For those of you wondering how to make a lot of money on a post like this, Welcome, but this isn't that kind of post. This post is more of my way of sharing a unique experience with my fellow Steemit community and to also drive awareness on helping to preserve some of the many beautiful coral reefs around the world.
So maybe I haven't actually made a post with an upvote value of $2000, but hopefully this will in fact be my first of many and if not, I still hope those who visit enjoy what I have written and shared with you. I believe I have all the necessary elements to capture the attention of various readers within the Steemit community to elicit some attention. I expect I may get some backlash for this, but I do hope everyone who ends up reading this post enjoys the content I included.
The pictures and events contained in this post are all original and from my diving trip this past weekend. I have re-organized my tags so that any of my diving posts are all tagged to my blog category for diving - in case you want to read some of my previous posts or look at pictures from my previous diving excursions. All pictures were taken using my GoPro Hero 4 with various attachments and accessories.
First and foremost, the obligatory Thumbnail picture which of course will serve to capture your attention aside from the "catchy title" i gave this post.
Second the self promoting selfie pic with my account details in case you are interested in following me for my future posts - and because its fun!
Here is where Originality comes into play - How many posts have you seen where Steemit has been taken under water. Here's to promoting Steemit to the diving community of the world. How do you like my Whale!!
Are you feeling the wit and humor so far - another attempt to attract and hold your attention since i'm expecting this post may be a little long :)
On to the meat and potatoes of the post and what it is actually about - Diving and sharing this weekends trip with the community.
As usual, I wanted to share with you some of the photos, videos, and experiences to garner an emotional response from you, the reader, or even just enrich your life by sharing. Hopefully, this will make you want to go out and dive, learn, or just appreciate what the hobby has to offer.
The months of June - September are known to be the rainy season in Manila and generally turbulent weather and Typhoons are prevalent across most of the country. This weekend was no different - According to the weather forecast Thunderstorms and high winds were expected. My friends and I had planned this trip hoping that we would get a break from the nasty weather and luckily for us, the rain had eased up a bit allowing us to get a few dives in.
We started our day at 4AM, driving from Metro Manila to Anilou Batangas (about a 2.5 hour drive.) Our destination - Casa Escondida resort - one of the newer resorts in Anilou
The drive itself was not too bad, with only an occasional patch of rain. Most of the trip was calm, quiet, and relaxing. When we arrived we immediately suited up and got ready to head out to the boats which would take us to the various dive spots. Because of the weather, we couldn't board the boats from the resort as we typically would and instead had to take a resort Jeepney to the beach dock where all of the boats were parked.
Anilou is a popular diving location with over 48 known dive sites. It is heaven for Macro photographers and has a number of diverse healthy reefs, fish, and other little critters. For the day, we had decided to dive at Secret Bay and Beatrice, two of the more popular dive spots where many species of fish, critters, and even turtles can be found. Our first dive lasted about 45 minutes and our second dive lasted for about 30 minutes. In between each dive we took a 1.5 hour surface interval, which is a required break that all divers need to take between dives. During this time, the nitrogen absorbed during the first dive continues to be released from a diver's body. It also gave us time to rest, warm up, and re-hydrate.
Below are just some of the reefs and critters I encountered.
Beautiful but dangerous Sea Urchin
Shy Eel
Protecting their homes
Sea Plant and Corals
As you can see, there is a lot of life under water - even when weather is at it's worst, life still goes on. I hope you enjoyed the pictures above and hope I have encouraged some of you to pick up diving as a hobby. I love the feeling of being weightless and just observing life as it goes by.
Below is a video of our one of our dives!
Thanks again Steemers!