9. I’ve decided I’d like to be the next ‘Mumma Ranger’!

Oh yes! What. A. Week! It’s always a bit of an unknown when you board a boat for the week, not knowing anyone and hoping there are nice people. Yet again, I got lucky, had an incredible week of diving and spent it with some excellent people. My room mate, Cynthia (whose name is Ling Ling but she said ‘call me Cynthia’) was nice enough, from Singapore but a decent diver. She’s also, unfortunately, the most impressively but horrifically loud snorer that I have EVER known. She started the week by presenting me with some earplugs so it was an indication there may be troubles! It’s been brilliant, and also an incredibly exhausting week. 6am wake up call, 6.45pm first dive, four dives throughout the day, all lasting an hour. Before, after and in between all the diving, they also ply you with excessive amounts of food and there was an endless supply of hot water and fresh milk. Between the friends I made on board, I mostly managed to find other cabins that had spare beds - as some are configured for 3 sleepers but only had two or people in twin bed cabins but on their own so often found other places to escape the snore monster and sleep, so it all went well.

The diving itself was fabulous! We sailed for about 14 hours out into the Sula Sea until we reached the tiny atols in the middle of the ocean that form the reef. The closest land is 93 miles away. Tubbataha Reef is a made up of a series of atols that rise, on average, around 750m from the sea bed. There were 32 divers in total on my boat - and 36 crew! There were many nationalities represented too.  I’m the only Brit and then there is; USA, Chinese, Filipino, Taiwanese, Singaporean, Italian, Croatian, German, Spanish  (Canarian - Lanzarote) and Luxembourgians. We almost all converse in English! For all food and snacks and dive briefs, we sat at big round tables and had table families (or that’s what we called ours anyway!). In addition to Romain(see below),  my table family included Lisa and Joe, an American couple who are currently travelling Asia indefinitely and who were absolutely fab company. Lisa thought she might get hungry so bought a box of snacks with her and was forever plying us with them. Like being fed breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, snack, snack and dinner isn’t enough. We live like hobbits on this boat! She also brought gin so was an excellent friend to have made!

My dive group buddy for the week was Romain - pronounced ‘Romah’, using a full-on French accent. Romain was French (obviously). Once I’d exhausted my full GCSE French reparté (Bonjour, Je m'apelle Pippa, j'ai quinze and (I’m no longer 15 but that was the age I learnt in yr11 French!), Je jour au foot (I don’t play football either but it was the easiest sport to learn for the speaking exam), ou est la bibliotheque? (there is not library onboard and even if there had been, I’d likely not have understood the directions in French anyway), j'ai une soeur, je n'ai pas de freres, baguette, croissant), Romain clearly decided it was best if we conversed in English since his English is pretty fluent. I don’t know why he wasn’t terribly impressed with my French! Once he’d mastered not burning through all his air in a ridiculously short amount of time, he got a bigger tank and he was a good buddy. He didn’t know the sign for any of the animals so he’d just point in a kind of ‘I’ve found something you might like to see and it’s this area and the game is now for you to find it’ way. I taught him all the main signs for what we were seeing to help things along!

Romain is a yacht captain from the south of France so with myself, Joe and Lisa, he did a full tour of the ship on our first night and announced to us all that he was fairly happy with the condition and safety of the ship so it seemed to be a positive start. He did also mention that they’d not learnt the lessons from the titanic and that the life rafts weren’t positioned correctly or in sufficient number for the full passenger and crew numbers. That seemed less positive but fortunately there were not life raft-requiring incidents! The ship was originally a large sailing boat that has been reconfigured to a dive boat and extra decks and equipment added. That did mean that it’s a little taller than originally designed and can tend to list a little (sit a bit slanted to one side) if there is wind or if the dive tanks are all balanced. They have a system of using big water buts that they empty or fill to balance the ship. At one point when we really were on quite a wonk, we decided to send Romain off to ask what was going on. He came back to explain the water balancing that was underway. He said it would be fine …. Although later when I asked more about it, he said “ees stoopid” to use the water like that as it’s on a high deck and changes the centre of gravity for the boat - which ultimately could cause a capsize! He did then reassure me that it wasn’t that serious but just not European standard practice. I suggested he could go and talk some more to them to investigate but he insisted it was all fine and also “I am en ma ‘oliday”.

