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Happy food. It’s more fun in the Philippines! Just my way of showing support to the Department of Tourism‘s foray into social media promotions. Click here to find out more!

Happy food. It’s more fun in the Philippines! Just my way of showing support to the Department of Tourism‘s foray into social media promotions. Click here to find out more!

I had done one night dive sometime before (at the Leticia by the Sea resort), and it gave me such an entirely new and exciting experience. So as a belated birthday celebration, my friends and I spent the night at Babusanta Beach to see its seascape after sunset.

We went diving with the Carabao Dive Center organized dive tour on Saturday, 30 July 2011, and had ourselves dropped off at Babusanta afterwards. The beach has been around since I was a kid and it looks pretty much the same now: wood-and-thatch open huts which can double as rudimentary quarters, and not much else. There’s a store for your basic needs — bottled water, softdrinks, canned goods, junk food — but they close at around dinner time. You can bring your own food or order from the caretakers (limited to a few basic Filipino dishes). There’s a grill that you can use or you can have the caretakers cook your food for you.

At around 6:20pm when the sun had finally set, Rodney and I, together with our dive guide, Niño, plunged into the surprisingly warm sea (about 80°F/27°C). The weather wasn’t quite cooperating, however, and we found ourselves buffeted by strong currents right after beach entry. After only a few minutes underwater, Niño aborted the dive when he saw Rodney and I were struggling. The current running parallel to the shore was way too strong. We surfaced, went back to our hut and decided to wait it out.

There’s another beach beside Babusanta, called Dayang, and its shore doesn’t run parallel to Babusanta’s. Thinking that the underwater current might be behaving differently there, we trekked a good 200 meters (with our gear on) to Dayang, but were quickly disappointed. The waves looked even more threatening there. Niño didn’t even let us descend.

Dejected, we made our way back to Babusanta. But halfway, the waters suddenly calmed down. We wasted no time getting back in the water! We had a bottom time of 75 minutes, having stayed at an average of only 15 feet or so; the deepest we went to was less than 30 feet.

Babusanta is generally a muck-diving site. Since it’s a very popular beach on Talikud Island, with countless boats anchoring there every weekend, the area’s coral reefs have long wasted away. What’s left now looks like an underwater wasteland: sand, fragments of dead coral, sea grass. But to the experienced night diver, as our dive guide showed us, the dive site is a wonderland.

We saw critters that we had not seen before — creatures that probably don’t go out while the sun is up. We spotted a fish that at first looked like a frogfish, but I think it was a stargazer. There were eels, sleeping lionfish, sea snails out and about, and quite a few hermit crab wearing sea anemones on their backs.

Cleaner crab that were bigger than usual were everywhere to be seen. Stonefish, too, were out in plain sight.

My favorite part was when I spotted a tube anemone with lots of shrimp living on and around it. According to literature, this type of anemone is the favorite host of squat shrimp, and they were there indeed — maybe about a dozen. But there was also a few graceful anemone shrimp (transparent body, with white spots), and another type that I have yet to identify.

Sole (similar to flounder, but more oblong-shaped) were in abundance, and I had actually wanted to catch one for dinner. But I realized it was already late and we hadn’t brought any charcoal for cooking.

Despite the seeming bleakness of Babusanta’s sea floor, coral are struggling to come back. There are clumps of coral heads here and there, from 30 to 10 feet below sea level. These clusters are amazingly full of life, with fish and sea snails and sea urchins.

The problem is, boatloads of people keep coming here, quashing young marine life and smothering them with garbage. Everywhere during our night dive we saw foil wrappers, discarded plates, plastic sheets, bottles….

I wish beach-goers would be more respectful of nature, especially of life in the sea. I don’t think we can stop people from going to beaches, but there should be a way to get them to stop littering at the very least.

The following day, we had another dive, this time entering via Dayang. It was supposed to be a dawn dive, but the habagat winds (southwest monsoon) were in full rage. Thankfully, the winds let up at around 8:25am. After lunch, we rode with the Carabao divers again for yet another dive in the afternoon. That’s five dives in all for that weekend!

During the Dayang dive, we saw juvenile sole everywhere! Probably not very good at camouflaging themselves yet. It was fun watching them scurry off just below the sand. I also saw my first cowfish — it stood its ground when we approached and wasn’t intimidated by us at all. Most fascinating find that day was this white eel-looking fish about a foot long. Niño touched it lightly and in two blinks it had backed itself into the sand tail first! (Update: It was a crocodile snake eel.)

Total spend for the five dives: ₱1,850 (5 tanks, boat transfers, dive guide fee). Overnight fee (use of the hut) at Babusanta: ₱300. Cooking charge: ₱100 (for everything we asked them to cook!). Not bad, no?

Babusanta Beach is on Talikud Island, Samal. Pictures courtesy of Rodney Jao.

