Well we can't believe it's been a year since we landed here. The last 12 months have absolutely flown by, we've done so much, met so many awesome people but still got so much to see and do. To celebrate our 1 year anniversary we decided to take advantage of the public holiday on Monday and go diving for the weekend at a place called Apo Island, off Dumaguete. Kar Weng, another Engineer at Brenden's work also joined us.

So yes, another early morning flight out of Manila as expected. 4.45am the alarm went off so we could make the 7am flight to Dumaguete. The airport wasn't as busy as we expected considering it was long weekend and the flight actually left on time, surprisingly. 1 1/4 hours to Dumaguete, then a 45 min drive, then a 45 minute boat ride to Apo Island. Quite uneventful considering other trips we've done in the past. Apo is tiny, you could walk across the island in about 20 mins. There's a population of about 500 people there and 2 resorts which probably hold about 100 guests max. So really basic and really relaxed. We only get power for certain hours of the day and nothing after 9pm at night. Luckily the door of the room opens up onto the beach so you get this lovely sea breeze to keep you cool at night. Makes up for the bathroom you can't turn around in and the toilet with no flush button. There's nothing quite like trying to bucket water into the toilet whilst yesterday's lunch is looking back up at you

So we arrived at Apo at about 10.30, checked-in and then were diving by 11.30. The diving here is amazing, it's the main tourist attraction of the island. There is heaps of turtles, fish, coral gardens, rock walls, everything. We did 2 dives on Saturday. The highlight would have been swimming through an area of sandy bottom where there are heaps of bubble streams coming up from below. It really was quite surreal. At the end of the day we climbed up to the top of the island and then climbed the old light house to watch the sunset. Before we left we asked the receptionist how long it took to get to the top. She replied "1 hr slow walking, 30 mins fast". We did it in 15. There is a massive difference in walking pace between our 2 cultures. But the view was beautiful, well worth it. And beers to top it off, what more could you ask for.

Sunday consisted of 3 more dives. Again, lots of turtles, coral and fish including a Barracuda, heaps of Wrass, Groupers and a sea snake. But by far the highlight of Sunday, actually the whole weekend, was on the last dive. We jumped in out of the boat and headed down to about 20m. The current was reasonable strong so we just drifted along dodging another Barracuda and sea snake. About 30 mins in we came upon this massive school of trevally (Jacks they call them here) just resting in the current. They were on average about 50-60cm long and there was probably about 600-700 fish. We sat on the bottom for a bit just looking up at all these fish - quite awesome. The best bit came next when we drifted up off the bottom and then right into the school. The school just parted around us to the point where at one stage we looked around and we were fully surrounded by the school. Every where we looked around us there was these fish starting back at us, completely uninterested or worried about what we were doing. It was quite unique, something we'll never forget.

And that was it for the weekend. A few more beers on Sunday arvo reflected on the dives and coming up with ideas on how we could just live on the island, dive all week and then just work 40hrs in 2 days back in Manila before returning back to the island for more diving. We travelled back to Manila on the Monday lunch time after waiting the 18 hours after our last dive. Back to reality for a month or so but can't wait to catch up with Rochelle and Jasmine in Cambodia early October.