Steve obviously paid attention during dive class the previous week, he had his gear set up and was testing gauges before anyone else.

We caught the Apo dive shop pump boat over to the marine sanctuary where we would begin our dive.

The marine sanctuary is definitely one of my favorite spots to dive in the Philippines.

Once we got underwater, we found that the current in the sanctuary was much stronger than we expected, but Steve adapted to the conditions really quickly.

Almost immediately we spotted this highly poisonous sea snake hunting for reef fish among the corals. Usually they are harmless to people because their mouths are very small and the poisonous fangs are located in the back of the mouth making it difficult for them to inflict a bite. Still better to give them a wide clearance though, because their venom is among the strongest of all snakes.

As if on cue, we found the school of juvenile jacks that lives in the Apo marine sanctuary swimming ghostlike along the coral wall. These juvenile fish will stay within the sanctuary until they graduate to the fishing grounds when they are mature.

Steve's last open water certification dives were at Balicasag marine sanctuary in Bohol which also has a large resident school of jacks.

The clown fish lived in their anemone just below the shadow of the looming coral wall. If you look closely you can see Steve and our dive guide swimming in the background.

I found this moray eel with bright yellow eyes peering out from beneath a coral head. Sometimes when I look at this photo, the eel reminds me a little of a sock puppet.

Our dive guide spotted this tiny creature, which is a rare form of seahorse that lives in the Philippines.

When the dive was over, we headed back to Liberty's to catch the sunset over Negros Oriental.

Paul's dive shop is only a short walk from the shore where the dive boats land in calm weather.

The next afternoon Steve and I dove with Mario, Apo Island's Barangay Captain and divemaster. If Mario's schedule is open, I always prefer to dive with him because he grew up on Apo and knows it better than anyone. He also guides with a nice relaxed pace that allows for photos, and he has an incredible eye for spotting hard to see critters.

Steve had already made several friends at the dive shop in the two days we had been at Apo, and a few of the sillier ones made faces at him as he left the shop.

The weather was pretty much ideal for our afternoon dive at Apo's Coconut Point.

Similar to my mistake of not covering my mask when I jumped in from the pump boat after I was first certified to dive, Steve accidentally forgot to put his fins on before he jumped in.

The fellows on the boat noticed it just before he jumped (note that Steve does have his hand over his mask unlike me).

But the fins weren't a problem at all, he just put them on when he was in the water.

The fish you may encounter at Apo's coconut point can be very large like this snapper.

These four snappers swam together just above the corals on the bottom.

The current at the Coconut Point was at times really strong, almost like being in a river. You can see some suspended particles in the water stirred up by the powerful deep sea hydraulics.

When we stopped for a break at a sandy clearing on the bottom that was protected from the current, I checked my gauge and it showed that we were 19 meters below the surface--about 60 feet!

It was nice change to get out of the relentless current, so Steve and I took a rest on the sea floor.

Not far from where we stopped to take a break, the school of large jacks was circling above us.

Coconut Point is pretty close to the fishing grounds, and the jacks we saw here were much bigger than the ones we saw the day before in the sanctuary.

These bigger fish did not group as closely together as the smaller ones usually will.

On nearly every dive I've done at Apo I'll come across a different kind of nudibranch.

Mario led us with a relaxed and comfortable pace on this dive.

Near the end of the dive, we found this large hawksbill sea turtle swimming among the corals.

Mario said that this turtle would be laying eggs on the Apo beach soon.

Maybe because it was an older sea turtle, this one had a lot of algae growing on the outside of its shell making it harder to see.

After swimming with it for a minute or so, the sea turtle cruised around the corals and disappeared.

I have no idea how Mario spotted these tiny dragonfish on the sea floor.

Large parrotfish like this one are important in maintaining the ecological balance of the reef.

By the end of our second dive, Steve was really comfortable with diving.

Looking up as I swam to the surface I snapped this somewhat psychedelic photo of the Apo Island pump boat.

The dive was definitely one of the best I've had at Apo.