Moalboal, Cebu

We flew from Palawan to Cebu island for our next diving piece. We stayed overnight in Cebu City, the second largest city in the Philippines, and “toured” the historic area. This area was very dirty and not well maintained, and the noted sites were largely unimpressive. So if you ever find yourself here, I’d say to give the “historic” area a miss.

We did enjoy touring the Yap-San Diego House…

This is one of the oldest houses in the Philippines and was built in the late 17th century.

The interior was packed with religious objects and furniture…

… had very low ceilings…

notice where Steve’s head lands on the doorframe

… and the roof was terracotta tiles -

We were then driven 3+ hours across the island to the west side and the town of Moalboal for more diving. On our first day, we saw Giant Frogfish…

… big turtles (that were giving a ride to some free-loading remoras)…

… pretty Reeftop Pipefish…

… and graceful Banded Pipefish (this is a video, so be sure and open this post in your browser or click the link at the bottom of the email)

Did you notice that one had a row of eggs on its belly? We’d never seen that before!

One of the main reasons I wanted to dive here was the possibility of seeing Mandarinfish mating at sunset.

They are gorgeous little fish (2-3 inches long), but are only really active at dusk (hence the poor light in the photo above). Our guide told us not to use flash while they were mating, but that he would shine a light over them as they started to rise -

We were lucky enough to see 6 episodes, and they were facing me during this one -

After we left the Mandarinfish in peace, we continued on a night dive, seeing a Harlequin Shrimp…

… that the guide briefly prevented from retreating into its hole…

… and watch a Prawn disappear after dancing -

The other main reason I wanted to dive at Moalboal was because of the massive school of sardines that are always present just off the coast. There were a lot of free divers and snorkelers at the surface, as we dove below the school at about 40 feet -

It was fun to swim right into the school and see it swirl away from you -

On our second afternoon, while our diving gear was drying out, we made an excursion to see Kawasan Falls. Unfortunately, it was a Saturday, and everyone around had decided to cool off there. I tried to crop out most of the people and still let you see the gorgeous turquoise water -

I’ll close with an artsy shot (long exposure), and resume more diving pictures (oh yes!) in the next post -