Diving day on the beautiful Modessa Island in Palawan, Philippines

Dive #: 262
Date: 25.12.2015
Place: Philippines, Palawan, Modessa Island, Tarvis Reef
Depth: 17,3m Average: 9,1m
Dive time: 87min
Visibility: 8-10m
Sea temperature: +30C

Equipment
Bottle: 12L/200bar (air)  Wetsuit: Only shorts + sleeveles  Weight: 5Kg
Camera: Canon PowerShot G15 + Ikelite´s housing  Computer: Suunto Stinger

Dive Center: Tarvis Dive Center
Price: 1000PHP/20€/1 Dive

We spent the Christmas in Roxas in Palawan and on the next day 25th we did the day trip to beautiful paradise island called Modessa Island Resort. It takes 45min from Roxas to the island by boat. The island looks awesome.

I have been on the island ones before, but on that trip I didin´t dive. Only snorkeling. This time I wanted to dive also. 

I didin´t have any booking for the dive, so I just went to visit in the Tarvis Dive Center, which is next building from the restaurant. There was no other customers on that time, so we just checked the gears  with Richard, who runs the dive center. After everything was ready we just walked stairs down to the water and started the dive. Here is something what we saw. 

Visibility was not the best possible. Very soon in the dive we saw a big school of barracudas. Richard told there can be three different kind of barracudas in one school.

Same school.

Nemos. 

Striped cat fishes on the sandy bottom.

Silver sweetlips.

Lionfish and the small fishes.

Small fishes hiding in the corals.

Small reef fishes.

Curious batfish came very close.

Later we saw more barracudas.

And more. 

Under water tree.

Richard told me before the dive, that show him when I have 70 bars left and let´s go then to shallow area to find seahorses. Here he is checking the seacrass, if we could find one.

We checked several seacrass bush, but we didin´t find any. Then we turned back and rechecked the seacrasses again and we found one. Seahorses are quite funny creatures. When you tried to take photo they turn always the back to you. This is Zepra Snouted Seahorse.

Same seahorse closer. Belly is so big, that it can be pregnant. 

From the different angle.

Very small puffer which didin´t scare to come close at all. 

Coby and shrimp together.

Flounder in the sandy bottom. 

Here the flounder closer, where is possible to see eyes on the same side of the body. 

It was great dive on the Modessa Island even the visibility was not the best one. Barracudas and seahorse were the highlights of the dive. I have never seen that kind of seahorse before. The reef is  quite shallow, so the dives can be quite long. In my case the dive was nice 87min. Almost one and half hour on one tank. That´s easily my longest dive ever. 

Would be fun to dive in Modessa again. Special thanks to Richard!

If you want to see more photos from the Modessa Island, check from my Finnish travel blog. I really recommend to visit in Modessa Island Resort. 

Regards,

Mika