Mucking Around

As a new diver, Brook Peterson came to appreciate the beauty of the underwater world, but not all diving is rainbow reefs and unicorn fish. Muck diving is just what it sounds like: scuba diving over an a barren seafloor covered in rubble, dead coral and even man-made trash. Read on as Brook writes about her first encounter with the intrinsic beauty hidden in the muck

- Brook Peterson

As I back-rolled off the banca* into the comfortable waters of Anilao, my mind conjured up images of beautiful coral gardens, colourful fish, and turtles lazily basking in the sun-drenched sea. This was my first experience in the Philippines, and my expectations were high. I wanted a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but little did I know that I was about to have a life-changing one.

Anilao is arguably one of the best destinations in the world to experience a diverse variety of small critters. It occupies a portion of the Calumpan Peninsula, about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Manila. The Verde Island Passage is near Balayan Bay on the north of the Peninsula with Batangas Bay on the south. Because of this, tidal forces supply huge quantities of nutrient-rich water to the area, along with plankton and larval animals from as far away as Papua New Guinea. It seemed like the perfect choice for a dive vacation.

Before I entered the water, the guide explained our dive plan. We would descend in about 20 metres of water, then follow a zig-zag pattern uphill until we reached our time limit. Donning my mask, I looked down from the surface and found that I could see nothing. No bottom, no beautiful coral, just hazy blue-grey water. I continued to sink into the sea and soon found that a shadowy grey bottom was coming to greet me. To my great disappointment, there were just a few scattered coral bommies on a vast muck-grey bottom.

I had heard of muck diving and had done enough research to know that the animals in this area would be small. But I wasn’t really prepared for what I would see. Vast expanses of sand and silt and dead looking rubble seemed devoid of life to my eyes and I began to feel that I had made a serious error in judgement by choosing this destination