Man (and Boy) from Atlantis

Dumaguete is the new Anilao. This rural city, located at the "toe" area of sock-shaped Negros Island, has some great scuba diving - for the macro photographer and small-critter-conscious diver.

For casual divers like Tyrone and me, it's just really relaxing, current-free, shallow-water diving. Ty and I just arrived from a week of diving the Dumaguete-Apo Island-Siquijor triangle and we've lots of great pictures and video to attest to the biodiversity of the area.

(I've more photos too, which can be found on Kodak Gallery, and videos, which are on YouTube.)

There are a surprising number of dive resorts along the southern coastline of Dumaguete. We stayed in Atlantis, which is owned by a German fellow married to a Pinay. This is a "typical formula," it seems, as most of the resorts are foreign-owned.

I personally think it's a great formula as the operations and cuisine are pretty upscale. I always feel good when I see foreign investment in the country. The resort guests are also from all over the world, as the foreigners have better marketing contacts to get tour groups in.

Most of the resorts have established small sanctuaries or house reefs in front of their beach area. These protected dive sites are remarkable - this grey giant frogfish (3rd photo from top) with a harlequin pattern was right in the Atlantis house reef.

The Atlantis reef seemed to offer everything in pairs. Tyrone and I found pairs of seahorses, leatherjackets (see right), lionfish, etc.

One particularly unusual find was a pair of sea moths, which I had never seen or even heard of before. They are so well camouflaged in the muck area around the reef (see 4th photo from top) that it is easy to miss them, and even this photo does not do justice to their uniqueness.

The house reef also has mandarinfish, but these notoriously shy but colorful creatures are tough to get a glimpse of. The best I could do was get its tail (see right). I also got a T-shirt with a full-color painting of one, but at $17, I probably should have just stuck with the tail photo.

As in any safari, dive guides are essential on these expeditions. Our guide, Gaby Flores, had the amazing ability to pick out all manner of stuff out of what seemed like grey muck. There we would be in the midst of what seemed to be a desert of expended coffee grounds when he would go "ting-ting-ting" with his magic wand on his tank, signaling a find.

When we would get close, he would point the end of the stick at what might look like a piece of sea grass or an innocuous rock. Closer inspection would reveal a brilliantly camouflaged animal, which he would then identify on his slate as a mushroom coral pipefish or a yellow sawblade shrimp (2nd from bottom photo) or pyjama cardinalfish or something that we would just kind of stare at, amazed that Gaby would even know the name!

There were other dive sites with bigger game. In Masaplod, we encountered a school of swirling silver jacks, just like in Palau. This huge school has been there, amazingly untroubled by local fishermen, for awhile. Underneath the jacks were literally dozens of baby stingrays, none big enough to inflict any Steve Irwin-like injuries but interesting enough to watch as they burrowed next to one another.

The photo of the jack with the remora attached (2nd from the top of this post) is from Masaplod. The poor fellow kept zipping past us, hoping the remora could be enticed to latch onto a diver instead. I was lucky enough to time the photo exactly as he sped by.

Ty was a trooper throughout the week. I kept worrying that he might get too tired but he was excited about it all and even did four dives on one day, the last one being a dusk dive that ended past sunset.

This was a bit of nod-nod- wink-wink as strict PADI rules say that you have to be 12 to go night diving. Technically it was a dusk dive and he had a flashlight with him, just for added safety. It turned out to be his favorite dive, he said.

We also did a lot of snorkeling, either in between dives or just to go and get wet again. And when he was done with the ocean, he would jump into the resort pool to cool off. I guess he's really a water person!