Philippine trip

sitting in Manila now with grandkids. Just did 8 days on the boat of my friend. Here's a few pics of some fish. We did some scuba too but at Tubbataha, no spearing. It's really nice to see how fast the reef has come back after a few years of protection.
Day one. My gear bag was late arriving so I'm in shorts and shirt. I did have my fins and mask though. Saw a few big fish here but man, Philippine fish are spooky. There are a lot of hunters and fishermen there.

Jake got this red snapper, as they call it there (looks like cubera) at about 40 feet. There was a bit of a cave and I saw a big grouper.

The boat from the bow. 81 foot banka. We did about 240 miles or so on the trip.

look at the rigging. No nails or screws. Fishing line holds it all together with bigger ropes tying into 3 "masts". It all flexes like big shock absorbers.

No spearing on these dives. The scuba diving at Tubbataha is pretty special. It's a World Heritage protected site now. Some guys with M16 rifles met us the first morning. They're serious about illegal fishing. We left all our spearguns at another island on the way there.
Dogtooth tuna were to be had but we were using smaller guns and reels. Floatline, breakaway is needed. Badly. hah. Those fish are strong. Great trip. I should have more pics later.

I have more fish pics but a lot of them were taken on scuba. This being a free dive site....

But it was fun spearing on scuba. The fish are really spooky and Jake, Boy and I would work as a team, crawling over the reef trying to hide and herd some snappers. We got a few pygmy snappers and grouper.
All in all, the fish were much more wary than in Belize. I would watch Jake dive and every fish within a 30-40 foot radius would just split, down over the walls (which were incredible) or into holes. Gone. Even the little blue trigger fish.

Shot a few bigger fish at over 100 feet on scuba too. Before I knew it, I was 17 minutes into deco drifting real fast over the top of this little reef with no land in site, hoping the captain knew where we were going. He did...he's good.

It was really fun being on a local style boat with a crew who were commercial fishermen. Filipino fishermen are badass and they were really stoked watching Jake and me do 70-80 foot free dives and grabbing the bubble blowers.
Lot of grouper here are the same genus as Goliaths (epinephelus), with rounded caudal fins.

This is the lighthouse on South Tubbataha. Sunset.

Quote from LunkerBuster

nice hank..messing with scuba divers at 80' is no joke.

They were our buddies. We were laying on the outrigger of the boat breathing up as they were swimming around under the boat. It was pretty funny. I grabbed Tintoy's leg and he looks at me, then his computer. hah.

We were the only boat in the area.

No worries. We ate most of the fish.
Carlos, the owner of the boat is from Spain so we made paella a couple times. There were 15 guys on the boat including crew.
The crew is badass. When we would anchor on the islands outside of the Tubbataha park, they would fish....and fish.....and fish. One night they hooked a 5 foot gray reef shark. That was pretty exciting. They turned it loose.
The level of difficulty goes up a few notches there. When I see snappers in Belize, I dive down not even looking at them and when I get down, I can still see them....maybe out of range but they're there.
Here, theyr're gone.....out of site. The snappers here are smart. Luckily the big surgeon fish aren't so smart and they're really good eating. We ate sashimi, kinilaw (local ceviche) and fried.

Quote from Dan

Nice pics hank. Looks like a great time.

Are the outriggers of the Banka made of bamboo?

The outriggers are all bamboo. The main support cross pieces are coconut lumber for about half the length, but the outer reaches of the crosses are just bamboo. It all flexes in the waves.. I asked the guy who built the boats why they use coco lumber (while he was building the predecessor to this boat) and he said, "you see how the coconut tree sways even during typhoon, but it doesn't break"?
The downside of it is that the bamboo only has about a 2-3 year life and has to be replaced. But the 81 foot boat only costs about US$45,000. Half that is the 6 cylinder diesel motor.

I met an engineer from the US back in about 1988 there in Negros. He tried to build a banka using oak for the corss pieces and 12 inch PVC for the outriggers. He got caught in some weather out where we were and when waves hit, the oak didn't bend....it broke. Mainly also because the PVC pipe wouldn't sink under the crossing swells. He was lucky. His guys were swimming under the boat at night trying to rope the cross piece down so they wouldn't capsize.

It's pretty amazing. That design hasn't changed at all since I first went there. There are many smaller versions with only 6 hp Briggs and Strattons. We dove off the one in the foreground in the pic.

Art, where in the Philippines are you? I have a good buddy who runs a dive camp down on Spothwest Panay in the West Visayas. He's got a couple guys that work there who are good spearos.