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

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Atmosphere Resort - Dumagete/Atmosphere, Mar, 2012, by Victor A Bary, NJ, US ( Contributor 13 reports). Report 6492.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
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
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	Camera rinse bucket on boat, large recharging station in dive facility.

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

Atmosphere Resort - Dumagete/Atmosphere, Mar, 2012,

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

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

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

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