Dive #580

Notes

We entered the water via the stairs at low tide and then walked eastward for about 30–40m before descending in 1.5m of water. Underwater, we continued eastward, slowly gaining depth along the top of the reef before meeting the wall proper. We then turned right and headed southwest, following the wall and gaining a little bit of depth. About 10 minutes in, we saw a small banded sea snake. A few minutes after the snake, we came across the well-known Marignodon Cave, which is technically a cavern and very impressive. The roof is at 29m with the floor at around 40m depth. I swam in as I was the only one with a torch and was able to see the back of the cave around 30m in before turning back after a few minutes, although it appears to continued further in to the left. But I was running low on NDL and didn't want to keep the others waiting at the mouth or incur deco exploring further without a redundant air source. After exiting the cave, we continued following the wall to the right while slowly ascending. The wall turned and the current started pushing fairly hard, so the divemaster turned the dive and we headed northward on top of the reef. We saw countless pipefish, including three together, and also found a group of three moray eels hiding together as a group. It was a great way to finish off the deeper portion of the dive with a nice slow ascent through the shallows, surfacing around the same spot as we started the dive. We dived with Mactan Scuba Dive Shop and they were very good.