This is my most favourite of all the shots taken. I was under a boat in Panagsama while in awe at the school of sardines. The black mass is a collection of thousands of sardines swimming in unison. Panagsama is known for its school of sardines all year round. I think I already shared before that it is said there are only two places in the world where sardines can be found all year. The other one is in South Africa.
Hello everyone!
I already shared the first part of the video of our freedive last month. I was really amazed by the reception of that video! I didn't expect that you guys liked it that much. That was all because of @indayclara's video editing skills. I hope she will upload the second part soon. For those who haven't watched that video yet, you can find it below:
To give you a context as to how this freediving collaboration with @indayclara came to be, I think it's best to refer to her awesome post. Please do check it out!
In this post, I will just share some of my best photos taken by @indayclara and by our guides during our dive. These photos are colour corrected using Dive+ app which I really subscribed for premium just for the videos and for this. I already shared some of these photos on my other social media aka Instagram and Facebook and all I get were likes and wows. Glad to have Hive where I can compile everything and document the best memories I have.
I already have a scheduled freedive in the last weekend of July and my August (which is my birth month) is already fully booked with dives. This has taken a lot of my interests now so expect to have more underwater photos and videos soon. I really love doing this and I won't get tired of saying thank you to Hive for making all of these happen. Now, back to the sardines.
If you're in there, you will really feel like you're in trance by their movements. I'm always mesmerized by their ability to evade predators by moving in aggregates. The guides told us that there are times of the year when they're so many they could block the sun rays from reaching the bottom of that part of Panagsama. I'm already imagining an awesome photo where I'm below those sardines. That's if I can hold my breath long enough.
All I can do for now is just swim towards them while they swim away thinking I will eat them. You'll be amazed by how fast they are able to change direction and swim away from people.
Done with the sardines. Oh! That's just me in my Hive shirt, casually chatting with my new turtle friend. He seemed to be uninterested to what I said though. He is just so into his own element that he just doesn't care about others.
Freediving for me is just for fun. To be able to interact with the turtles and sardines and reach the corals is enough. I don't care about personal bests and bragging rights. Some freedivers who started almost the same time with me already reached 28 meters while my personal best is just 11 meters. I don't care. I just want to hold my breath long enough to have a graceful photo while I ascend.
You're just so small compared to the expanse of the ocean. What I love about these two photos is that they reminded me of how small I am compared to the abyss. It also reminded me that I already conquered my thalassophobia. Thanks to diving and freediving, I was able to confront my fear of what might lurk beneath the surface.
Before when I was not yet into freediving, I was really jealous of those who can descend below the cliff. I never thought I could do it because aside from my fear of the deep blue waters beyond the corals, I am really buoyant. It was such an awesome experience to be able to do it now. Aside from the feeling of being liberated of the fear, there's this feeling of accomplishment that it's really possible if you will just put your heart into it. Of course, always listen to your body. Freediving has its associated risks.
The goal is to hold my breath longer than 2 minutes. I can hold my breath for more than 1 minute, but I'm always paranoid that I might blackout so I tend to ascend even if I still have enough air. To experience blackouts is too much of a risk for me. The longer the breath-hold means longer time to marvel at the world down there.
Visit Panagsama in Moalboal even if you're not into freediving. Even just snorkelling will offer you one of the best corals in the world. Talisay Point and Tongo Point in Panagsama are best for diving and freediving.
There's a sunken boat slightly north of the place where the sardines are located. It's a good place for photoshoot especially if the water is very clear. I'm not sure if it was intentionally put there for the specific purpose, but it's really cool.
There's also a mermaid statue located a little bit farther from the sunken boat. Another awesome place for an underwater photoshoot.
I guess that's all for this post. Now I'm longing for another dive. Expect more like this in the coming months.
Kim Ybañez
Welcome to Kim's small corner in Hive. He is a chemical engineer by profession, but a blogger by passion. He is a wanderlust and an adventure seeker. Join his quests as he visits secluded destinations, climbs mountains, tries new and exotic dishes, and explores his country (The Philippines). He's also a trying hard photographer so stay tuned as he shares his photos and his thought process while creating them.
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