Nudi Gal: Day Zero

I slept so well on this ferry. It was nice to have our own private room. I got to work on finishing my slugs and figured out that I have internet still through Starlink. Wow.

At 7am the crew brought breakfast to my cabin. It was pretty bland but it tasted ok to me. We then went through the disembarking stage which is crazy because these porters come and take the luggage and then no matter how much you pay them, they make a face like it is not enough. Well, God love ‘em for trying but we followed the recommendation from 3P.

Then we had a one hour drive from the Batangas Pier to Anilao.

We set up our rooms, our cameras and our gear and arranged for a 2pm dive. Everything has been upgraded at the resort. It feels so fancy!

When putting a charged battery in my Kraken, I noticed that the o-rings needed cleaning, so I did that and then I could not get the light to turn on again. WTF? I kept adjusting and trying and even messaged Mike about it.

After lunch, I came back to it and determined that I put the o-ring back in the wrong place. OMG. I am so ridiculous. I moved it and all was working fine. Whew.

I met another diver, Mario. He is from California and just started diving in 2021 in Cozumel and is now addicted to SCUBA. Super fun guy to talk to and having the enthusiasm of a newcomer to the group is energizing.

Robin is here with her 12 year old granddaughter Jeanne. So cute. Of course, Jim Anderson is here… our unofficial leader and slug count. He has an iBook of the Anilao Nudibranchs that he keeps up to date:

https://books.apple.com/us/book/anilao-nudibranchs/id1210743768

I put the Pikachu (Thecacera sp. 8) tissue box cover (that Cheryl gave me years ago) on the table for everyone to find. Everyone was tickled by it and even took pictures.

I’m going to post at least one nudi-themed article of clothing, trinket, etc each day of Slugfest. Today is Day Zero as the Festival has not yet started.

Our first afternoon dive was very good. I found a lot of things and Glenn our dive guide found several. I enjoyed looking as much as the finding/shooting. The second dive at Buceo was so boring, which is weird because I remember that last year it was outstanding. It was windy and a little rough at the surface, but not too bad.

I got to have dinner with Anouk, Georgina and Hannah. They are so fabulous.

I know Anouk from Slugfest 2018. We dove together here and Romblon. She is from Belgium and now lives in Tulamben, Bali and can dive for slugs right from her doorstep. My dream!

Hannah is German and knows Christianne from Villa Markisa, Tulamben and Georgina is from South Africa. She helped revise Terry Gosliner’s book, Southern African Sea Slugs. These ladies are dialed in.

https://divetek.co.za/product/southern-african-sea-slugs/

The two big topics of conversation at dinner were…

Do the slugs we find pre-workshop count for the numbers? The answer is no. The workshop officially starts at 1pm tomorrow.

How will boats be assigned? There is a suggestion that boats will be assigned via lottery… but Anouk/Hannah/Georgina WANT to dive together, so they don’t like that idea. Interesting, I honestly don’t care as long as I can keep diving.

Here are today’s slugs:

1 - Rostanga bifurcata