Diving with Friends on Cabilao Island

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Polaris dive resort on Cabilao island in The Philippines was our favorite place to stay on the first half of the trip, and it made a good place to recover from our illnesses. We met up with our friends, Madeleine and Mike from Ko Lanta, on the boat ride over. Their daughters (twins age 7, and a 10 year old) had fun watching dolphins riding the wake at the front of the boat but our kiddos were too exhausted to even look, having got up at 6am after only three hours sleep to get Kyla checked at the hospital (see previous blog).



For the first three or four days we spent far too much time in the room in the air-conditioning, but once we were all recovered, we could finally start enjoying ourselves again. The day that I started scuba diving and had a sunset beer for the first time in ages, I knew things were back to normal!



We did the same routine as last year pretty much. Scott and I would alternate diving while the other stayed at the resort to look after the children. It’s a kids’ paradise with lots of places to play, including an actual playground, a cute swimming pool, hammocks, a giant chess set, hermit crabs, fish to feed... It was even more fun this year for Kyla and Jake as they had friends to play with. We did lots of treasure hunts as it was the perfect place to run around. After a week or so things got even more social when another family we’d met in Ko Lanta, Jesper and Charlotte, joined us. They also had two daughters, and Kyla was so happy to have so many girls to play with. Jake didn’t seem to mind that he was outnumbered 6:1! We did more treasure hunts and Kyla, Jake and Asta picked right back up on their baby lion game from Ko Lanta!



It was fun for Scott and I to get some diving in after almost a year. I was very nervous the last time we dived as it was in the Galapagos, which has quite a reputation for strong currents and generally tough conditions. Diving here at Cabilao, by contrast, can be considered “cocktail diving” - nice, easy and warm, with dive sites at maximum a 15-minute boat ride away. As I backrolled in for the first dive, I felt totally comfortable. There’s not a lot of “big” things here in terms of turtles or sharks, but there are lots of tiny cool-looking things such as colorful nudibranches, tiny camouflaged crabs and shrimp, and frog fish (one of my favorites). The reef is also pretty pristine, with gorgeous soft corals blanketing the whole area like a beautiful flower garden. On dive three I backrolled in and my first comment was that there were a lot of little clear jellyfish that day. I could see them all around me on the surface but I didn’t feel any stings, and they disappeared as we descended. I didn’t think much about it until the middle of the night, when I woke up to find I’d had an allergic reaction and my whole neck had broken out into huge nasty-looking welts. Other people on that dive had had stings too, but they hadn’t reacted the same as mine. Luckily, the other dives seemed ok until my very last dive. About 30 minutes into the dive, a spotted a small brown jellyfish right in front of me. Within minutes the dive master spotted more and signaled to turn around. Within seconds we were surrounded by hundreds of tiny jellyfish. It reminded me of that scene in Finding Nemo when Marlin and Dory are playing with a single jellyfish, only to turn around and find themselves in a minefield of jellies! For the remaining 30 minutes of the dive it was like swimming in jellyfish soup. Luckily I seemed not to react to this type and made it out unscathed.



Twelve days went by very quickly and before we knew it, it was our last night. We were treated to a lovely sunset and had beer and wine with Charlotte and Jesper at the Sundowner bar (Mike and Madeleine had left a few days earlier) We were sad to see another leg of the trip behind us. Time is now flying until we are back home to reality. We have just over two months left. The countdown is truly on!





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