We had a visiting family in Cebu, who has always dream about learning diving, but wanted to do something special and different from the usual class room, pool exercise sessions and open water dives. Well, Fun & Sun Dive and Travel had something to propose, which would be perfectly meeting their expectations: The Fun & Sun Diving Discovery Safari. In other words, a dive trip and a dive course mixed together (courses can be Open Water, Advance Open Water or Rescue Course).
As our visitors choose to do the theory on-line via the e-learning modules, we had the logistics arranged in a matter of days and agreed for an overnight mini safari to Cabilao Island.
We boarded Malandi and departed Mactan Island under a fantastic morning sun. The scuba gears were neatly arranged in their crates, the tanks well protected from the sun, the compressor quietly stored, we were ready for a great trip. The sea was marvelous and the boat was cruising first in Mactan Channel, passing soon Hilutungan Island, one of our diving day trip destinations.
On board, Sofia, one of Fun & Sun PADI & SSI Dive Instructor, started to chat with our students, while they were drinking their coffee. The seating arrangement of Fun & Sun boat provided a perfect set-up for an outdoor class room and the fun of doing an Open Water Course began right there.
An hour later, the South Sandbar emerged and Sofia suggested then to get wet and practice some skills on a perfect sandy spot. Our guests geared up with excitement, helped by Fun & Sun crew, and jumped into rather warm waters (28 degrees Celsius).
Our Famous Fun & Sun BBQ lunch was served upon the return of our hungry divers, who couldn’t stop laughing about their respective performances underwater and how they managed to master the skills after several attempts for some. Talking about food, we also got some fresh fish from the local fishermen.
Malandi then left the sandbar to head towards Cabilao Island, which soon emerged from the horizon, with Bohol as its background. Once our digestion completed (…), the deck started to get busy with the assembly of the gear for our first dive by Cabilao Island. The skills part was done easily and our students started the real discovery of what scuba diving is all about. It was a first spectacular, but easy dive, which everybody enjoyed a lot.
Sunset was admired from the boat, with usual “pica pica”, stories and legends before we all checked in at the resort for a good night of rest.
The following day was simply superb with 3 dives done at three different dive sites around the island and to see school of jacks, turtles, pigmy seahorse, groupers, countless colorful nudibranch, candy crabs, frog fish, and hairy lobster during an Open Water Course is surely something special that Fun & Sun Diving Discover Safari can offer.
Sofia had a wide smile on the journey back to Mactan. Once again the magical underwater world had touched new lives and to see the special bond this overnight trip had created was what Fun & Sun is all about.
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