Living and diving in Moalboal, Cebu

2008-06-29T23:30:00.001-07:00

Hi guys,

Our dive instructor Abraham was awarded a Certificate for Excellence from PADI. They received the following statement from one of Abe's students:

Certificate of Recognition for Excellence
Awarded to Abraham Borg # 17567 for outstanding customer service and professionalism in PADI scuba instruction as acknowledged below: "PADI should know how lucky it is to have an instructor like Abraham Borg on board. Forget his super qualifications, Abraham is patient, kind and instills loads of confidence in his students. With Abraham, a diver couldn't feel any more cared and safer. Abraham really cares so much about his students and is one of the best instructors, if not the best that I have come across in my lifetime. Thank you to PADI for providing such a high level of instruction and to Abraham for his unwavering patience and care."

2008-06-20T22:43:00.000-07:00

Tubbataha Liveaboard

Did a trip to Tubbataha on of the liveaboards of Expedition Fleet. Awesome diving! Eat, dive and sleep is all you do on these trips. Here is some video footage my friend Tony from TLX underwater videography did for me. You will see more video and details Tubbataha trips soon on our website www.savedra.com
.

2008-06-06T23:56:00.000-07:00

Whale sharks, whale sharks, whale sharks...

Over the last couple months we got really lots and lots of whale sharks in Moalboal. Many of our divers can tell a story or two about these encounters of the big kind. There are for example our friends and guests Diana and Joern whi dive with since so many years. This time they stayed about 10 days with us. It just happened that both of their birthdays were within these 10 days, and it just happened that on Diana's birthday a whale shark passed by and on Joern's birthday a couple of days later, another one. Joern is also the one providing these beautiful pictures and videos from these 2 dives.

2008-03-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

We've got a wonderful e-mail from our avid diver Valeria, who was diving with us last year, which we want to share with you:

Dear guys....

i miss you so much that i cannot explaine....
My crazy feeling for you....
My best part of my life was been there with everyone...
every day i think of you..
i remember each your fantastic smile...and each sunset...

i was very happy with you...
every day of my life was full of color...magic...
I know ...you are special and everyone go there and spend time with you can think the same...
Only one word .....thank you!

2007-12-31T18:09:00.000-08:00

Properties and Lots for Sale in Moalboal, Cebu

Over the years we had a lot of our divers coming back to us again and again.

Some of them purchased properties and settled down here in Moalboal.

So if you are interested in a decent property, drop us an e-mail and we get you in touch with trustworthy people who sell lots with a clean title and who will help you with the paper work.

2007-12-31T17:37:00.000-08:00

New Year Dive - Some of us must live under water, right?

Traditionally, some of our divers cross over into the New Year under water.

Shortly before midnight our Swiss instructor Uli gathered the willing flock and descended at the house reef. They emptied several bottles of champagne at midnight.

We think that Rachel took a little bit too much, as you can see her mask filled up with some fluid we think is champagne...

We wish all scuba divers and friends of Moalboal a happy new year, and let us know if you want to join us next year.

Your Savedra Team

2007-12-11T19:38:00.000-08:00

Savedra offers now PADI Assistant Instructor Courses

After the latest IDC update with PADI Course Director Mario Tapales our Master Instructor and "Tecki" Abraham Borg conducts now PADI Assistant Instructor courses in our dive center.

The PADI Assistant Instructor Course is part of the Instructor Development Course (IDC) which comprises of two parts.

Part 1 Assistant Instructor

The Assistant Instructor course is a minimum of three days. It introduces you to the teaching techniques for skill and knowledge development. The course concentrates on duties and programs Assistant Instructors may conduct independently. On successful completion of the Assistant Instructor course candidates can move on to obtain training to become Open water Scuba Instructors.

2007-11-22T18:06:00.000-08:00

We got an amazing e-mail from our PADI Dive Master Candidate Akio which we want to share with you guys:

Dear, Karl, Dino and all my friends in Savedra Dive Center,

I am very sorry not to write for a long time since returning home.

I was very busy for many things that had been waiting for me during my absence in Japan.

Here, it is a complete Autumn now, and the winter is approaching just there.

I did cut and trimming trees in my small garden and cultivated beans, green onions, ginger roots etc, in the countryside.

Thank you very much for supporting me during my long stay in September and October.

Thanks to your steady supports and warm advices, I finally could become a DiveMaster and also could be a member of you.

