Notes from Tañon Strait, Days 5-6: Overnight on Mantalip Reef, Sailing with Dolphins in Bais

Sailing with the dolphins in Bais • Image for Oceana Philippines

Two days is way too short to appreciate the beauty (and creature comforts) of Hale Manna in Moalboal, Cebu.  The huge rooms and wide open garden that opens up to the sea will have to give way to two days of bunking on the liveaboard of Harold Dive Center.  Sort of two days since I get to stay overnight on a reef station, but that's getting ahead of the story.  

We make an excursion southwest across Tañon strait to Bindoy in Negros Oriental (located less than 2 hours drive from Dumaguete City) to meet, talk and share lunch with Mayor Valente Yap.  The shallow water near the mangrove areas meant we have to ride a rubber raft from the liveaboard heading to what Yas aptly calls the Mangrove Pavilion.  It was a hot day and the locals certainly didn't want to waste another minute in the sweltering heat, not when the clear, cool waters under the mangroves were too inviting for a swim.

Notes from the Oceana Tañon Strait Photo Safari: Day 1, A Full Moon to Send Us on Our Way

Scouring the shallows for seashell at dusk • Oceana PH Tanon Strait Photo Safari

If I have not been fortunate enough to have been invited to join the Oceana Tañon Strait Photo Safari from the tailend of April to early May, I would not have given much thought to this body of water that straddles the islands of Cebu and Negros.   Though extremely narrow at 27 km, long at 160 km and deep at 500 m, the strait covers a total of 5,182 square kilometers which makes it more than three times the size of the more popular Tubbataha National Park.  

Chatting with writer, Cris Yabes, Oceana's Communications Director, Yas Arquiza, and my friend and fellow photographer, Ferdz Decena, I shared my observation that considering its size and importance especially to the people along its 450 km coastline, Tañon Strait is not "mainstream popular" as it ought to be which comes as a surprise.  That it was declared a protected seascape way back in 1998 in honor of the 14 species of whales and dolphins which inhabit this strait did not make it as well-known in the public's mind as say, Tubbataha. Nor did this prevent the prevalence of illegal fishing in the area.