The diving has been great. We had a talk from ‘Mamma Ranger’ - the head ranger in charge of the reef national park to tell us of the rules (standard ones around good buoyancy, no kicking corals or touching) and had the full safety brief and diving info. We dive 4x dives a day. We’ve seen some incredible, unspoilt reef, some great wall diving and a little of the ‘big stuff’ - the pelagics (fish that live in the sea not on the reef).

We were split into 4 dive groups of 8 and when it’s your group’s turn, you go to the dive deck and get all your gear on, then carefully down the stairs and transfer onto the ribs. Once all 8 of us plus Reno (our group guide) and the boat boy were on, we whizz off in the little rib to the dive site, get ready and back roll off on the count of 3. Quick check ‘all ok’ on the surface and down you go. In to the other world. There were always 3 ribs on the water - two ferrying divers back and forth to the big boat and one ‘chasing’ the divers - basically staying on the surface following our bubbles and there once we surface to collect us or respond if there was ever an emergency. We didn’t have much luck with our dive boat though - the first one broke down on the third day so we bobbed in the water until another one came with a rope and towed us back to the big boat! The ribs were swapped and the spare on the big boat was subbed in so we could use that one. However, it sat a bit lower in the water at the back and tended to fill up with a bit of water round our feet. When it got deep enough, we’d get buckets passed round so we could all help bailing out as we went! At times we talked about which would happen first; we’d be delivered to the dive site to dive … or we’d go down with the boat and dive from there! We were all in full dive gear ready to roll so no great issue either  way!

There’s been current on some dives and there has been no need to swim - just get your buoyancy, float and stay on one level / depth and the current will whoosh you along as you watch the reef fish and walls flash by and the big stuff out on the blue flying past. I’ve lost count of the number of black tip, white tip and reef sharks we’ve seen, also manta ray, a huge marbled sting ray, barracuda, massive dog-tooth tuna (sadly, I’ve fully seen them now and can’t keep refusing to acknowledge them as sea friends so I could still eat them), huge grouper, jacks, travelly and wrasse. There are photos of some but not all as sometimes you just fly along with them but the currents make it not always easy to take photos!

We’ve also seem many pretty reef fish, lovely puffers, sweet lips, solider fish and all the pretty hard and soft corals as well as many turtles. On one of the first dives, we shallowed up to do out safety stop (staying for 3 minutes at 5 metre depth to allow the nitrogen to dissipate) right over an absolute army of bloody massive trigger fish (my least favourite fish ever) who were all busily nesting - and aggressively swimming at and biting fins of anyone they felt was in their space! I managed to avoid any incident but I was not thrilled! One day, we even visited a site called ‘trigger fish city’ - which is a ridiculous place to visit when you know they’re there. However, despite the endless nesting spots, it obviously wasn’t the right time for them to be actively nesting so it was just all the empty pits we saw. Which meant I didn’t die from being eaten by triggers!

Such a beautiful reef and place. I was a bit disappointed not to see more of the ‘big stuff’ (I hoped for more mantas, sharks and the illusive whale shark but not this time …. Next time; and an excellent reason to have to keep on diving!). Lisa and Joe are flying their kids out to meet them in Bali next and are going to get them both certified. Lisa said that she hopes it will do to them what it did to her. She says when you learn to dive and become a diver, it changes your head, your heart and your soul. And I absolutely agree. Such a privilege to be able to just visit the other world down there and be under the sea.

