- David Mc Kinley's trip Philippines 2
Our first dive in Sipalay, a sleepy little beach on the west end of Negros Occidental. The landscape is beautful here: grotto filled headlands, covered in dramatic slopes of green vegetation.The diving more than lives up to the surrounding beauty. Mad Max is a long abandoned copper mine and along it's crumbling pier we found three frogfish, a huge variety of nudibranchs and flatworms, including a swimmer, lettuce slug and three ornate purple nudibranchs. Also saw: orangutan crab, juvenile angelfish, harlequin pipefish, cuttlefish, huge lion and scorpionfish and many varieties of dancing shrimp.
Another great dive, where i dropped right in on a not so friendly turtle, who swam away as fast as possible. Gladly, he led us right to a coral head where a huge white tip reef shark sat nestled between the rock, at around 27m. Biggest white tip of my life! Here again we saw plenty of nice nudis, including one that was at least 6 inches long, and another with tendrils of gray and blue, spiraling off he sides of it's body. 2 robust ghost pipefish as well.
Picturesque dive site, laden with beautiful giant clams. The macro life on this site was absolutely incredible. I saw every type of crinoid shrimp and squat lobster, a huge variety of black and white nudibranchs, 3 ornate purple flatworms, staghorn crabs, a beautiful blood orange/red nudibranch. Many scorpion and stonefish could be seen hanging around the reef as well. Saw a few boxfish and our second whitetip of the trip as well.
Another great dive site, defined by awesome macro, along the reef, and beautiful schools of triggerfish, in the drift portion of the dive. Once again, I found all varieties of crinoid shrimp and squat lobster on display here. Found a beautiful complex marbled shrimp and a bumblebee shrimp. Also found a number of sailfin blennies and dartfin gobies, huge cuttlefish and 2 30+ cm spanish dancers. Amazing! Surreal!
Shireens phyllidiopsis, lo's chromodoris, flabbelina, coral marbled shrimp, baba's & elegant crinoid lobster, blue eyed coral crab.
No sooner did Dario skip a dive, than we saw a napoleon wrasse. His favorite. Was surprised to see so much life on this reef, the top 5m of which had been blown out by what looked like tons of dynamite fishing. NUDIS ON THE TRIP: RETICULATED SAPSUCKING SEASLUG, SLENDER SAP SUCKING SEASLUG, LINED NEMBROTHA, SPANISH DANCER, RED LINED JORRURA, ELLI/ANNA'S CHROMODORUS, GIRDLED GLOSSIDORES, LUMPY DENDRODORIS, SWOLLEN PHYLLIDIA SKY BLUE PHYLLIDIA, TULA/PAINTED PHYLLIDIA, LIZ'S PHYLLIDIA, BLUE DRAGON.
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