It’s been a week since we got onboard the Philippine Siren and we’re now at Apo Island and connected!

We spent five days diving at Tubbataha Marine Park out in the middle of the Sulu Sea. It’s 90 nautical miles southwest of the island of Palawan and in the middle of “nowhere”! There’s a Ranger Station on a sandbar that’s manned 12 months a year, 24 hours a day and they patrol the Marine Park looking for illegal fishing activities. Their tour of duty is two months, no matter the season. The Ranger Station looks like a squat stucco longhouse with very, very thick walls mounted on squat legs, painted a bright white. They have covered porches outside, a small commons area with a television; bunks stacked neatly and a small kitchen with a little garden and laundry drying area outside. They rely on a regular supply boat for food and water, but they do have collection barrels to catch the rain as well.

Tubbataha is divided into the North and South Atolls. There are continuous dive sites along the atolls, sloping reefs into sheer, sheer walls. The walls are covered in fan corals, some soft corals and lots of hard corals. The reefs are teeming with fish of all varieties. Signature dives feature schools of barracuda, schools of horse-eyed jacks, giant trevally cruising the reefs, some saw a manta or two, turtles on every dive and sharks….reef sharks, whitetip reef sharks, several “leopard” sharks were also spotted. The water temp ranged from 82-84 degrees so it was pleasantly warm. Large grouper were prolific….

We dove Washing Machine, Sea Fan Alley, Shark Airport, the Malawan Wreck, the Delsan wreck, Hans Reef, Wall Street, Southwest Wall, Sweetlips X-press and many others. Nightly moorings were on the leeward side of the atolls so it was calm and quiet to sleep.

This is a beautiful vessel. It’s an Indonesia Pinisi-style with spacious cabins, plentiful closets and cupboards, beautiful polished wooden floors and cabinets. Every cabin has a computer desk with a computer that’s wired into the main computer in the salon. The salon features a flat panel big screen ideal for viewing slideshows & videos.

Food has been amazing; we have an Indonesian chef and two Philippine chefs so we’re getting a taste of many cultures! Fruits and veggies are plentiful at every meal. Chicken, fish, shrimp, pork, beef, squid are featured on a rotating basis, two main meat/fish courses per dinner plus a vegetarian entrée. The crew is friendly and wonderfully competent. Almost all diving is done in inflatable tenders but a couple of the dives have been off the dive platform into a site directly beneath us.

We had a 30+ hour sail from Tubbataha to Negroes Island and then offshore to Apo Island to dive here and start our way back towards Cebu…we started our diving again this morning with a great macro dive along the east side of Apo Island at a site called Rock Point East. Here’s a few images from our Tubbataha diving….internet connection is slow, slow, slow so uploading might be problematic!