Corey, Jason, Mario and I took the boat to Apo's Cogon Point amid high seas.

Under the water, everything was calm as usual. Almost immediately, Mario spotted this hawksbill sea turtle munching on some soft coral and surrounded by damselfish.

The turtle didn't seem bothered by the divers watching, and only intermittently looked up from his coral lunch.

Mario watched the turtle from the background.

The turtle watched me for a little while, and then returned to eating the soft coral.

After a few minutes the hawksbill was done eating and swam off. This photo was used for the post card project I worked on for Apo.

The turtle made a return appearance and swam by again after we had moved on.

It really looks like they are flying when you watch them move underwater.

We were really working hard to keep up, but the turtle didn't seem to break a sweat.

The turtle swam with us for a minute or so, maybe it was curious to see if we could keep up.

I was really struck by the way the turtles look at you when you are up close. Almost like a bird of prey, it kind of startled me when I was taking this photo.

The little scavenger fish that was swimming with the turtle decided to check Corey out to see if she had any coral lunch leftovers.

Right on cue, the large school of jacks at Cogon point appeared out of the blue.

They can usually be found schooling in the strong currents of Cogon Point.

Sometimes they swim in close to investigate divers.

This group lined up like living links of chain mail.

Damselfish like to swarm around branching corals.

Here's a shot of Jason, suspended in the strong current of Cogon Point.

Before we finished the dive, this turtle appeared.

Like the one that we spotted at the beginning of the dive, this fellow didn't seem to mind people either.

This dive had the most turtle sightings of any I have been on before.

And eventually the turtle was off in search of more food around Apo's marine sanctuary. Mario the barangay captain has launched a turtle conservation program on Apo that pays a reward to anyone who finds a turtle nest and protects it until the eggs hatch. In the past the nests were often dug up and the eggs were eaten. I expect turtle sightings will become much more common on Apo if this program works.

Just before I swam to the surface I spotted this sea snake.