After touring Dumaguete with Kenny and his family, our first stop on Apo Island was to go snorkeling in the marine sanctuary. Here's Will checking out the bright corals in the shallow waters near shore.

I got a shaky photo of this alligator fish as it cruised near the surface in search of other fish to eat.

Kenny and Will cruised around the sanctuary for a while, taking in the underwater scenery.

After lunch I took a quick dive at Katipanan, just to the left of the Chapel dive site. We immediately spotted this sea snake.

The anemone this clown fish lives inside looks almost like algae.

To me this sponge looks almost like a flower vase.

The branching corals are an important habitat for the smaller fish.

A few more of Apo's clown fish, the anemones at Katipanan have the same greenish cast that the ones on Bohol's Balicasag have.

Trumpet fish like this one are one of the stranger-looking species you'll find on the reefs here.

A few more vase-like sponges.

Here's a close-up of a gorgonian--it looks to me like a sort of space alien.

These corals seem to be having a border dispute.

Blue starfish passed out amongst the corals.

Ian led us on a relaxed pace for the dive.

I like the way the light from the sky backlit these damsel fish.

Here's another angle on the backlit damsel fish.

Close up of a leopard sea cucumber.

Ian spotted this small hawskbill sea turtle munching on some soft corals.

As I approached it just kept eating, so I took a close up shot of its jagged shell.

Eventually the turtle finished its meal and started to swim away.

After the hawksbill swam off, we soon came across this large green sea turtle. They look a lot like the hawksbills, but they tend to spend more time in the open sea so they have scavengers like the pilot fish in this photo hitchhiking along for the ride.

The green turtle turned towards the open blue of the deep sea and was soon gone.