Moalboal

We'll skip the 13 hours of bus travel from Sagada back to Manila (though we did get to watch The Rock with Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery, which made at least 90 minutes of the day at least somewhat amusing) and the night sweating in our bed in Manila, and resume our Blog at Moalboal.

Moalboal - it's as hard to say as it looks - is a small town on the Island of Cebu in the Visayas. We didn't actually stay in Moalboal proper, but at Panagsama Beach, a bumpy 15 minute tricycle ride from the bus stop. Panagsama beach is a SCUBA diving magnet. This quarter mile stretch of coastline is home to twenty-three different SCUBA operators. With all those visitors, many other businesses have sprung up as well: restaurants, spas, adventure outfitters. It's a great vacation destination and we were looking forward to enjoying a few days in the water before we started our second volunteer gig in Dumaguete.

We found a room to rent for 4 nights (only $12.50/night with its own bathroom!), and set out to explore the town. One of our reasons for choosing Moalboal was the possibility of seeing whale sharks in the wild. Many outfitters advertised whale shark tours to the village of Oslob, but we learned we could just take a bus there ourselves and save some money. So, that Saturday (April 7) we set out to hopefully see some whale sharks. After a couple hours and a few bus transfers we arrived at Oslob and found the small coastal village was over-run with vacationers. This was Holy Week, and the Saturday before Easter at that, and so the throngs of whale shark watching enthusiasts had descended upon Oslob.


The scene was surreal. Fifteen outrigger canoes bobbed in the waves about 100 yards offshore, each one contained a couple dozen tourists wearing bright orange life vests, clinging to cameras and squealing loudly. Giovannina and I decided to snorkel from shore, which saved us the boat fee and only cost us the $10 entry fee. In the water, it was mayhem. Not only were there about 300 people above the water, but there were dozens of SCUBA divers below the water. We had to be very careful not to get hit by a canoe. It was like Frogger in the water.

But, we did see a whale shark. Three of them, actually, and up close. We snorkeled along side these gorgeous, graceful creatures, each 15 to 20 feet long and spotted like a Tahitian tattoo. Amazing. And we got to share the experience with about 300 other people, mostly screaming from canoes, slamming into each other (and sometimes us), all trying to follow the "feeding boat" that dumped fish meal over the side as the whale shark followed obediently behind like a dog after a treat.

This was not the magnificent wildlife encounter we were hoping for and we very soon got out of the water - upset at what we were seeing and that we had not done more research before coming all this way. Someone's making a lot of money from this and there seemed to be no regulations in place for the safety/health of the animals or even the people. At about $25/person, the tour company probably made $125,000 that weekend - not bad in a country with an annual per capita income of less than $5,000 USD. The best part of the day was meeting a couple from Manila about our age. They were very kind and we ended up having lunch with them before heading back to Moalboal.

Sunday, April 8 we went diving with Nelson's Underwater Safari, the only locally owned outfitter in Moalboal (Nelson is actually the Vice Mayor of Moalboal.) We did four dives: two in the morning, one in the afternoon and one night dive. The diving was superb. Great visibility. Tons of fish, including three frogfish on one dive. And the diver master let us stay down as long as we wanted.


We met a great guy from Australia, Andrew, who became our buddy for the remainder of our time in Moalboal and who loves underwater photography, particularly the small, funny-looking stuff. As two biology geeks, we took to Andrew right away, and even met up with him for dinner in Dumaguete once we arrived there.

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, so we'll spare more of them here and direct the reader to check out our photos - mostly taken by Giovannina (she's really getting good at underwater photography) - from Moalboal in our web album.