Familiarisation trip with Ultimate Diving

One of the Dive Rutland team is on a familiarisation trip on behalf of the Dive Centre to the Philippines with Ultimate Diving (jealous yet - if not you will be by the time he returns with these daily updates!)

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Day One consisted mainly of travelling with flights from Birmingham to Doha then from Doha to Manila where the advanced party of myself, Ian, Dave & Andrea introduced ourselves over coffee in the local Starbucks along with Andy from Ultimate Diving and waited for the rest of the group to fly in from London. Once the confirmation came through the London group had landed we loaded up onto our minibuses and headed to meet them en route to the ferry over to Atlantis Dive resort at Puerto Galera. 

The trip down to the port at Batangas took us past lake Taal and the Taal volcano, the lake is empty now following the volcanic activity and the volcano appears dormant from the outside.

Once at Batangas we loaded onto the fast Ferry for the last stage of the first part of our trip, the final hop over the Puerto Galera and to Atlantis Dive Resort.

On arrival we disembarked the ferry, our bags were whisked away to the hotel and we took a short stroll along the sea's edge to the resort where we were greeted with cooling wet face towels and a refreshing cold fresh fruit punch by the staff.

Brief introductions as well as the obligatory paperwork followed and our bags were then whisked off to our rooms whilst we attended the dive safety briefing and completed the diving paperwork ready for tomorrows diving.

All completed it was agreed on a meeting time for pre dinner drinks and we all retired to our room to unpack and prepare our equipment.

The rooms are really spacious with a double and a single bed in each, a large walk in shower and en suite bathroom. 

Getting to the room is great fo my cardio vascular as Ian and my rooms are right on the top terraces but I can't wait for the tomorrow as the views in the morning will be stunning.
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We all met up in the 50 bar for pre dinner drinks, interesting bikini bar moored out in the sea that could be a swim out but would require a water taxi return if you consumed any quantity of Red Horse!

Evening meal was very good, with a wide selection available to choose from, very well prepared and really tasty.
Now all it leaves is the walk back up the terraces and some sleep ready for tomorrows five dives, lets see what tomorrow brings.............