I am very much happy and proud that I could conquer and pass all the ordeals, such as 60 dives with other guests, training assistant, stamina training and even the interview with a medical doctor.

Now, I could remember your (Karl's) words on e-mail before leaving Japan.

You said that Savedra would offer me the very rigorous and strict training and that after the success of the training you would be sure that I would be a real DiveMaster.

Now, thanks to Dino, I am confident that I have become a REAL DiveMaster with his kind and serious instruction and his very tough training.

I did write the story of these 4 week's severe training and delivered by e-mail to many friends of mine, not only diving friends but also old friends of my high school, university and company.

And I got many many many replies from them.

They mostly say; that they are much surprised at my energy, spirits and efforts, that they are much envious of my life, that I am a superman they can never imitate, that I am passing the ideal human life and that they thanked me for providing them with living energy, etc.

Dear, Karl, Dino and all my friends,
I am sure that I will come to Moalboal again, maybe in February and it would be much appreciated if I could join you and assist you. I also would like to bring some friends of mine with me sooner or later.

Lindy and Dino, thank you very much for everything during my stay.

Hermann and Bhiebs, thank you very much for many things including extension proceedure of my visa.

Please let me ask you the same proceedure again.

Raquel, thank you for all arrangements at everytime.

Jaymi, I will mail the pictures soon please wait for a while.

Now thank you very much again, everybody.

akio (^:^(

2007-10-05T21:59:00.000-07:00

Whale Shark Mania!

Guys, the whale shark are back. BIG time! Our dive instructor Tommi has 2 PADI Open Water Students, Michael and Christian, and dives the house reef all the time. Here is the Log Book entries of the dive students:

Oct. 2, 2007: Open Water Dive 1 (this is the very first Open Water dive in the course): Whale Shark

Oct. 3, 2007: Open Water Dive 2: Whale Shark

Oct. 4, 2007: Open Water Dive 4: Whale Shark

So these students saw in 3 out of their 4 certification dives whale sharks. Right now we have a giant school of sardines at our house reef and hey are spawning. We assume this keeps the whale shark around for a while. Our certified divers are not going boat diving anymore, everybody is just diving the house reef. And, I guess, Michael and Christian, our PADI Open Water Students, are spoiled for life...

2007-09-24T19:37:00.000-07:00

Thresher Sharks in Moalboal

Our Japanese business partner Noriaki Hashizume (www.savedra.jp) is just passing by for a short visit from Japan. He has his Tech Gear still with us and jumps every day in the water for a deep dive. And nearly on every dive he encounters tresher sharks. This is a trend we observe already since a couple of month. More and more often we have encounters with treshers. Nori had up to 4 threshers on Sunday, Sept. 23 and yesterday, Sept. 24, a big tresher shark in Pescador Island. In Pescador we have usually white ship sharks, the appearance of threshers is new to us. It seems that laws in Philippines against illegal fishing methods are improving and the proof of it is just on our house reef. Only set back is they are really deep. like 60m/200f or deeper. One reason more to learn tech diving...
Unfortunately Nori didn't bring his camera. We post some pics taken before from our friends at artifishal.com.

2007-05-24T22:45:00.000-07:00

Project AWARE’s Dive For Earth Day

Each year during the week of Earth Day, 22^nd April, thousands of people across the globe make a difference for the underwater environment while having fun and getting wet to celebrate Dive For Earth Day. We joined the global effort to make a difference this April. We organized in partnership with Project AWARE a Beach and Underwater Cleanup. Divers, snorkelers, their families and friends helped us to make a difference for our local dive sites.

Here is more info on the Earth Day and Project AWARE:

Earth Day began on 22 April 1970 to raise the status of environment issues to the global stage. On the 30^th anniversary of Earth Day in 2000, Project AWARE began to help organize dive volunteers and put aquatic issues on the Earth Day map. Since that time thousands of divers and water enthusiasts in more than 115 countries of the world have helped protect underwater environments and educate local communities each April.

Project AWARE Foundation is the dive industry’s leading nonprofit environmental organization working in partnership with divers and water enthusiasts to conserve underwater environments through education, advocacy and action.

For more information about Project AWARE conservation initiatives visit www.projectaware.org.

