Second Dive Trip - Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro

I spent my Christmas break (Dec 22 - 26) in Puerto Galera with a co-worker at the El Galleon Beach Resort and completed my PADI Advanced Open Water Certification with Asia Divers. I went on five dives (Wreck, Naturalist, Underwater Photography, Underwater Navagation, and a Deep Dive) which were all fun and interesting. On the Photography dive, I got to see some White Tip Reef Sharks and was about a foot away from them when taking the picture Above.

I saw a hermit crab with a shell the size of my forearm crawling across the floor of the sea. I also took pictures of a Mantis Shrimp (They are neither shrimps nor mantids, but receive their name purely from the physical resemblance to both the terrestrial praying mantis and the shrimp) and Lizard Fish and got to observe many of different fish and aquatic life. I was later told the Mantis Shrimp can crack a divers mask with its strike!

Mantis Shrimp strike by rapidly unfolding and swinging their raptorial claws at the prey, and are capable of inflicting serious damage on victims significantly greater in size than themselves. In smashers, these two weapons are employed with blinding quickness, with an acceleration of 10,400 g and speeds of 23 m/s from a standing start. Because they strike so rapidly, they generate cavitation bubbles between the appendage and the striking surface. The collapse of these cavitation bubbles produce measurable forces on their prey in addition to the instantaneous forces of 1,500 N that are caused by the impact of the appendage against the striking surface, which means that the prey is hit twice by a single strike; first by the claw and then by the even bigger force from the collapsing cavitation bubbles that immediately follows. Even if the initial strike misses the prey, the resulting shock wave can be enough to kill or stun the prey.

Puerto Galera is in Oriental Mindoro which is about 3.5 hours from Manila. We hired a driver with a van to take us to Batangas province which took about 3.5 hours since the roads were packed with everyone going home to their provinces for the holidays. From there we took a one hour ride on a banca boat to Puerto Galera.