in order to condition them again. The rosters are then dropped to the pit floor to begin fighting again. If a rosters cannot keep its head up and is motionless after being dropped to the floor 3 times in a row, it loses the match and was usually dead anyway.
After the match ends bets are paid out. Losers pay the agents and the agents pay the winners. For a 100-peso bet, losers pay 100 pesos and winners receive 125 pesos. Sometimes the money (paper) is literally thrown across the floor or up to the upper level to the winners. Since no records of the bets are made, this is all done by memory and is amazing to watch. The trainers remove their rosters dead or alive from the ring and someone cleans the floor from feathers and blood for the next match. Except for the matches with white rosters or a direct cut to the throat the matches were not very bloody. The pit also has a bar where you can watch sports on TV or sing karaoke. There was also a food menu that included various chicken items!
My friend and I flew Northwest Airlines to Manila International Airport. Our flight out of Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan was late because it was overbooked by 40 people. We had to wait for volunteers willing to take the first flight out the next morning. My friend's luggage didn't arrive in Manila and the ground crew didn't seem to have a clue how to locate it. The girl taking our information misspelled my friend's last name 3 times during the computer search and she had his ticket in front of her! After correcting her, she preceded to screw up the routing information from the ticket, which I happened to catch. The luggage was sent to the resort 2 days later. Our return flight was cancelled due to maintenance. We were given an amenity packet, which contained among other things (1) A discount for future NW flights (2) comment survey card with no room for additional comments (3) a coupon for a free drink or free headset rental on a domestic flight (4) a calling card good for 8 minutes that could only be used from within North America. We were scheduled for a flight the next day, put up in a hotel for the night, and fed. The flight out the next day was also late. We were all promised a $200 travel voucher. My friend received his at the airport. Mine couldn't be found. I was told I would receive it right before boarding the plane. Again it couldn't be found and I was then told I would receive it on the plane. Before landing, some vouchers were given out. After all names were called I asked about my voucher and no one seamed to know what happened to it. I never received it.
At the Manila airport Northwest check-in counter I found a stack of pamphlets for this website. To learn about other peoples' NW Airlines horror stories, check out Northworst Air.