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

Snorkeling day at Modessa Island in Palawan, Philippines

We did a day trip in Palawan from Roxas town to Modessa Island Resort. The beach on the island looks very beautiful.

View to another direction.

Modessa Island is a resort island, so there is possible to rent also cottages.

Home reef.

Reef has a lot of different kind of fishes.

Lyn snorkeling.

Lion fish.

Looking for Nemo?

Whole family.

Clam.

When I snorkeled on deeper area there happened something very cool. First came small school of jacks.

Then more and more.

Finally there was hundreds of jacks around me. Never seen so many jacks before when snorkeling. 

I have seen huge school of jacks especially in Tubbataha Reef in Philippines and in Pulau Mabul in Borneo Malaysia when diving, but never when snorkeling.

Resort has also dive center on the island, if you want to go diving.

I uploaded this short video clip from Modessa to Youtube. In the end you will see a video clip of the jacks in Modessa.

I really liked the island and I will go back for sure. 

Regards from Manila,

Mika

Compressor diving at Palawan

Old story. Last year 2010 in March I was in a small city of Raxas in Palawan Philippines. There I met in karaoke place one local man Chito and he invited me to visit their own private island on the front of Roxas. Sound interested so why not.

Two days later I went to visit on the island with the Chito's brother Cassius. Place name is Stanlake Island. Near the island Cassius said there is still one more thing to do before we can go to land. Boat man should first dive to feed the fishes on the fish cage. Cage was about 100m from the island and depth was about 10-15m. That's nothing new if you use normal diving equipment like BCD, regulator, weightbelt, diving computer and so on. This guy had little bit different kind of equipment. He did it as a compressor dive!

Before I have heard about it, but I never seen it in real life. First boat man removed propeller shaft from the engine, then connected very long hose to the engine and then just started the engine. So engine is pushing air all the time to the hose. Hose around the body, mask to face and self-made fins to feet and hose to other side of the mouth and ready to dive. There was no mouth piece on the hose. Hose just between the teeth tightly to other side of the mounth where diver get the air for breathing. Breathing out just on the other side of the mouth. Not the safest way to dive. You can only imagine what can happen when depth is something about 20-40m and engine stop. I asked from Cassius have ever they had any probles. So far no problems. Hopefully never...

Here boat man has just came back to the boat. Compressor diving is very common in Palawan area.

Cheers,

Mika