2007-04-12T18:56:00.000-07:00

Divers Blog

We got a nice feedback form Jorge, Carmel and Fernando. They came all the way from Spain and spent 2 weeks of scuba diving here in Moalboal. They were diving with Tommi and Dino. Jorge took a lot of impressive pictures and published them in his blog http://jorgedive.blogspot.com. Even the blog is in Spanish the pictures speak for themselves. Copyright of all pictures are by Jorge, of course. Thank you, guys.

2007-04-07T18:54:00.001-07:00

Whale Shark Special

Yesterday we had a very special whale shark encounter. Over the last couple of days, many divers reported whale shark sightings along the coast line, so we knew that some are in the area. We just came back from a wonderful dive at Pescador Island when Ryan, our “quappo” boatman, suddenly spotted the tip of a whale shark fin, just in the middle of the sea. Excited he stirred the boat into the direction of that fin. Everybody expected that the whale shark would disappear once the boat came close. But to our astonishment this whale shark was not bothered at all by the boat. It just stayed close to surface, barely moving and so all of our divers entered the water with mask, snorkel and fins (and the luckier ones with their u/w camera). Even then the whale shark couldn’t be bothered by the presence of a handful of divers and snorkelers in the water. I slowly circled the boat and swam a little bit acting like a photo model. This was going on for more than 20 minutes. The staff in the dive center saw the boat floating in the middle of the sea and assumed engine trouble. Abeth, the assisting manager, tried to call the boat on their cell phone (all our boats are equipped with one for emergencies) but nobody was picking up the phone (they couldn’t be bothered…). Assuming a break down of the engine or some other kind of emergency she arranged for another boat to go out and help our divers (that’s another nice thing here at the beach, most dive center work together. In this case, thank you Seaquest Dive Center). When the “Rescue” Boat arrived the whale shark swam off. That was a really nice whale shark encounter, and in the evening, when everybody sat together end exchanged stories, the size of the whale shark increased with every beer consumed.Thank you Silke and Jojo for the nice pictures.

2007-03-27T20:00:00.000-07:00

Whale Shark with baby - Video on YouTube

Click here for nice video from a whale shark encounter just on our house reef from Patrick Devine. What makes this video special is that you can see a tiny whale shark baby beneath the big one at the end of the video. The picture is from Yoris, a dive instructor who spend a lot of time in Moalboal and is now in the Maldives, I think.

The other day Jesper (owner of Neptune Dive Center), Lars (one of the owners of the Chili Bar) and some other divers had an encounter with 4 whale sharks in Sunken Island. This is unheard of and supports our impression that we have more whale sharks, and turtles, than before.

Of course they celebrated in Chili for the rest of the day.

2007-03-14T18:35:00.000-07:00

Moalboal community - what's up with Patrick?

Many of you know Patrick Devine, an airline Captain who is PADI instructor and IANTD Trimix Technical Diver, and Stella, his beautiful wife. Both of them are living several month of the year in Moalboal.

Patrick, who always looks for something extraordinary, married his Stella at his motorbike dealer at a biker wedding in Florida. Check http://www.polarisindustries.com/en-us/VRA/Insider/BlogWedding.htm for more details.

Patrick contributed some also awesome whale shark videos and shark pics he shot just on our house reef. These videos and picture galleries can be viewed on our upcoming new website, maybe sometime in May or June.

2007-03-12T17:59:00.000-07:00

Dive Safari Moalboal, Sumilon Island, Apo Island, Balicasag island, Cabilao Island

I just came back from a 5-day dive safari. The weather was perfect and we had only experienced divers on board, which allowed me to do some relaxed dives on my own. My dive buddy for the first 2 days was Werner, a German CMAS diver who is very experienced. We did a couple of very nice dives in Sumilon (frog fish, nudibranches, blacktip sharks) and Apo Island (schooling jacks, giant bumphead parrot fish). Apo, as usual, had some very strong currents at Coconut Point. This is by far the best dive spot in Apo, but you can’t dive there often because it usually has high waves and strong currents. The next couple of days I dove with Elvis and his group of Honk Komg Divers, all very experienced. They belong to a dive club in Hong Kong and are used to dive in difficult environments, such as limited visibility and strong currents. Again, this made my job easy and I could relax and enjoy the upcoming dives. We had excellent dives in Balicasag (schools of jack fish on 2 dives, large school of big barracudas on 1 dive) and Cabilao. Especially the dive spot called Light House in Cabilao offered us some fantastic dives, schooling barracudas in strong currents, napoleon fish and much more. Even our last dive in Mactan Island proved to be impressive, thousands of sardines surrounded us, and again a huge barracuda, about 2m in size. All in all a very nice safari with lots of exceptionally good dives. Lucky Tommi is embarking today on the next safari…

