Philippines

Twelve days at Scandi Divers on Big La Laguna Beach, Puerto Galera, diving the Verde Island Passage, one of the richest stretches of reef on the planet for marine life, and a macro paradise.

The timing worked out, just. We arrived on 9 July as Super Typhoon Bavi (Inday locally) was turning away from Luzon. It never made landfall, but it pushed the southwest monsoon over Mindoro, so the first days were grey, wet and choppy. Mid-trip, Tropical Storm Haishen (Josie) slipped into the Philippine area on 14 July and fizzled into a low within the day, with no storm signals raised. We flew home on the 20th, three days before Tropical Depression Kiyapo brought the next set of warnings to northern Luzon. So: one typhoon either side, and a storm that never really arrived in the middle.

Underwater, the passage delivered the small and strange: a pygmy seahorse on its sea fan, frogfish both tiny and giant, a purple Rhinopias, a peacock mantis shrimp, octopus and cuttlefish. Shot on a Canon G9 X Mark II in a Fantasea housing, with an INON S200 strobe and a Weefine Smart Focus 5000. Most frames used the INON UWL-H100 wide-angle wet lens, and the Weefine WFL03 went on for the tiny stuff.