A few weeks ago I had a business trip planned for Manila and since Corey had yet to make it to this lovely country, he flew over from Phuket and met me for the weekend. We traveled together by taxi, then ferry to Puerto Galera, a renowned SCUBA destination, in the Philippines. The journey took us about 4 hours total and was well worth the efforts as the diving was just as reported- Superb! We had limited time but did two full days of diving from Angelyn's Resort, located right in the heart of PG. If you are looking for a good shop, reasonable lodging, with good food as well, it's a great choice. It is not fancy, but clean and right on the beach. Corey and I were very spoiled as we dove every dive with Bernard, one of the shop's dive masters our own boat for every dive. That alone made the trip almost perfect. Bernard listened to what we wanted to do and made it happen! http://www.angelynsdiveresort.coa We saw healthy corals, a huge variety of colorful nudi's, schools of beautiful fish, and more. I even saw an octopus in the afternoon that I followed for quite some time until it got tired and hid under a rock. The last day, Bernard promised me a turtle. Corey was quite worried, as a dive master himself, he felt it was crazy for Bernard to do this. It took us some searching in a grassy area not far from the shore, but we found a HUGE beautiful turtle, just hanging out and having her lunch. I was stoked!!! The best part about diving from PG is that the dive sites are all less than 10 mins by quick outrigger boat. I was surprised that the water was so clear and clean, and the coral so health, considering it's not all that far from Manila, but it really was amazing! The small town of PG is a bit rough, and the locals are trying anything they can to make a buck including quite a bit of touting. One of the better tricks is to pay a guy to carry our heavy bags from the resort (worth the pesos) but then to get them on the boat, you either pay another guy or do it yourself. Pretty much typical of a poorer country with key tourist destinations. Here are a few pics from our walk around town which from one end to the other takes about 15 minutes.  On a final note, we left PG and the Philippines as a small cyclone was hitting the region. We luckily were not delayed but this time of year is a bit sketchy, thus the low numbers of tourists and uncrowded diving.
We hope to get around to some of the other areas well outside Manila. The Philippines is made up of over 7,000 islands and if they others are as good as this, I'm diving in!
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