2007-02-22T18:58:00.000-08:00

Thresher Shark at White Beach

Our lovely dive master Maricel just came back for a dive at White Beach. We had already several whale shark encounters this week. But this time we had something special, a huge tresher shark. Unfortunatly Maricel dirdn’t bring her camera on this dive. This encounter is insofar uncommon since Moalboal is not known for thresher sharks. There are there, but usually only seen by out Tekkies in depth greater than 70m. The picture you see here is courtesy of Achim from www.artifishal.com, who visisted us some years ago.

Here is some info on thresher sharks from Wikipedia:

Named for and easily recognised by their exceptionally long, thresher-like tail or caudal fins (which account for 1/3 (33%) of their total body length), thresher sharks are active predators; the tail is actually used as a weapon to stun prey. By far the largest of the three species is the Common thresher, Alopias vulpinus, which may reach a length of 7.6 m (25 ft) and a weight of 348 kg (767 lb). The Bigeye thresher, Alopias superciliosus, is next in size, reaching a length of 4.9 m (16 ft); at just 3 m (10 ft), the Pelagic thresher, Alopias pelagicus, is the smallest. Thresher sharks are fairly slender, with small dorsal fins and large, recurved pectoral fins. With the exception of the Bigeye thresher, these sharks have relatively small eyes. Coloration ranges from brownish, bluish or purplish gray dorsally with lighter shades ventrally.

More info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thresher_shark

2007-02-18T15:39:00.000-08:00

Whale Sharks

The whale sharks are back. We had 2 sightings yesterday, one at Kasay Point early morning and one at Sampaguita late afternoon. Diving conditions are excellent at the moment anyway, bright sunshine and visibility up to 30m (100f).
For more info about shale sharks in Moalboal check out http://www.savedra.com/shark.htm

2007-02-15T21:33:00.000-08:00

Tommi and the weight belts

This is Tommi. Tommi is PADI and SSI Instructor. When it comes to weight belts, he is very often confronted with questions like “How heavy is this piece of weight compared to that piece of weight?” or “What is the weight of my weight belt exactly?” It happened that last Sunday he was strolling along the public market in Moalboal town. Suddenly he saw a pocket scale and after some bargaining (you know Tommi…) he purchased it for 20 Pesos. We checked the scale and it is surprisingly accurate. So now, whenever a diver wants to know the exact weight of his weight belt, Tommi pulls out his pocket scale and is ready for action…

2007-02-09T16:44:00.000-08:00

Moalboal Newsletter

This is Lars Starner (...no, not the green plant, the handsome guy with the beer). He is co-owner of the Chilli-Bar, a cool open air bar just opposite our dive center. Lars, as you can see, is usually in a relaxed state of mind and he publishes a newsletter for everybody who is interested in Moalboal and its residents. Find below a sample, and if you like to join drop him an e-mail (starner@hotmail. com).

Moalboal newsletter #56
Date: Jan 9 2007 - 8:49pm

Moalboal 2007

Happy New Year, friends of Moalboal!!

2007 has not really given us any nice weather. Lots of rain,
yesterday the whole basketball court outside Nelsons dive shop was
submerged. First time I have ever seen that. 24 Celsius in the
morning…………COLD man.

The Philippines is now starting to take off in many ways. The stock
market here just got over 3000 points, something that was last seen
back in 1997 and before the Asian crisis. The Peso is getting
stronger by the day, now below 49 to the $.

Internet has been slow here in the Philippines. The earthquake in
Taiwan destroyed a lot of cables so internet and phones have been
slow.

ACTIVITIES:

Soccer every Monday & Friday. Jochen (Planet action) has now had new
goals made. Roland (Ruffas husband) took care of the net part.

BIRTHS, SOCIAL AND GOSSIP:

Simon, dive instructor at Visaya divers had a diving accident before
Christmas. According to his girlfriend, Jing-Jing, he had 9 sessions
here in Cebu at the re-compression chamber. He has now had 3 in UK.
He has full function: waist up. Feeling in his toes and getting some
feeling in his legs

PRACTICAL:

Emma's old restaurant is now a Thai restaurant. For those of you that
does not know where it is. Just walk past Visaya dive shop and go
south 200 meters on your left hand side. Very good food but also a
bit slow now during start-up.

