Mindoro and the hairy frogfish

It seems Mindoro has become part of our backyard. We've been there so many times we've lost count. Mindoro to us is a convenient weekend getaway. A beach and dive destination mere 3 hours away from our doorstep. With a 5:45am ferry service we can stay until Monday and still be in the office on time!

We've dived pretty much every dive site (except for the Verde Island passage which is on our to-do list for the next time we got here). We thought we've seen it all. We hadn't! Neither above water nor submerged!

Last weekend we decided to explore the bays farther away from Sabang Beach and its obvious "niche" clientele (however closer to the dive sites). This time we took the ferry to Tamaraw Beach! We stayed at Luca's, a simple but acceptable accommodation with exceptional Italien cuisine! I haven't had such a great (in size and taste) pizza in ages!

And more. We explored the nearby Mangyan Village which is being restored with the help of Ayla Foundation. Past the village is a waterfall. The trail is not difficult or hard to find. The drizzle, which turned into a heavy rainstorm at night, had turned it into a challenging mudslide. We managed and Glenn took a bath.

Rain and wind is a diver's biggest enemy (next to sharks, I guess). Not because one could get wet... but because the waves stir up the bottom of the ocean and visibility usually drops. We had adjusted our expectations accordingly. But wow! We were treated with some of the most unusual underwater creatures!

We saw two Cockatoo Waspfishs (if I can trust Google Image) hanging out right next to each other. They look like leaves and when they move they look a dead leave being brushed over the sandy bottom of the sea.

Next was a juvenile cuttlefish, trying hard to not be seen. Hard to imagine this 2-inch blob of purple something can grow into a rather massive cuttlefish.

Not as small as the pygmy seahorse but equally fragile in looks was the lonely seahorse we saw. Clinging its tail around the almost non-existing vegetation it kept its position in the current.
When my tank was almost down to 50 bar we heard the noise signal of our partner divers. They've obviously found something interesting! We tried to locate them... not easy underwater where the direction of sound is hard to identify.

Then we finally saw them and their excited faces (visible even under their masks)! They had found a hairy frog-fish! We've seen frog-fishes in different colors and sizes before. This one looked like a Rastafarian! His "hair" was literally floating in the current. It's amazing what lives below sea level! And it's amazing how a low expectation dive can turn out!