Sangat Reefs, Wrecks and Surreal.
In Seoul I had to get closer to the airport because Seoul is more than an hour from Incheon International Airport and my flight to the Philippines was going to be very early. There’s an airport bus # 2006 that goes to the Incheon Airport from a main loop on Chong-no for 10,000 won/ $10. The Best Western Premier Incheon has a shuttle from the airport to the hotel for guests for free. It takes literally 10 minutes. After settling in I went down to the KGB Bar next door and had a couple beers with the ladies and had a great time. They speak Korean, Russian, English and probably more. There are always characters in this bar. The unfortunate side was that I had to get up at five in the morning. That went well and I landed in Manila and took a taxi to the Oasis Park Hotel. I sat poolside with a couple of Irish gents in for a wedding. I had dinner and got eaten alive by the mosquitos around the ankles. I had to get up early again to get to terminal 3 to fly domestic to Busuanga where I’d catch a boat to Sangat Island Dive Resort. www.Sangat.com. I had plans to take a bit of a stroll after dinner but after listening to some of the other guests that had been there awhile I thought otherwise. Nighttime in Manila is not a good time to be out for a wander, bad things happen, especially alone.
I fell asleep at 9pm and I awoke at 330am and decided not to go back to bed but to move on in some writing projects and get organized without having to rush around. There was to be a wake up call at 5 but not needed. I watched a piece of one of my favorite movies, ‘One Year Of Living Dangerously’, Mel Gibson as a young actor, plays Guy Hamilton, a reporter and Signoy Weaver plays a rich girl under daddy’s roof in Jakarta back in the day. For some reason or another I can identify with this movie when I pass through certain parts of the world about to implode from political strife, revolution, and mayhem; I like it.
At 530 I had a taxi at the door and we drove the skyway with little to no traffic. Traffic hits hard at around 7 am and stays constant until about 8 pm. I arrived a bit early and the plane was delayed by an hour. Just FYI, people are on the move in the Philippines, the airport was packed from 7am until I left and I saw no signs of it letting up. Once on the plane, it was an hour flight to Busuanga and over beautiful island coastlines.
After grabbing my bag I headed out the front entrance and somebody yelled my name, it was the taxi driver there to pick up a few people either staying at different hotels on Luzon Island or to take them to the harbor to catch a boat to where ever. I had spoken to some friends I met in Sulawesi and they said they had a great experience diving here and I thought it would be a good place to get back in the water.
A single hull with pontoons on each side, a ‘banker’, waited for me and off we went into the blue water and green island maze. About an hour in nothing but calm blue water with small flying fish popping out of the wake and in the distance a few other boats and fishermen gliding passed. More permanent fixtures on the surface are pearl farm buoys and caretakers tending their crops. Coming from three months in Alaska making sure my house still stood and splitting wood in cold weather tore my previous tan completely off and I had the pale pink look of an English jailer. Fifteen minutes in the sun the first day pretty much shocked my system to start building a new round of pigment protection starting with a light pink glow, sunburn, hopefully to sort itself out into a tan.
The boat rounded Sangat Island and into a shallow crescent off white coral sand beach with two docks and bungalows peeking through the palm trees not 20 meters from the waters edge. At this point I acknowledged that it had been snowing two days before in Seoul when I left and now this place. I arrived at 1230 in the afternoon and was graciously taken to my bungalow to drop off my stuff and directed to the dive center.
I was diving a World War wreck by 2:30 in the afternoon. It was nice to get back in the water. I was just happy and my mind at peace in the hands of experts, meaning some had over 1000 dives. If that’s not experience then I don’t know what is, but at the same time everyone should realize that every dive is different and that is why certain safety precautions are put in place such as a ‘buddy check’, another set of eyes making sure your air has been turned on, that there’s air in your tank, that your essential gear works properly, etc. Even professionals, in any field, have the potential to make mistakes and that is why divers lessen human error by double-checking each other. Carpenters have a saying, ‘Measure twice, cut once,’ same principle.
A French couple returned to Sangat Island after a short trip to another island where they watched baby turtles dig their way out of the sand and head for the sea without birds over head and no mammals waiting to intercept their path. Sangat Resort has yachts for charter, small catamarans to rent, all the snorkeling equipment needed for an epic snorkel right out in front of your bungalow.
I’ve been swimming through dark WWII wrecks about 20 -35 meters down following a pair of fins named Ehd, pronounced Ed, through torpedo holes forcing their way in and interior explosion rips blowing out and passing through bulk heads or down corridors leading to engine rooms, cargo holds, and wheel houses. Ed is from the Philippines and couldn’t be more thoughtful or more comfortable as a dive guide. Our safety is his first concern and having a great dive is a close second.
The day I was leaving I decided to go for a quick trek up and over the island to a coral garden and to see the interior of the island. Jennifer at the front desk set me up with a guy that had been building a run off drainage to the sea and took the opportunity to go with me. The limestone is old and pockmarked with razor sharp edges. We climbed virtually up the faces of stone, through cave openings, and in a round about and up way passed through palm forests, some bogs, but mostly across blades of limestone. As we descended on the coral garden the water color received the morning light and lit up the coral below in every color imaginable.
The setup, bungalows, food, kayaks, wind surfing options, thermal hot springs, mangroves, hand line fishing, boats for charter, numerous dives and the exceptional staff at Sangat Island Dive Resort will be thankfully hard to forget.
www.davidcdagley.com
