North Pandad Island & Apo Reef

After 6 days it was time to leave PG, and we were off to do what we'd heard was some great diving. Tough to get to we were told, but hopefully worth it. First we needed to charter a boat to get around the corner of Mindoro, because there were no roads...Then we needed to charter a couple motorbikes with side cars (tricycles they call them here). This is Mouck and Lynn in front of us with their bags tied to the back. We had to go 45km to the next town where we needed to catch a 3hrs bus to another town, Samblayan...
And once we reached Samblayan, we needed to charter yet another boat to take us out to North Pandan Island (below). This is where we would stay... however we were here to dive Apo National Reef, another small island that you can't stay on, but is another further 2 hours away by boat...

Now North Pandan is a privately owned island with only 1 resort. There is no fresh water (except drinking water that is brought over from the mainland), and only 12v power provided by batteries at night that are recharged by solar panels during the day...
Sunset on North Pandan Island...
The beach...
Jillene and Lynn on the pathway from our little Bungalow leading to the restaurant and dive shop.
The patio of our little 2 room bungalow.
From a distance...
You can barely see us, but this is Jillene taking a picture of Mouck and I as we took off to do some snorkeling at the north side of the Island. There was some great coral right off the beach...
And this was Apo Nations Reef, or the island where above ground anyway. We did 3 dives that day, and we saw lots of big fish, sharks, and I saw my first hammer head shark. It certainly is a great dive site, however visibility really wasn't that great. If the visibility was better, the dives wouldn't have been just 'really good', they would have been 'bloody fantastic'. I would love to come back one day and try again with 30m visibility. Unfortunately because the vis was so bad, you just can't take any decent pictures. Not enough light gets down there to allow for a decent photo...
We had an interesting ride to Apo, and an even more interesting ride back. We saw dolphins on the way back that we played with for about 30mins, but the highlight was a massive storm/waves that we encountered. Those who got sea sick may not have enjoyed it, however the rest of us had some fun. Getting soaked and riding on bow that was bouncing with the waves and occasionally getting submerged under the huge swekks... I should have taken a video!