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Dive Review of Atmosphere Resort - Dumagete/Atmosphere in
Philippines/Negroes Orientale

Atmosphere Resort - Dumagete/Atmosphere, Mar, 2012,

by Victor A Bary, NJ, US (Contributor Contributor 13 reports). Report 6492.

No photos available at this time

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Accommodations 5 stars Food 5 stars
Service and Attitude 5 stars Environmental Sensitivity 4 stars
Dive Operation 5 stars Shore Diving 3 stars
Snorkeling N/A
Value for $$ 4 stars
Beginners 3 stars
Advanced 5 stars
Comments Atmosphere resort is beautiful, with lovely rooms and wonderfully friendly staff. The meals are spectacular. Having the Atmosphere owners on site meant any request could immediately be entertained (by the owners if it exceeded staff authority). The dive operation was very well run - each diver got a stall with hangers and a milk crate for dive equipment (which was loaded onto the boat by staff before the dive). The main dive boat - "Victoria" - ia a spacious 75' local design boat with outriggers. It had lots of sitting room under cover. At the end of each dive you were greated with a hot towel followed by a beach towel. Water, hot drinks (tea, chocolate, and coffee) were available after each dive, as were fresh fruit and cookies. We had a lot of input into which sites we would go to, and each dive was preceeded by thorough briefings. Much of the diving is macro, muck diving, and Dive Masters Arjay and Richard scouted the sites for us looking for interesting critters(we wouldn't have seen 1/3 as much without their help). Boat captain Marvin was a superb boat handler, and doubled as stand-up comedian when the boat was at anchor. The dive support and boat crews were exceedingly hard-working and competent. The storm that had hit the island in December reduced most the sites to muck diving with 15' - 25' visibility. To offset this, we had 5 trips during our two-weeks to nearby Apo Island, the lee side of which had been spared the storm. Each trip included 3 dives - with a lunch between dives 2 and 3. The hard and soft coral were spectacular, and we saw turtles and sea snakes on nearly every dive. We also had a day trip to Sumilian Island near Cebu, where local fishermen have encouraged whale sharks to frequent by feeding them krill from boats. This was a bit contived, but we did get to snorkel with several juvenile (12'-15') whale sharks. The muck diving on Negroes Orientale, including the house reef, produced a spectacular array of nudibranhs (including Spanish Dancers and some nudis we couldn't even find in the "Nudibranchs Encylopedia"), tiny frogfish, Ghost and Ornate pipefish, sea horses, ribbon eels,jaw fish with eggs in mouth, goby with blind shrimp. Anenomes and anenomefish of every kind were in profusion, as were crinoids of every color. On one dive we spent time with a threesome of small flamboyant cuttlefish. Other dives produced large snappers and groupers, sweetlips and trevally, morays. We saw lots of porcelin crabs and orangutan crabs on bubble coral. Numbers of giant clams at two sites. Do get the full meal plan so you can really enjoy the food (we had two whole fish banquests during our stay, and there was a beachfront barbeque each week - one serving whole roast pig and another featuring sea food). Our only disappointment was the low visibility and amount of muck diving resulting from the December storm. Apo Island and Sahara Reef are sites you should definately visit.

Reporter and Travel

Dive Experience 251-500 dives
Where else diving Aruba, Bermuda, Bonaire, Cayman, Cayman Brac, Curacao, Fiji, Little Cyaman, Roatan, Sipidan, Sulawesi
Closest Airport Getting There

Dive Conditions

Weather sunny, windy Seas choppy
Water Temp 81-83°F / 27-28°C Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility 15-40 Ft/ 5-12 M

Dive Policy

Dive own profile yes
Enforced diving restrictions Signal Dive Master at 100 BAR and 50 BAR. Max depths were recommended and dive time was usually 60 minutes. Computer users could dive their own profile
Liveaboard? no Nitrox Available? yes

What I Saw

Sharks None Mantas None
Dolphins Schools Whale Sharks > 2
Turtles > 2 Whales None
Corals 5 stars Tropical Fish 4 stars
Small Critters 5 stars Large Fish 3 stars
Large Pelagics 2 stars

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Subject Matter 4 stars Boat Facilities 4 stars
Overall rating for UWP's 4 stars Shore Facilities 5 stars
UW Photo Comments Camera rinse bucket on boat, large recharging station in dive facility.
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Note: The information here was reported by the author above, but has NOT been reviewed nor edited by Undercurrent prior to posting on our website. Please report any major problems by writing to us and referencing the report number above.

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