Diving in the rain

Seriously, it's raining AGAIN!!!! Wherever I go, it rains... At least it's not snowing, like in the UK a couple of days ago, and of course at home in Sweden. Luckily, despite all the raining, have still managed to do quite a lot of diving. Life at 25 m depth quite unaffected by rain.

I'm at Alona beach on Panglao, a small island outside Bohol. It's quite a small place, with a nice white beach and loads of dive resorts. It's a little bit like a miniature version of Boracay. It also has the best mangoes ever!!! Fresh mango, mango daiquiris and dried mango, mmmmm, delicious!

Today I went out and did two dives around Balincasag island, fantastic wall dives (wall is 50 m, but don't worry, I stayed at my safe 30 m). Visability at first dive was great, actually felt a bit of vertigo going down. Feels in a way like you're flying going down... Fantastic soft and hard coral, I know this might not make sense, but it gives me a feeling of "magic forest", I keep thinking of John Bauers illustrations, but under water of course. Lots of beautiful fish and turtles :)

After Boracay I first went to Cebu city. Unfortunately, my bag decided to leave me and go to Manila... Might have been something I said, it's really been putting on weight recently.... Anyhow, we were finally reunited and took the ferry to Dumaguete, a small university city on Negros. Quite a sweet little city, stayed in very nice hostel, Harold's mansion, there. Superclean and even a TV in the dorm. After a fun night in Dumaguete, including a reggae band performing Cardigan's "Lovefool", I left Dumaguete on a tiny bangka boat to go out to Apo island. I arrived completely soaked (when I left Apo, I was clever enough to do it in bikini and rain poncho instead) to the small island. Apo has a small village, and there's two resorts. I stayed at Liberty's lodge, in their dorm. There's no running water, and electricity for only a few hours a day, lights out at 9.30 pm (guess that may explain why everyone there have like 5 kids each....). No need to set an alarm, as the rooster starts crooning at around 4.30 am, and they are loud. Roosters and karaoke, the soundtrack of the Philippines... I did quite a lot of diving, and it was amazing!!! Fantastic soft and hard coral, thousands of fishes (including a ornate ghost pipefish!), lots of turtles. Amazing, awesome, absolutely fantastic! First days were quite nice and sunny, but then it rained and rained and rained.... By the time I left for Bohol, all my clothes were very wet and smelly.

I'm trying to decide what I'm doing tomorrow, my plan was to just relax on the beach but it's been raining since late this afternoon and weather prognosis is not promising... Might head to Tagilaran on Bohol instead and stock up on some essentials (mosquito repellent, sun block (for when the sun actually is shining, have a very red nose at the moment), books) before going over to Leyte on Friday (happens to be the 13th, not that I'm superstitious but..., let's just hope that I don't break another toe or miss the only ferry or some other stupid thing). I'm going to Padre burgos in Leyte for more diving. I hope for two things: OK weather (please, no more rain! Or strong winds), and whale sharks. Would be totally amazing to see whale sharks!!!

After Leyte I'm heading back to Manila for 2 days before going to Hong Kong, and after 4 days in Hong Kong I'm going back to London. Can't believe it's only 2 weeks left! The time has gone so quickly, at the same time it feels like I've been away forever. Weird.

Time to go and celebrate that I did my 20th dive today with a mango daiquiri! And maybe have a pizza. Not much else to do when it's raining....

Btw, the pizza restaurant I'm going to tonight has this slogan "No pizza for 7 days makes one weak" I agree!