The Philippines - Ticao Island (San Miguel and Bodoc divesites)

Going to bed early means an early start the next day. I was up at 4am, Paul had a few more minutes. At 5 we decided to have a shower and watch the sunrise from the front of our cabana. It was the best decision. We finally got to appreciate our seaside bungalow. Here it is:

I’ve never slept this close to the sea. Listening to it last night was our lullaby. Probably this was the reason that I kept dreaming about being on the seaside. Having a cup of coffee (3 in 1, sugar included, yay!) and sitting outside watching the sunrise with Paul was probably the most peaceful moment of the whole year. It made all the travelling worthwhile.

After a quick breakfast we were off to do two dives. Our weights were named for us so we didn’t get them mixed up and Paul got a new name again: Pow. The first dive was a refresher dive as we haven’t been diving for 10 months. It basically consisted of throwing us in the water and asking if we are ok in every minute. We used up all our air very quickly but we saw a big batfish. Paul took his first pictures under water and our dive master took some of us as well:

 The second dive was much better for us and for things to see underwater. Paul had a few nice shots and a nice video. This is an anemonefish:

When we got back we were famished and attacked our lunch like there’s no tomorrow, then we slept a few hours to help us finally get over the jetlag. The Canadian couple went for a night dive but we opted out. We were eager to see more stuff but decided to take it easy.

During dinner our guides joined us and we celebrated New Years with them with a glass of Champagne that we bought in Duty Free in the airport.

 Tomorrow we are going to the Manta Bowl divesite which is famous for very frequent manta ray sightings. They really put our hopes up so we were very excited. We could not wait until midnight as we were all tired and had an early start the next day. At half ten we were all asleep despite the ferocious karaoke competition in the village next to the resort. 

Happy New Year to all of you!

Special thanks to the Cone family for helping us to get back into the water and start diving again and to Mausti for that special bottle of Champaigne to celebrate the New Year.