Scuba Diving Weekend at Punta del Sol Beach Resort

Posted by estong
August 17, 2009
Davao City, Davao Resorts, Family

Sometimes things that aren’t planned turn out to be the best. That is the case with what happened to our family weekend get-away. We ended up at Punta del Sol Beach Resort

Punta Del Sol’s Amenities. We stayed at Punta del Sol’s Apartelle Beach Front house with two air-conditioned rooms and one bathroom. Its living room area is furnished with a bamboo sala set and TV, While their dining area is furnished with a refrigerator. Ideal for a family or group overnight stay with the comfort of home. Grill area is just around the corner of the apartelle along side the washing area.

Punta Del Sol provide the basic amenities you would look for a resort coupled with a courteous and friendly Resort Staff. There are a number for cottages that can accomodate different number of guest. Room rates varies from Php 600 per night to as much as Php 3,600 per night for a two-person cottage. A restaurant and a ’sari-sari’ store (with the exception that they don’t sell detergent soap or powder).

Punta Del Sol’s Beach Front. If you’re to look for a place to take a dip or swim on the beach, you might have second thoughts of choosing Punta Del Sol’s beach front. Washover garbage and drift woods and what not are left unattended in and out of the water. But later the day they are carried over to some other shoreline by the sea current, hence, those drifting garbage and what not will disappear, for sometime.

This is Punta Del Sol’s setback:
1. Beach front isn’t that clean. It is unpleasant to look at (with those pile of drift trash in front and those that are in the water).
2. Coral formation and rocks of corals. Making it difficult to stride along the shorelines barefoot.
3. A farm of sea urchins (’tuyom’). A much greater reason why you shouldn’t go barefoot on their shorelines.

However, with the preserved coral formation, it presents itself as a field of learning species that live within it. I thought sea urchins comes in black, but i’ve seen white sea
urchins. Learned first hand knowledge how these creatures move and defend itself. We usually see thay ordinary white starfish, not on Punta del Sol’s shorelines; you’ll see a
bunch of brittle starfish varying in sizes. Some other sea creatures that live on corals that I couldn’t identify.

Punta Del Sol’s Scuba Diving. It wasn’t part of the plan, just as my father was making the necessary arrangement for our accomodation, I saw their Scuba Diving Shop adjacent to their reception area. And asked how much would it cost to do a Scuba Diving and if we could avail it. It cost Php 850 inclusive of guided instruction on scuba diving; unfortunately their underwater camera is out of commission (which would have cost us an additional Php 100). It was me and my father who were set to dive Sunday morning.

Sunday morning came, while we (my father and I) along with my brother were waiting for the scuba gears to arrive the rest of the family members decided to go to Bluejaz Resort to let the kids enjoy the beach more with their waterslides.

Our Punta Del Sol’s Scuba Diving experience started off with brief instruction given to us by Dong (Punta Del Sol’s Certified Diving Instructor) together with his aid John. He showed us the parts of a SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) gear. How to equalize pressure underwater so that the pressure of the inhaled oxygen must be enough to counter the surrounding pressure to inflate the lungs. What to do if water gets in your goggles, and hand signals underwater.

After the briefing, we are set to gear up; weight belts were strapped to our waist; we mounted our scuba gear on the shore along with our swimfins and goggles. We were set to
dive as deep as forty feet. Dong assisted my father thru the diving course while John assisted me. I had difficulty on achieving pressure equalization and had to surface a couple of times. My next problem was I wasn’t making the right kick to make me move horizontally, John had to push me down and make amends with my body to make me dive horizontally. I think, I only reached twenty feet of sea floor; My father did excellent they were able to reached forty feet and through the artificial reef.

My Scuba Diving experience, which i think lasted like 40 minutes, was overwhelming, despite the fact that I wasn’t able to go to the artificial reef.

The underwater world just provides you a different perspective of the wonders of nature. The beauty and grace of its living creatures. I saw some of the characters of ‘Finding Nemo’ in real life. I saw ayellow sponge-like coral, that reminded me of spongebob square pants (I tried looking for a pineapple near it tho). The sea floor was awe-inspiring view.

We seldom taken for granted what nature can offer us, Punta Del Sol’s Scuba Diving is one way of immersing yourself with nature and rekindle how wonderful nature is and what valuable nature has to offer.

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