One evening, we squeezed all the dives in by 5.30pm and whizzed in the little ribs by

(Inflatable speed boats we load onto and then dive from) to the ranger station, where they will kindly allow you to buy merchandise from them and watch the sunset! There are always 6 rangers at the station, who patrol, check diving practice is good and ensure there is not illegal fishing or other boat traffic. They do shifts of 4 months. Perhaps idyllic but actually must be exceptionally hard and incredibly dull. Facilities are basic and there is nothing to do…although they do have internet! During Covid especially, they were often offered bribes by poachers and ultimately had to be provided with guns as people were attempting to use force to get access to the fish the reef! Unfortunately, some political leaders see only the money to be made from the reef and have tried to take ownership and change policy. Mumma Ranger has actually fought hard to prevent that and a new government came in recently and have a more conservational mindset … but they still won’t fund the completion of a new ranger station that is half finished and desperately needed. It is currently home to many of the boobies (bird breed - although obviously cue endless jokes all week about the importance of looking after, protecting and appreciating the boobies!) that are also protected around the reef.

Great food, fab diving and I really lucked out with some new friends and company for this trip so had an absolute blast. Sad that it’s over … although also absolutely shattered. Completed 19 dives across 4 days and a total of over 1100 minutes underwater! Drying off all the gear and sailing back to land was our final activity.

And to finish off the diving treat, a little game for you ....

*****

From the boat, we were bussed to the entrance to the port to meet out various pickups. I managed to locate my driver, bags - currently totalling my massive wheelie hold-all and then all my dive gear in a bag and my rucksack - transported and off we went on the 5 hour drive to El Nido. A slightly less smooth transfer than so far this trip although the story ends happily and I’m here eventually! After 15 minutes, we stopped at the petrol station and had to ring the boss to come and pay for fuel - so waited 15 minutes for him to turn up and a lot of time for petrol to be dispensed and actually paid for. The boss then asked if I’d mind a short wait - he’s got another van that’s currently broken and awaiting repair in El Nido - for a spare wheel which we could pick up and take with us. In principle, I didn’t mind this until he informed me it would be around a 45 minute wait, which almost certainly, in the Philippines, could be anything up to 2 hours. I felt like a bit of a dick but I had to say no. He seemed quite put out - I clarified the expected wait (it became an hour) and explained that I wasn’t willing to do that as I’ve paid for a private transfer and already felt petrol should be put in in preparation and a long wait for transporting parts didn’t seem reasonable. So off we went - me, the driver and the driver’s friend who needed a lift. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t chipped in for any of the cost of the transfer!

After 3 hours we stopped for the toilet - and, it turned out, the driver and his friend to sit and have lunch, chat, have a smoke then another smoke then consider getting back on the road. Another stop 30 minutes later for the friend to wee at the roadside and take over driving for a bit because he informed me the driver was really tired. Again, ok in principle but I’m not convinced he could actually drive as we tended to stay in 1st gear and go very slowly. Thankfully, we pulled in after 5 minutes and the driver got out, bought and sat and drank a coffee with another couple of cigarettes to help wake up! Only one more stop after than to let the friend out and we finally made it to El Nido where the driver informed me the van couldn’t go all the way to the hotel so he unloaded me in the centre of town and found me a trike. There wasn’t much I could do except make sure all my bags got transferred then try and work with the trike driver to find where I was going. A couple of tours of the town and some wrong turns, various Google map searches and finally we found my hotel, which was a walk up the dusty street as the driver went to the wrong entrance! Bags pulled and carried and a slightly curt conversation with the hotel (who booked and charged me in advance for a direct transfer) and I’m here.

I’ve got a fridge in my room and hot water available at all times from the little bar, space to hang and properly dry everything from the boat, a nice bed and mostly importantly, no room mate who’s snoring is loud enough to vibrate the whole room! I also think I picked well as my little balcony seems to be exactly what I need for some lovely reading and relaxing for a few days!