Lisa's (& Steve's) Travels

We hadn’t yet visited this country, and we were “needing” a dive trip. Nonstop flights from San Francisco made it so much easier to get there, rather than our favorite place to dive (Indonesia). Upon landing in Manila, we were driven about 2 hours south of the capital to an area in the highlands, which was cooler and less congested. Along the way, we kept seeing shiny elongated trucks acting as local buses:

They were quite fancy up front, and had a row of benches facing each other in the back -

Motorcycles often had sidecars that were shiny metal, but I couldn’t ever get a good shot of one of them. Here’s a motorcycle with a sidecar hidden from view, but you can easily see all the passengers -

We were on the island of Luzon, which is the largest and most populous. Our stay was near Tagaytay City, in the municipality of Alfonso, which billed itself as the wedding capital of the Philippines. We certainly could understand the draw of the cooler and drier weather as a getaway from sweltering Manila. A lush, garden filled B&B offered the perfect place to relax for a few days…

… and smell the roses sunflowers -

Our next stop was on the southern tip of Luzon, for our first diving adventure. The area near Anilao is known for weird…

… wonderful…

… and tiny -

look closely in the center to find the Anemone Shrimp

That Hairy Frogfish gave us quite the performance with his lure (video alert: be sure to have this post opened in your browser to see the video, or tap the link at the bottom of the email) -

I did an absolute happy dance underwater when we found the Ornate Ghost Pipefish pair (pictured above)! I never thought I’d see one, and then I (my little old self) found another pair (by accident) as I was filming a Crinoid waving its arms -

Did you see the small male at the top of the picture?

This is what the first pair looked like on video -

Nudibranchs are often referred to a “sea slugs”, but they are some of the most beautiful and varied slugs on earth (or I guess I should say underwater). The name means “naked gills”, and you’ll commonly see their breathing gills fluttering on their backs -

I was completely blown away by their variety in colors…

This one was at least 4-5 inches long and quite thick

… and sizes. Check out Shawn the Sheep, only about 0.5 inches -

This is what we saw on the leaf -

be sure to enlarge it to see the amazing detail

The guides had amazing eagle eyes.

This Robust Ghost Pipefish definitely resembled the plant life near it -

That’s all for now. I’ll be seeing you…