Nudibranchs and Reverse Profile

I went diving to Dive & Trek this weekend. We did four dives in all: on Saturday our first dive was in a site called Bat Cave - we reached a max depth of 80 feet. This is quite exciting for me as this would be my deepest yet, although I did not go down to the mouth of the cavern (only Mark and Edward did). Our second, which we did in the mid-afternoon, was just in front of the resort, just off the reef wall near where the giant clams are seeded. Our max depth was just around 45 feet.

The second day dives were a lot more exciting. Our first, in the morning, was in the site called Pinnacle, in Ligpo Island, just off Bauan, Batangas, in which we took a boat going there. The dive site - with plenty of reef walls and a strong current - has an average depth of 95 feet, with a max depth of 200. We went down to about 70-80 feet. I've seen nudibranchs and lapu-lapu, and plenty of fire corals, which we were warned not, in any circumstance, to touch, as they are poisonous and thesting has a burning sensation that will last for about 2 months.

The second dive for the day was potentially dangerous, as we went deeper than the first, and we have rested for less than an hour in between to out-gas the nitrogen. We went to the Bat Cave once again, on the way went through the site called Basilica, which has a grotto (with a statue of the Virgin Mary, and a cross at one of the reef walls. We were taken (that's me and James) at the mouth of the cave, which is around 90 feet deep, which later we realized that we shouldn't have gone down, as this would be a reverse profile [a dive profile should be in such a way that the succeeding dives be shallower than the previous one]. The realization about it gave me and James a bit of a scare, as we got afraid that we might get decompression sickness and everything. Fortunately nothing untoward happened, so there.

All in all this trip has been great - particularly the dive at Ligpo. We met many new people - my instructor Mark's family, Edward's girlfriend Ima and her dad, and another dive companion Rania.