Retirement visa, they have now lowered the requirements for getting a
retirement visa. If you are above 50 years old, you now need to bring
in 20 000US$ (before it was 50 000) into the country. Cost right now
is 1500US$ and you will then get a lifetime visa and no more hassle
with going to immigration. Interest now is 5% for the US$ and more
for the Peso. I found Florence, business manager at Commerce bank,
Fuente circle, very helpful. Her e-mail: fypebenito@bankcom. com.ph

The ASEAN summit that was going to be held 12-15 December got
cancelled. Typhoon was coming and the thought it safer to cancel. The
ASEAN summit will now be held 12-15 January this year. Be prepared
for huge delays in flights and traffic.

WHALE SHARK SIGHTINGS:

Next letter I will give you the exact dates and location where they
were spotted. I know of at least three times that they saw them in
December. Looks like white beach area is where they hang out these
days. Please, if you see whale shark, go to Chili and write where &
when you saw them. There's a list on the notice board and Chili will
give you a free Ning-Ning when you write.

GENERAL:

If anyone has any information that they think would be interesting
for people on this list, please do let me know and I will add it in.
If you know anyone that would like to receive this letter, please
tell him or her to send me an E-mail at the address below and I will
add him or her. I've found it to hard to do it through
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/moalboalmail

Regards, Lars Starner
starner@hotmail. com

Moalboal home page:
http://www.moalboal.org.uk

Copyright (c) Lars Starner 2007. All rights reserved

2007-02-08T17:02:00.000-08:00

We found some nice video clips about diving and snorkeling at You Tube. YouTube is a popular free video sharing website which lets users upload, view, and share video clips. Videos can be rated; the average rating and the number of times a video has been watched are both published. Check out http://youtube.com/results?search_query=Panagsama
We still have a lot of whale shark footages from Panagsama, probably we will upload the clips in the near future.

2007-02-07T20:31:00.000-08:00

Another diver who found his love in the Philippines

Our diver Uli, second time here in the Philippines and currently under Tommi (PADI and SSI Instructor) for Divemaster Training, is another diver who found his love in the Philippines. He’s getting married soon, a big party is coming up at the 14th. Good luck, Uli, and don’t get to much distracted from your DM course.

2007-02-07T20:14:00.000-08:00

Pygmys again – this time just on our house reef.

Under water photographers can not have it easier. Our living diving legend and Dive Master Lindy, who logs more than 10.000 dives, has found 2 Pygmy Sea Horses at our house reef in about 25m, just before the Cabana pier. Here are some pics form Lindy and our regular customer, diver and U/W photographer, Martin Nuermiger. Thank you, Martin, for your pictures.

Here’s some more info about Pygmys from Wikipedia:

The pygmy seahorse, Hippocampus bargibanti, is a seahorse of the family Syngnathidae in the western central Pacific. It is tiny, no larger than 2.4 cm. There are two known color variations: grey with red tubercles (on gorgonian coral Muricella plectana), and yellow with orange tubercles (on gorgonian coral Muricella paraplectana).

This species is known to occur only on gorgonian corals of the genus Muricella, and has evolved to resemble its host. The tubercles and truncated snout of this species match the color and shape of the polyps of the host gorgonian, while its body matches the gorgonian stem. The camouflage is so effective, the original specimens were discovered only after their host gorgonian had been collected and placed in an aquarium.

On the lower portion of the abdomen, males have a brood pouch in which the female lays her eggs. They are fertilized by the male, and incubated until birth.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_seahorse)

2007-02-01T23:22:00.000-08:00

Patricia is back – for the weekend

Patricia Cueni, our famous dive master and PADI dive instructor, is back for Mario’s funeral. Patricia spend a lot of years diving and teaching scuba diving in Moalboal. She conducted many dive safaris with Mario until she left us for a manager position in a big company in Europe. She came all the way from Switzerland to attend Mario’s funeral and heads Monday back to Europe.

2007-02-01T23:14:00.000-08:00

The Savedra Dive Center Family mourns the loss of Dive Master Mario Deniega.
Many of you remember Mario as an accomplished diver and a dedicated PADI Dive Master. He was as an appreciated member of our dive family and highly regarded by his coworkers, a quiet man with a quick wit, a lot of humour and a passion for his work. He will be deeply missed by his friends and family.