This time it was my turn to wear the pajama-style wetsuit, though in this photo I had it on backwards. Probably why it was so uncomfortable! From left: me, Dan, Noriko.

Sanda had the best seat in the house to watch all of us plunking overboard to get set for our dive on Apo's Cogon Point.

The visibility was really good once we got under the water and into the dive.

Cogon Point is named after the fishing village of Cogon, it's one of the small communities on Apo. About 90% of the families on the island make their living from fishing, and Cogon Point is one of the prime fishing grounds on the island so you'll sometimes see fish traps like this one. Sometimes divers decide to destroy the traps because they think that fishing is not allowed on Apo; this isn't the case of course and what these well intentioned divers are actually doing is destroying the livelihoods of the greatest supporters and stewards of the marine sanctuary.

This large grouper (lapu-lapu) was resting on the large sandy area at the beginning of the Cogon Point dive.

I see these large puffer fish often in the deeper parts of the dives on Apo--their eyes are so strange looking!

An Apo nudibranch surrounded by tunicates.

I like how this photo seems almost like these two are just passing each other on the way to work or something.

Luckily we found the rest of the jacks in their usual spot at Cogon Point.

From a distance they just seem to melt out of the blue depths and take shape.

It's not very hard to see why this is one of the prime fishing grounds at Apo.

As long as you don't get too close, they will hold their uniform spacing arrangement.

Here's another shot of the school of jacks.

A thriving and sustainable fishery.

This worm is a filter feeder that strains its food from the microscopic critters that float along in the water column.

The corals are so dense in certain parts of Apo that it's difficult to see where any additional colonies could fit in.

We stopped for a quick lunch break, then on to the second dive at Chapel.

This meant suiting up in the marine pajamas again, though this time I had it on correctly (my mistake was assuming that wetsuit zippers are always in the back). From left: me, Sanda, and Tia.

I used the detachable underwater flash to light this sea fan dramatically from behind to bring out the red colors.

Another healthy coral on Apo.

Here's a pair of tomato clown fish.

I used the flash to bring out the colors of these clown fish living in this anemone.

It's not as often that you see an anemone that has squelched itself up into a ball, but the potted plant appearance when they do can make for some more unusual photos.

I used the detachable flash to light the anemone dramatically underneath. Sure, this isn't really a natural lighting for this situation, but it looks cool I think. The school of small catfish just happened to swim by at the opportune moment.

Another one of the weird, vacant-eyed puffers. This one has a scavenger fish on it to pick up the scraps; often the animals that spend some of their time in the more open ocean depths will pick up these opportunistic hitchhikers.

A few more clown fish.

The detachable flash really can light up some of the darker recesses beneath the coral outcroppings.

Small damsel fish often stay close to branching corals for protection.

Even small lion fish like this one are voracious predators.

I really liked the way this shot of the damsel fish turned out.

Another one of my favorite damsel fish shots.

Another Apo dive was over, and the afternoon sun was shining pleasantly through the surface and into the shallows.

We caught the boat all the way back to Dumaguete, it's about an hour and a half trip.

As we pulled in to Silliman Beach near the Silliman University Marine Lab, the fishermen were returning from an afternoon of fishing.

Here's a fisherman in a small outrigger bangka boat.