Last week, my dive buddies and I saw a cluster of fascinating critters: really tiny orange, white-spotted shrimp with upturned tails, all congregated around a tube anemone. Our dive master told us later that those were squat shrimp (Thor amboinensis). No bigger than the tip of my finger, they were just crouched there among the anemone’s tentacles, but they jumped one after another when the DM gently swept a stick across the bunch.

Yesterday I saw more squat shrimp, but only two of them, and on top of another type of anemone that I have yet to identify (it was round and flat with thick tentacles, with splotches of purple — kind of like the one in the photo here). The two shrimp looked like they were feeding, but one of them kept wriggling its underbelly while it flitted from one spot to another atop the anemone. And then today again, I saw quite a lot of them! On both occasions, it was at Angel’s Cove.

I wish I had an underwater camera housing for my LX3! There are so many undersea wonders to capture visually, so it gets a bit frustrating during dives when I see something that would be awesome to share with everyone…and I can’t. But, I’m going to hold off on this purchase, because the diving gear alone isn’t exactly a walk in the park to pay for.

Speaking of which, I’ve finally completed my scuba equipment — my very first set! And, after a month of diving (not counting my dozen or so “intro” dives over the years), I broke them in today. I’d already gotten the basic stuff (mask & snorkel, fins, booties.) a fortnight ago, then my brother couriered me my Tusa BCD from a clearance sale by Scuba World late last week. Then this weekend, the Carabao Dive Center gave me a really good deal that I simply couldn’t refuse, on a Cressi regulator assembly, a Scuba Max three-gauge console (depth, pressure, compass), and a Scuba Max octopus.

The dive shop assembled the regulators and gauges for me, and even threw in a couple of colorful hose protectors for free. You gotta love those guys at Carabao!

Here’s my checklist of scuba gear & accessories:

The underwater notebook is über handy, and I use it to document my dives, and for jotting down observations and stuff. I’m just hoping either — or both — of my two dive buddies will get an underwater housing for their cameras soon, so that our journals here could be super colorful. ;)

By popular demand, I have installed a search engine that lets you, dear blog readers, perform granular searching on DavaoDeli.com. This means that you can now apply filters to your search: by type of cuisine, by general location, and by category. For example, if you’d like to know which coffee shops in downtown Davao offer [...]

Since last year, I’ve been thinking about featuring Dabawenyo delicacies on DavaoDeli.com. And selling them here. The other night, I had a breakthrough. A Filipino celebrity, who has now made Davao his second home, has agreed to partner with me in this little venture. My dear friend Wency Cornejo has in fact been quietly establishing [...]

It was great to hang out with Matt again after about two years. The first time we met in person was in 2008 for the first WordCamp in the Philippines. When I went to the Automattic offices in San Francisco, he was in Ireland, unfortunately, so it was only this month that I got the chance to see my true American idol. Matt was in Manila for WordCamp Philippines 2010.

I’d just arrived from Europe and, in spite of the rather bad jet lag, went out for drinks with my good friends Christian & Bhambee, Chattee, and Matt.

Thanks, Christian, for the photos!

I’ve long wanted to create a special space on Davao Delicious to feature restaurants (as well as coffee shops, eateries, etc.) that I’d already blogged about. And now I’ve finally gotten around to doing so! What do you think of my new “When in Davao…” widget on the sidebar?

For now, the purpose of the widget is to showcase the dining establishments in the city that I really like. By featuring them on the sidebar, my blog visitors who might’ve missed those articles will get a chance to find out and read about them. The 5 or so establishments I’ve already chosen will enjoy the limelight on my sidebar for a little while — until I figure out what else to do with the widget. The order in which each is shown is random.

I got a WordPress plugin called Featured post with thumbnail to help me with this little project. I’ve modified it, though, because the original version wouldn’t display post excerpts. I just might republish my own version of the plugin and share it with anyone who’s interested to use it… If I do, I’ll surely blog about the development (that is, tweaking) process over at The WordPress Evangelist.

It would be very rewarding to hear from you — maybe you have some ideas on how to improve or extend the widget? Feel free to leave your thoughts below. Thanks for reading my food blog!

Are you a caterer operating in Davao City (or in any of the surrounding towns)? If you are, I’d like to give your outfit some online exposure by featuring your offerings right here on my food blog.

Just use my online contact form to tell me all about your catering business, your cuisine specialties, and contact information. When I decide to feature you, I’ll also ask you to send me some photos of your food or of you in action!

I’m doing this because I’ve been getting inquiries about catering services in Davao. Who knows, you might just get business from being featured on Davao Delicious? And it’ll be my pleasure should that happen.

Automattic sent me a Moleskine notebook yesterday, as a token for having organized WordCamp Philippines 2009. It’s way cool — the “legendary notebook” embossed with the WordPress logo on the front cover!

Last year, Maya, Matt‘s indefatigable girl friday, sent me a WP hoodie for my efforts in 2008.

It’s certainly heart-warming, to be given such simple yet memorable gifts. Advocating the use of WordPress is its own reward, but tokens of appreciation do lift the spirit up when they are received.

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