Kontiki Clean-Up Dive 2025: Cebu Divers Unite for Ocean Conservation and Rare Ribbon Eel Sighting

We’ve been diving in Kontiki many times, but this was the first time I joined their organized clean-up dive.

The night before, our group already agreed to join. There was also another coral conservation activity in Cordova (similar to the Shangri-La work we did), but we chose Kontiki since it’s our usual dive spot.

Early Morning Rush

Call time was 7:00 AM, with a planned dive at 8:30 AM. On Saturday, my alarm didn’t sound, and I only woke up when my wife’s alarm rang at 6:30 AM. I rushed to prepare everything, and we arrived at Kontiki by 7:20 AM. We stopped by 7-Eleven to grab siopao and coffee for a quick breakfast.

The parking lot was already full, with other cars parked near the gate. We told the guard we’d just drop off our heavy gears and return. But Jun, one of the caretakers, kindly removed one of the “reserved” signs and gave us the spot—thank you, Jun!

Joan was the first from Trek & Dive to arrive and had reserved a table for us. We also saw familiar faces like Paton, a friend from Dumaguete now working in Cebu. Soon after, Val and Cristy arrived with their son Patrick, along with Austin, a student diver of Val. Chu and James also joined later.

Pre-Dive Briefing

There were already many divers from different groups—Pawikan Divers, Maritec Divers, and more. We had a short briefing on what to do and which areas to clean. Even the boats near Kontiki gave way for us. After a group photo of all the participants, we geared up.

Dive 1 – The Big Clean-up

We descended at around 8:34 AM with a max depth of 21.9 meters, average depth of 9.4 meters, and visibility at 15 meters. Each of us carried our trusty Oceantag garbage bags. We collected plastics, boards, cans, and bottles underwater. While diving, the sardines danced around us—almost like thanking us for cleaning their home.

After 1 hour and 2 minutes, we surfaced, bringing all the trash to shore. Altogether, we filled four big drums of collected garbage.

Post-Dive Meal

There was a free meal waiting for us—catering style with beef, siomai, fried chicken, pancit, rice, plus dessert. We filled ourselves up while chatting with fellow divers about their finds.

Dive 2 – Ribbon Eels Surprise

Our group decided to do a second dive since there were still extra tanks from the 120 reserved for the clean-up. We actually had tanks ordered from Alvin, our trusted supplier, but had to cancel since we used the available ones instead (sorry Alvin!).

The second dive started around 11:30 AM. While I stayed back to watch over our things, the rest of the group went down. When they surfaced around 1 PM, they were all excited—they saw two ribbon eels! Val summed it up perfectly: “We were lucky to see ribbon eels in Kontiki.”

Wrap-Up

After cleaning up and washing our gears, we left Kontiki around 1:40 PM. It was a meaningful day—helping clean our favorite dive site while being rewarded with a rare sighting.